One of the coolest things about all the weird electric vehicles we find on Alibaba is that many of them seemingly come from objects you’d never expect to see on the road. Take a tiger-shaped bus or a house on wheels. Other times you get things that are technically vehicles but that still should never be near an actual road. And that makes me want to do exactly that, by getting one of these electric bumper cars for cruising my neighborhood’s streets.
Welcome to the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week, bumper car edition!
Here’s the thing — when I was a kid, bumper cars had a giant stick coming out of them. You got to ride around an eerie cheese grater floor while a metallic clothes rod with a tin foil shoehorn created arcing sparks above your head.
Classic kids ride.
But apparently these days the youth will never know the thrill of an amusement park ride that could conceivably electrocute them if they were tall enough.
That’s because there’s a new breed of bumper cars hitting the sad, dried up and money strapped amusement parks barely struggling to hang on. These new battery-powered bumper cars may not carry the same hiss and crackle of the old school models, but they have one redeeming quality: you can drive them anywhere.
Without being stuck in the designated and electrified bumper car thunderdome, you can drive off as far as you please. Or at least as far as your battery will last.
The bumper cars use a 48V system paired with a 500W motor. That means they’re roughly as powerful as an average electric bike that can hit 20 mph (32 km/h).
Unfortunately these things will barely get you to a third of that speed. But you know what happens when you gear down the speed? The torque should skyrocket, meaning these suckers could probably moonlight as airplane tractors. Giddy up!
Surely you won’t be getting anywhere quickly at a maximum speed of 6 mph (10 km/h), but you’re definitely going to be arriving in style.
You’ve probably already lost the race to be the first in town with a fancy new F150 Lightning or Rivian. Why not try to be a different kind of first?
It won’t even cost you that much. What if I told you that I could put you in this bad boy for a cool fifteen hundred bucks? *slaps hood*
That’s right. $1,500 is all it takes to become the proud new owner of a battery powered bumper car.
And that’s not all you get. If the low-budget marketing video below is any indication, the bumper car also comes with a pile of firewood as an “accessory”.
And don’t even get me started on the awesome list of features.
The battery bumper car comes complete with “leather” seats, anti-skid steering wheel, LED lighting, speakers that can play your MP3 mix from an SD card, and an impact-resistant body.
Plus they’re super easy to park thanks to their 360 degree turning ability. And if you ever did accidentally kiss another car while sliding into your spot, you can just shrug at the owner and point to your ride. What did they expect, it’s a bumper car.
As much as I’d love to get a few of these and turn a parking garage into a kids birthday party, I think I’ll take a break from my weird Alibaba orders for now.
I’ve still got my electric boat to unbox and I’m not sure there’s room for a dozen bumper cars. You absolutely shouldn’t buy one either. But if you do, I want to hear all about it!