$10,000 EV from China - meet the Dongfeng Nano Box

20 July 2022

If you have never heard of Renault Kwid or City Z-KE that’s ok, you’re not alone. But you must have heard of Dacia Spring, right? They are siblings but made for different markets - Renault sells its tiny city “CUV” in India, in China it is sold as Aeolus EX1 or the Fengxing T1 or even as the exotic sounding Venucia e30.

The Dongfeng Nano Box is just another rebranded Dacia Spring, but in addition to some minor external design changes, the car comes with a new interior. The selling point though, has to be the price - the car starts at RMB 65,700 which works out around $9,750. You will struggle to find a 4 (5 at a push) seater EV with a 200+ km range anywhere near that price.

The majority of body panels are identical to the other Renault Kwid-based cars. The differences include the front and rear lights and the front bumper. That’s a recipe to keep the costs down and all the models under all the different names seem to be selling faster than they can be manufactured.

In the photos the car looks much bigger than it really is thanks to its off-roady design with high ride and short overhangs. But in reality the car measures just 3,723 mm long, 1,579 mm wide and is only 1,515 mm tall. It could fit in a kitchen or a balcony if you don’t have a garage.

The interior of Dongfeng Nano Box (love the name) is completely different and it hides its budget roots rather well. There are two screens - the central 10” screen takes care of infotainment and the 7” screen behind the steering wheel displays all the info the driver can need. There are dials (hallelujah!) for climate control in the center console and there’s a giant dial that switches between driving forward and reversing. That’s it - nice and simple.

Simplicity is the language here and Nano Box follows its siblings with just one tiny electric motor working the front wheels. The power is just 45hp (33 kW) and the 125 Nm torque won’t make you a traffic light king or queen but it’s enough to get you around the city with aplomb. The CLTC cycle estimates the range to be a whopping 331 km but with all honesty - even the WLTP cycle's 225km for the Dacia version is optimistic. Don’t expect to get more than 200 km out of its 27.2 kWh battery, the car is just a cute, city shopping trolley.

The great news, with such a small battery, is half an hour is all it takes to reach 80% charge, the full charge will take 4 hours because with small battery heat is an issue and the charging curve drops off quite a bit as the battery fills in.

The Nano Box is available in two versions - just like all of its siblings. The cheaper one goes for RMB 65,700 ($9,750) and the dearer one is RMB 71,700 ($10,640). The price and cuteness obviously work because the company secured over 10,000 orders on day one and now the waiting list stretches to two months. Still - if you live in a city and want a cheap but funky EV runaround, you could always buy an electric bicycle. But if you value your life you will buy Nano Box - it has to be the one most correctly named out of the entire clone squad.

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