We have often written about Chinese car brands that copy popular models from other international brands and create their own versions. There are several examples of this, and we have featured many of them on our website in the past. Now, another image has surfaced from Bangladesh where a vehicle manufacturer named Palki Motors has been producing an electric vehicle for the domestic market. The reason it grabbed our attention is the design. The small electric car is designed to resemble a multi-crore Range Rover SUV.
The image of this electric car has been shared by Car Crazy India on their Instagram page. In the image, we see a WagonR-sized 4-door hatchback designed to look like a Range Rover. The car has been built by Palki Motors, an electric vehicle manufacturing startup that plans to revolutionize the electric vehicle segment in Bangladesh through mass production of locally produced vehicles.
We assume that while the manufacturer has plans to make affordable EVs for their market, many of these panels and components were imported from China. That is probably how it ended up looking like a Range Rover. It is actually a 4-door tall boy hatchback that comes with a Range Rover-like front fascia.
We checked Palki Motors’ official website to learn more about the car and came across interesting information. This electric car is marketed as an alternative to autorickshaws. It is, in fact, an electric quadricycle like the Bajaj Qute that we had in the Indian market. The manufacturer aims at autorickshaw drivers with this vehicle as an upgrade from the three-wheeler they are currently driving.
The electric car seen here comes with decent features like central locking, power windows, AC, an 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system, Bluetooth, a speaker system, disc brakes, and so on. The car is called City Boy LFP, and it looks like there are multiple versions of this small hatchback available in the market. On the internet, we can see a version that gets a Range Rover-like front, whereas there is another variant that gets a Ford Everest-like front grille.
This small electric hatchback has a curb weight of 460 kg and comes with a top speed of 50 kmph. The electric car is available with a 60 V 100 Ah battery that powers a 3 kW electric motor. The car has a claimed range of 150 km when fully charged. The car takes around 6-8 hours to fully charge using a slow charger, while the same can be done in 2 hours using a fast charger.
This is not the first time we have come across a quadricycle that is inspired by a Range Rover. A few weeks ago, we saw a video of a 4-door hatchback from China that was designed to look like the current generation Toyota Land Cruiser LC300. It actually looked like a scaled-down version of an actual LC300. The car was called Kuluze, and exact details regarding the car are not available online. China has one of the largest automotive industries, with over a hundred car manufacturing companies operating there. Some of these brands produce cars specifically for the domestic market, while others sell cars internationally as well.