Go to any European city and you’ll find tiny city cars jittering over cobblestones and dodging tourists. Japan is positively teeming with adorable “kei” versions of everything from off-road SUVs to box trucks. Across the globe, practical little cars are everywhere. But you’d never know that looking at our Escalade- and F-150-filled roads.
A Miami-based startup called Chip Motors has spent the last few years working on a small, low-speed electric vehicle that it’s betting even SUV-obsessed Americans will go for. On Wednesday, it emerged from stealth and opened up preorders for its first product, a boxy, oddball affair with a tall windshield, no doors, a cheery LED smile on its face, and a bold promise to make driving optional. It reads like a cross between a golf cart and a Jeep Wrangler—or maybe a VW Thing—and that speaks to the market Chip is trying to conquer.
