This little red racer is the Arcfox Lite, a cool looking two-seat electric city car. It was launched on the Chinese car market last year, but they are a very rare sight on the road.
This likely has something to do with messy branding, marketing, a lack of dealers, and a high price.
When first unveiled it was called the ‘Arcfox 1’, with Arcfox being the brand and ‘1’ being the car.The car had Arcfox logo’s and branding. Later on the ‘1’ was gone, replaced by the word ‘Lite’.
Later on again however the Arcfox name faded into the background, and Lite became the brand name. When it launched on the market it was called the Lite by Arcfox. The Lite brand has a separate website now, but BJEV seems a bit confused, because sometimes they still refer to it as the Arcfox Lite.
That is also how the vast majority of media and consumers refer to it, so I decided to use that name as well, for the sake of clarity.
The Arfox brand is owned by BJEV, an electric-car making subsidiary of Beijing Auto Industy Corporation (BAIC), commonly know as Beijing Auto.
BJEV makes a range of affordable electric cars, which are being sold via a separate BJEV dealer network. But don’t come looking there for your Lite, because those are being sold by yet another separate dealer network. It sounds crazy, and it is crazy. Oddly, there aren’t many of those Arcfox dealers. As far as I know there is just one in the entire Beijing area.
Back now to the car. It looks great, especially in this white red color scheme. It is very small too: 2986/1676/1492, and wheelbase is 1870.
Curb weight is 895 kilo, which is light. The technology to create this lightness is called Air Tech. The company says that the frame is made of aluminum alloy, the body from carbon fiber reinforced composite, and the body panels from plastic.
The interior is very tech, with no less than three 8-inch screens in the dashboard.
One in front of the driver, one in the middle, and one in front of the passenger, with its own headphone jack. No need to talk! For a more detailed look at the screen situation see this article.
The Lite is powered by an electric motor with 49 hp and 120 Nm, mated to a 16.4 kWh battery. The motor is located over the front axle, the batteries below the floor. Range is 170 kilometers and top speed is 110 km/h. Charging on a fast charger takes half an hour for 80% battery. Charging on 220V takes 6.5 hours.
The blue EV badge is a government mandated badge for electric vehicles that are made in China, by a Chinese brand. PHEVs get a similar bade, but green. Below the EV badge the off By Arcfox badge, kind of hidden away. They really need to clean up that branding mess…
The white-green license plate is the new national plate design for New Energy Vehicles (NEVs). Under China’s standard, NEVs include EVs, PHEVs, and hydrogen cars.
And finally we have to talk about money.
How much for this tiny two seat 49 hp EV?
After subsidies?
Yes, after subsidies.
Hmm, 50.000 perhaps?
No.
60.000..?
No.
Seventy?!
Wrong.
How much is it…!?!?
Well, the Lite by Arcfox costs 91.000 yuan. After subsidies. And that is just the base model. A fully dressed up car costs 125.600 yuan. After subsidies.
What????? No wonder we see so few of ‘m.
Yup.
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