If you page through your scrapbook of printed-out Autopian articles, you may find, around the end of last year, that we wrote about an entrepreneur who saw my videos and articles about the legendary cheapest car in the world, the Changli, and the legend of that remarkable, ridiculous machine inspired him to start a company selling uprated Changli-type EVs in America. That company is called Wink, and when I was in New York not so long ago, I got to drive one. Much like the Changli that inspired it, it’s not a vehicle for every circumstance, but in the right context, the right situation, these make an absolute metric crapton of sense. I think New York City is one of those contexts. 
I’m sure most of you looking at the Wink Mark I up there are noticing a car that resembles, in a vague but persistent way, a modern Mini, only more, you know, mini. Wink CEO Mark Dweck, who has a lifetime of experience in product design, sales, importation, marketing, licensing, and all of that sort of thing, assures me that the Wink is easily differentiated enough that he’s not concerned with Mini making a fuss about it, and I trust his judgement here. What the hell do I know?
The Wink looks similar to other low-speed neighborhood electric vehicles you can find on Alibaba , and while it gets its start in a factor similar to this one, the car has been quite extensively modified for use on American roads, and, as a result, are actually legal, DOT- and NHTSA registered, with VINs and everything, vehicles permitted to operate on any street with a 35 mph or less speed limit. That covers an awful lot of streets in an awful lot of places that I know, from experience with my Changli, that you don’t really need a full-sized car to drive on.
So What’s It Like To Drive?
I drove the Wink Mark I through multiple loops around the Grant Memorial in Upper Manhattan, and drove to and from there. It was a good amount of driving through a lot of congested NYC streets, all ideal situations for a car like this. The speed is governed at 25 mph, but it could do more, if that was legal, which, on this class of vehicle, isn’t. So, 25 mph it is.
The governing system could still use some tweaking, though, and Dweck noted that he was aware of this and would have it corrected. The issue was in attempting to throttle the power of the motor to keep it at no more than 25 mph, sometimes the power would cut back when you were below 25 but accelerating. This is, of course, annoying, and can make things like maintaining speed up an incline frustrating. I’ll trust that this’ll get fixed, though.
Other than that, it drives quite easily, and there’s enough torque that it doesn’t seem slow off the line and it handles hills better than the ravenous 1.1 hp Changli motor does. The motor makes about 4 hp normally, but can peak at 9 hp – remember, that’s how much the original Citroën 2CV made, too. It feels suited well enough to move 1,190 pounds of Wink around. Here, you can see some video action of me driving the thing, right here:
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The braking is perhaps the most dramatic driving improvement over my Changli; where my Changli used an all-mechanical drum brake setup only active on the rear wheels and actuated through, basically, a metal stick connected to the pedals, the Wink has a real hydraulic dual-circuit brake setup specially designed for the Wink and not available in the Chinese market for similar cars.
The brakes felt good and stopped the car surely and quickly, even downhill. In the crowded and often chaotic environments where these cars are best suited to be used, good brakes are a must. This was a wise addition to the Americanization of the Wink.
It handles fine for what it is, which is something tiny and tall and light; the lithium-ion battery is low and the motor is mounted on the rear differential, which is part of a live axle design, suspended by coil springs, so it’s built a bit like an old-school pickup truck, suspension-wise. It’s not a sports car for so very many reasons, and this is one of them.
Even if you’re probably not going to autocross this thing, it’s nimble and agile and ideal for weaving in and out of traffic in crowded cities and nipping through little gaps and finding tiny nooks in which to park. It’s the right tool for this job.
Is It Comfortable?
I’ve always felt that moving through New York City is almost always a chore. If you’re walking/public transporting, you have to load up everything you’ll need and trudge around and cram yourself into metal tubes of cranky New Yorkers, and when you finally get back home, you’re exhausted. Driving isn’t much better, because it’s stressful and slow and finding parking is a perpetual Kafkaesque nightmare.
But a little not-quite-a-car like this Wink I think can take out much of the sting of moving through the city. The interior is small, but the boxy proportions maximize the space so it feels roomy; it can seat four and even accommodate a bit of luggage with the seat up; with just two people and the seat folded, you can cram a surprising amount of stuff through that rear hatch.
The upholstery isn’t likely to be made of only royal-lineage yak-hide like a Bentley or something, it’s just vinyl, but it’s not terrible, and all of the quilted vinyl floormats and luggage area flooring looks good and seems pretty hard-wearing.
By far the most important upgrade made specifically for the Wink when it comes to comfort is the addition of air-conditioning. Even in my Changli, replete with its backup camera and USB port for playing music, the idea of having A/C was a dream as wild as having the seats stuffed with phoenix feathers. And yet, there it is, right on the dash of the Wink.
The A/C hardware and condenser are all crammed under the front hood of the Wink, which was never outfitted for use as a frunk anyway, so there’s no loss of storage space. For the size of the car, the condenser seems huge, which can’t hurt. The A/C, when I tried it out, blew, as they say, cubes, so it seems to be worth it. Temperatures this summer have been record-setting, and I don’t see that trend reversing any time soon. A/C makes a ton of sense, even in a car as minimal as this.
Oh, one odd detail that could fit in driving or comfort categories: the go-pedal is oddly central in the car. Like, it’s about at the centerline. It’s just a strange position to put the accelerator, but I guess I got used to it.
Other Electronic Whatevers
The Wink has most of the modern stuff you’d expect of a real car, including a big, center-stack display in a round bezel that of course has nothing to do with recent Mini dashboard design, in case you were wondering. That display has a touchscreen interface running some sort of knockoff iPhone/Android-looking software, but you can connect your phone via Bluetooth, and, honestly, it’s probably no worse than lots of carmaker-designed UX systems, really.
The backup camera image is nice and clear, and there’s USB charging ports on the dash as well. Oh, and don’t forget those two hilarious but probably useful little swiveling fan on the dashboard there, which likely suck a lot less energy than running the A/C. Oh, and the windows are power, too! No hand cranking like some filthy animal for you!
Speaking of energy, the only way to charge a Wink is with normal 120V wall power, and charging the Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4, and the cells come from BYD) from flat to full should take about six to eight hours, according to Wink. That full charge delivers a range of, I was told, 40-60 miles. I haven’t had a chance to verify this myself.
That’s actually a decent amount of range for something like this, and I suspect for most people who use these as in-town get-around cars, you could probably charge them one or two nights a week and be in good shape. The external charge indicator used when charging is a charmingly dorky-looking little thing, too:
I’ve seen that same dentist’s-office-kid’s-prize-bin-looking little meter on other small EVs, so it must be a standard part that just works, and I guess that’s all I can really ask of it. It is in a pretty vulnerable location, parking-wise, but the Wink does have ultrasonic parking sensors that would hopefully warn you before you crush your little charge meter to crumbs.
Overall Takeaway
I think tiny sub-car EVs like this have a real and important place in our transportation tapestry, and this little Wink, so similar in so many ways to my humble Changli, I know is the sort of thing that, used with some understanding of its limitations, can prove to be an exceptionally useful machine.
It’s just under $12,000, and while that does strike me as a lot for a car like this (remember, with shipping, my Changli came in at $3,300 or so), it’s worth looking at how much has been done to the Wink over the Changli. Significantly, it’s all legal. DOT certified and having a real VIN is nothing at which to sneeze, and should make ownership of a vehicle like this much easier, in many ways. I’ve been riding a bit dirty in my Changli, after all, but tell no one, please.
Also, there’s the safety upgrades. The dual-circuit hydraulic brakes are a huge improvement, and there’s real DOT-certified safety glass, seat belts, lights, indicators, wipers, everything. No car of this size is going to be really safe, but this has some genuine and serious upgrades that I think make it significantly safer, and, given the low speeds and environments these run in, absolutely reasonable.
Plus, that LiFePO4 battery is miles better than the crappy lead-acids my Changli came with, and should last a lot longer, too. So, given all of that, I think the price is pretty reasonable. I’d love to see prices of these get below $10,000, but so far I know of no other option for something like the Wink, with all of the safety and legal upgrades, that’s any cheaper. And, of course, it’s worth remembering that golf carts are still absurdly priced for what you get.
Look what $12 grand gets you from the golf cart world:
I mean, look at that: no doors, no windows, no A/C, no wipers, and on and on. It’s not a viable solution for, say, a New York winter. Or rain, anywhere. So, compared to something like that, the Wink starts to seem like a pretty good deal.
Will these sorts of things catch on? I hope so. I mean, if you live in a city like New York or San Francisco or some college town and do most of your driving in-town, why bother with some big-ass, boring SUV or crossover? Why not end-run around the hassle and squeeze in parking spots between a dumpster and a wall and spend nothing for gas? Cut that Gordian knot of traffic and hassle!
Even if the Wink isn’t the final form of whatever these sorts of vehicles will be, it’s a step in the right direction, and I applaud it for that.
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If this thing suits your lifestyle, then you need a new lifestyle.
I saw one of these in Downtown LA yesterday and couldn’t figure out what it was, other than some sort of Neighborhood Electric Vehicle. If you never leave the city center, I guess you could use it get around, but the speed limits get up past 25 as soon as you leave the historic core so you wouldn’t be able to take it to say, a supermarket.
Agreed, with only 25mph as the top speed it is viable only in very specific areas of a city. If it could manage something like the speeds of a 50cc scooter even, a sustained 40mph give or take, would really open up the use options within most cities
These are very cool. I wish they were cheaper. At this price it makes way more sense to buy an old Nissan Leaf and hope the battery still holds up. Hell, you could buy two old Leafs for this price and discard one if it breaks.
Keep up the good work, Jason.
Everyone needs to remember that we come here for ENTERTAINMENT purposes. No other car journalist would touch a story anything like this.
We realize you’re not running for mayor of New York or trying to solve all of the world energy and transportation problems or tell people how to live their own lives.
Here’s another in-depth article of something automotive related that jars the thought-provoking minds or our readers and start the debate on what is the “right way” to haul our carcasses around this huge blue marble in the universe.
Surprisingly, the thing that makes this the most unsafe is the speed limiter. I own a 1917 touring car, top speed 30mph and a 1972 Fiat 500, top speed 45mph. At least the antique car is huge but even on 35mph roads people ride my ass and zoom around me at the first opportunity. The tiny Fiat can almost keep up but even when other drivers see it, they view it as a toy and resent it being on the road (like bicycles!).
The Wink is a nice fancy golfcar replacement. Even in a rural/exurban area like mine, giant pickup and SUV drivers are in a hurry and this thing would be a speed bump.
If I had $90K to spend on an EV I’m going with a fully loaded Cadillac Lyriq all the way. The specs and looks are impressive, they just gotta start cranking them out at a better rate.
I can see these working well in places that normally use golf carts. High end golf courses, retirement communities, college campuses, stadiums, etc. The presence of a heater (I assume) and AC would make them more usable year round, and the 25mph speed cap wouldn’t me much of an inconvenience.
As for use by private citizens on public roads? I’m not sure. 25mph just isn’t fast enough. The only roads I encounter with 25mph speed limits are in neighborhoods, but to get out and actually go somewhere it’s 30+ with traffic moving at least 5mph faster than that.
This sort of vehicle would work great in the densely populated cities of Europe, but not in the majority of the sprawling USA.
People buy cars for edge cases.
Unless this vehicle suits your exact needs inside a captive area like you mention- campus, acreage, trailer park, gated community, factory, etc, why bother with a car at all?
I don’t even think this makes sense in dense cities, European or otherwise.
Having lived in Toronto Canada, the whole appeal of having a car in the city is for everything transit can’t do. Think weekend trips out of town, commuting to outlying suburban areas with poor transit coverage, carrying items that are too heavy to walk with.
This thing basically fails at all of those tasks because it’s either too slow or too small. Transit is literally safer, cheaper and more dignified for everything else.
ATVs are better in the countryside because they can ride along the sometimes rough shoulder of 80km highways without holding up traffic, and take off-road detours. Same with bicycles.
You can share city streets safely between pedestrians, bicycles and automobiles with the addition of some paint, or just good courtesy. A car can usually pass a bicycle without going all the way into the opposite lane if they are careful and slow down, and the cyclist is cooperative. That’s physically not possible with one of these- it literally can’t get out of the way of a car, yet can’t go fast enough to keep up with traffic.
Absolute dead weight for city driving.
This simple statement needs to be stickied to the top of every comment section on this site.
Want to know why consumers demand a 500 miles of range for their EV? Because they take a couple road trips a year.
Why do people buy big trucks to commute alone in? Because a few times a year they tow a boat, or move bulky items, or go camping somewhere remote.
Why do people demand AWD? Because in most of the country, it snows at least a few days a year.
It doesn’t matter whether commenters on websites think those decisions are rational or not, no amount of explaining or shaming their decisions is going to change them. No one wants to rent a vehicle for their edge cases. Very few people have the space, the desire, or the money to buy something cheap and specialized for these tasks that sits most of the time. It’s simpler to buy something that can handle 100% of use cases than to buy something for 95% and figure something else out for the 5%.
I’ve done the whole “Just rent a pickup truck/trailer/van for the 3 times a year you really need it” thing. I’ve honestly tried, and it’s saved me a lot of money, but I run a small building company in rural Ontario, and I’m tired of those three times a year being stressful, unprofessional gong shows.
Yes, we have 95% of our building materials delivered (which is how I’ve made it so long without a truck) but sometimes you really just need to grab things on a moment’s notice. We don’t own our parking, so we cannot have an unlimited amount of vehicles for every use. (Notice the author of this article owns an old f150 for edge cases) So we bought a late model, reliable, fuel efficient, full-sized pickup. It’s lighter/ gets the same fuel economy as a nice station wagon, and tows three times as much. I don’t drive it all the time, but it sure does a lot of things very, very well.
Note: I’m about as left leaning as they come for a semi-rational person, an avid cyclist, and very pro-transit, infrastructure, EV, small car, etc. Just not pro communist golf cart poverty/death-trap.
If I look at this as a 4-season capable 50-150cc scooter alternative, it’s okay, even though it’s probably not significantly safer
An umbrella on wheels sort of vehicle for local errands with a relatively limited use case.
Or a golf cart alternative with an enclosed cabin.
But as so often with these kinds of alternative transportation, the issue is pricing.
It costs 2-3-4 times more than the mentioned 50-150 scooter and we aren’t even talking Chinese scooters but something like a Honda Metropolitan or PCX.
For ~12k even a used Mirage is lightyears better, it has a much wider use case, not limited to low speed roads, will keep you dry, easy to park and relatively safe.
For this to be a real alternative, it should be a sub-5k vehicle new, because it’s barely anything more than a scooter that keeps you dry.
Fantastic, another “Check out this tiny, weird unsafe vehicle that could totally be your only car!” advertorial.
I’ve begun to appreciate these for the expert trolling they are- I’ll admit it does stir the rage to engage. You manage to piss off both the ‘I deserve to daily a Super Duty’ and ‘Public transit/E-bike is the real answer’ crowds in one fell swoop.
To be clear, I do like that the Autopian covers these types of vehicles- they are different, which makes them inherently interesting, and I’d love to try one out.
But Jason… you’ve written a ton of these articles now, and they all basically follow the same ‘check this thing out, I think It could work for a lot of people’ formula. How about mixing it up with some actual journalism? Instead of telling us why you think this might work, why don’t you find out?
Interview some real people (not staff of this site) who’ve actually purchased a vehicle like this for serious reasons. They ARE out there. Share their story.
What is their demographic? How old are they? What is their family status?
Do they work? Are they retired? Fixed income?
Where do they live? Urban, rural. How far do they drive? What are the roads like in their area?
Who/what do they carry on a daily basis? Groceries?
How/ why did they decide to purchase a vehicle like this?
Do they like it? Is it working for them?
This is an article I would like to read. This is the sort of thing that would elevate this site from news, reviews, opinions and personal blogs to compelling journalism.
Yeah I appreciate JT’s quirkiness but it’s difficult to argue that something like this or the deathtrap Mahindra van would “work for most people” in the U.S. without being deliberately obtuse. Again, as I said in my other comment, unless it’s a second car or “toy.” I mean, if the government passes extremely strict regulations that make it financially impossible for most average people to buy cars they actually want? Sure, people would find a way to make it work. If they have a choice, though? Absolutely not. I too would like to hear some stories about how people who actually own these things use them in their daily lives.
South of Atlanta is a community of 38,000 called Peachtree City. It is designed with paved trails to get almost anywhere. Virtually everyone owns a golf cart and does shopping, socializing, and sometimes commuting in their fancy golf cart. It is a fantastic way to get around and the only real issue is the heat. I suspect Wink could sell 5000 of these things in that single town.
When reading this article, the first place I thought of was Peachtree City. And every beach town on the east coast and gulf coast.
Also The Villages in Florida.
This is a car review. And this is admittedly, a news, reviews, opinions and personal blogs site. While I certainly would find what you’re describing interesting, it’s also not the sort of journalism that I expect regarding a severely niche vehicle in a place were culture and survival is tied to owning the biggest battering ram you can manage to get financing for.
This car, and it’s entire existence is more or less a hypothetical. So Jason, while correct that it would probably work for most people, I’m sure he’s aware that it would really only work for most people in an alternate universe where our infrastructure wasn’t built out to only accommodate enormous personal vehicles that travel at borderline ridiculous speeds.
You’re right, an actual serious analysis of the buyers and use cases for of a super niche vehicle in North America (or even world wide) would be fringe content. Yet… here we are commenting on one of several dozen articles Jason Torchinsky has written on the very subject.
Clearly it’s an interest and a passion, and the articles keep being published. Is it really too much to ask that just ONE of these articles actually touch on who is using these things in the real world?
These micro cars don’t exist in an alternative universe, they exist in real life. These are real products that you or I can purchase with real money.
Why not write about who is actually using these, vs the same tired ‘This could work for you!’ pitch.
(Unless the readership of this site is made up by more residents of ‘The Villages’ than any of us realize.)
To be fair I think we’re all doing a pretty good job covering the who and why in the comment section.
Perfect for the people that live in the villages (Florida, Arizona..etc) where they all seem to have golf carts.
I dunno, I still don’t really see the use case for this in most American cities. $12,000 is pretty steep, considering that it’s only capable of navigating surface streets limited to 25 mph. Even dense, older cities have highways and higher speed roads. Suburban areas or more modern, car-centric cities and you can forget it, plenty of surface streets with speed limits of 40-60 mph.
If you live somewhere like Manhattan and seldom or never leave town, why have a car at all when you could just take a cab, walk or use transit? If you do like to get out of town once in a while, this thing ain’t gonna cut it unless it’s a second car. $12,000 just seems like a lot for something that is functionally a second vehicle and comes with this many compromises. You can still get a decent used compact car for that kind of money that will serve 99.9% of people better.
Seems a little high in terms of price when looking at the pictures. It looks like the whole thing was put together with harbor freight parts. I’d be amazed if this made it to 5 years before falling apart.
Is it a better Golf Cart?
Someone needs to make a rag-top version of this, and think of the vacationer market for an all-weather golf cart that can legally get you into town to get groceries in both the rain/cold/snow and take the top off for those nice days.
When I was reading this, and saw the A/C, I thought, ‘The Villages are going to be flooded with these things’. (The obnoxious/huge retirement community in Florida.)
This car at least tries to address our transportation nightmare and the comments just shit all over it. Yeah it’s a compromise, that’s the fuckin’ point.
Godspeed, Wink.
Perhaps the disconnect is that there is no “transportation nightmare” that this would help solve in any sense of the word.
I’m relieved to see the majority of the commenters on this article actually being realistic. Normally when something like this is shown, there are a ton of comments along the lines of:
No. It’s so limited as to be nonfunctional. And the proposed use case in Manhattan is probably the worst for something like this. NYC has one of the best public transit systems in the country; it’s easier to get around there without a car than pretty much anywhere else. And if you don’t like schlepping your groceries around on the subway, then take a taxi or an Uber. It’ll take a LOT of taxi fares to hit the break-even point on a $12k vehicle purchase (and let’s not forget about paying for parking). The suburbs aren’t much better with that 25 mph max speed. Maybe if you’re lucky you can map out your errands and routes to friends’ houses on all 25 mph roads, but even then, you’re the jerk who’s going exactly the speed limit.
Maybe it’d be useful in those golf cart communities like The Villages, but that type of community is a very small subset of the country.
It’s not a compromise; it’s a concession.
Vehicles like this only make sense as glorified golf carts….or in the rural areas of communist countries where they don’t provide you any public transit, but you’re too poor/not allowed to own a proper vehicle, and travelling is discouraged.
(Hint: where are these made?)
Gee Whiz, where are average NYC apartment dwellers going to plug this thing in?
This^^^^^^ Plus it isn’t mentioned in the article that LiFePo4 batteries have to be recharged very slowly when the temperature gets below freezing or they can catch fire. But I actually think North American cities are ready for some Kei-car like vehicles. Just not that one at that price.
ISWYDT, but it’s spelled G-Wiz. Also, you make an excellent point. Wouldn’t it be cool if the battery were removable so you could take it into your apartment to
catch firerecharge?Where are there 25 mph roads actually have traffic that goes only 25 mph? And while I think we’ve gone too far with safety, I think we don’t need to revert to 1 step above a doped fabric box. This seems something like one of the ideas I’ve had that people tell me is great and that I should build and sell them, but even ignoring initial funding, I know about how much I’d have to charge and that would price it out of its already limited market. Thankfully, I’m an idea guy, so I don’t get the chance to be obsessive enough about an idea to say screw it and roll the dice, anyway.
I got halfway through writing out a check to Wink LLC, then saw that they sacrificed the frunk for the sake of installing A/C. What is this, some kind of sick joke? Where am I supposed to stow my empty knapsacks Jason?
“the idea of having A/C was a dream as wild as having the seats stuffed with phoenix feathers”
Phoenix down would make a great feature for reducing fatalities, unless your name is Aerith.
I like that this exists and give them massive credit for adding AC, but it’s not for me.It’s too expensive for what you get, and little easier to park than my normal small car
Unless it comes with a free chainsaw for battery replacement, I’m out.
Seriously not gonna ever do the Chinese car thing, EV or otherwise.
Too many other better alternatives out there to consider.
Such a hard sell when you can get a used BMW i3 for around the same price, and then get federal and local incentives. A $12k full BEV i3 is eligible for nearly $7k in incentives where I live.