I\u2019m in love with another strange car. And, of course, it\u2019s not coming to the United States.<\/p>\n
I have a thing for weird, little cars. There\u2019s something exciting about pulling up to a car meet in the Mazda Autozam AZ-1<\/a> and having everyone immediately surround you, asking WTF that thing even is. I didn\u2019t think it would get much stranger and smaller than that, but Hyundai has revealed something I need.<\/p>\n But will probably never have.<\/p>\n Hyundai held an Investor Day in South Korea this week. This included the reveal of the E3W, which is an electric three-wheeled motorcycle with a silly, geometric body that can be customized to look like everything from a police vehicle to a package delivery vehicle.<\/p>\n Can you imagine getting pulled over by this thing?<\/p>\n The E3W has been designed in collaboration with TVS Motor Company, which usually makes motorcycles in India. It\u2019s being developed for Asia and Africa, where couriers often drive small vehicles like the E3W. To be fair, it would probably get run over in the U.S., where SUVs have like six rows of seating, and people are lifting their trucks. Even in a Miata, you won\u2019t be able to see into most vehicles\u2019 windows while waiting at a stoplight.<\/p>\n So, here\u2019s to another cool electric vehicle thingy we won\u2019t be seeing. America\u2019s battle against cheap Chinese EVs is most definitely part of it. But we\u2019re missing out on many other vehicle types as well<\/a>. Guess they want us to be trapped with Ford\u2019s new electric pickup, although I got plenty of emails telling me they\u2019d rather buy the Slate<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, what do we know about the E3W? It\u2019s small, but comfortable inside, according to Hyundai. There\u2019s even a built-in phone holder. There\u2019s also some storage in there.<\/p>\n Its body is height-adjustable, which will help traverse tougher streets and even flooded roads. The designs are modular, allowing them to take a bunch of different forms. There\u2019s even one with a wing, although I don\u2019t know how fast or aerodynamic (or safe) this thing truly is outside of city navigation.<\/p>\n Depending on who you ask, “small car” in the U.S. usually means something you could still comfortably parallel park a golden retriever in. But there is one model that genuinely earns the title of smallest new car sold in America: the Fiat 500e. It’s the tiniest thing on a new-car lot in the country, electric or otherwise, and it wears that distinction with a kind of unbothered Italian charm rather than apology.<\/p>\n To put its size in perspective, the 500e is still noticeably larger than the original Cinquecento from 1957, which measured a genuinely absurd 116 inches long. Fiat’s modern electric version has grown up a bit since then, but it’s still small enough that American roads, built for trucks the size of small apartments, make it look almost like a toy. That’s part of the appeal. It’s an easy car to thread through city traffic, and parking becomes less of a chess match and more of an afterthought.<\/p>\n What’s charming about the 500e is that Fiat didn’t treat “small” as a synonym for “cheap-feeling.” Reviewers have noted the cabin, especially in the nicer trims, feels more upscale than you’d expect from a hatchback this size. It’s not built for road trips or hauling much of anything, and the back seat is best reserved for people who don’t mind being cozy.<\/p>\n But for city dwellers who want an EV that doesn’t require a driveway the size of a football field, it’s proof that small cars still have a place in America, even if that place keeps shrinking.<\/p>\n The Topolino is smaller \u2014 significantly so. The modern Fiat Topolino (the current micro-EV, not the vintage 1930s namesake) measures roughly 8 feet 3 inches long, compared to the 500e’s about 143 inches (nearly 12 feet). So the Topolino is close to half the length of the 500e.<\/p>\n However, the Topolino isn’t really in the same category. It’s a low-speed quadricycle capped around 28 mph, not street-legal for U.S. roads in most places<\/a>, and recently arrived stateside more as a novelty\/golf-cart alternative than a true car.<\/p>\n It will become legal later on, and maybe I’ll be tempted to get one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m in love with another strange car. And, of course, it\u2019s not coming to the United States. I have a … <\/p>\nThe E3W revealed (again)<\/h2>\n
We don\u2019t know much about the E3W<\/h2>\n
What small car do we have in the United States?<\/h2>\n
What about the Topolino?<\/h2>\n