We featured self-driving cars as among the top-10 trends to watch for in 2018. Along with that is the interesting trends we are seeing in adoption of electric-vehicle technologies.

A recent feature in The Wall Street ​Journal​ highlights how low-end electric cars are taking off in a big way in China. China is the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, thanks largely to subsidies that drive costs down. Those incentives will end by 2020, but the government is betting that won’t be the end of the road for its electric dream.

The video highlights the small, slow and super cheap: China’s low-speed electric vehicles, or LSEVs, are bringing the thrill of driving to the masses—and hampering the government’s efforts to develop an upscale EV industry.

According to the WSJ article:

The taste for tiny EVs has become a quirky subplot in China’s push to become a world leader in electric cars. Roughly 1.75 million micro-EVs were sold in China last year, more than twice the sales of regular EVs, of around 777,000, industry executives estimate. Most of the tiny ones were sold in a handful of rural provinces. The market is still growing rapidly, with some 400 Chinese manufacturers building countless models. …. In size terms, an LSEV would be only marginally smaller than the two-seat Smart car series built by Daimler AG . The comparison ends there, however. Smart cars, which can top 95 miles an hour, sell for about $15,000 and have advanced safety features, whereas the slow-moving mini EV’s start at under $1,000 and lack any kind of crash protection. But safety is relative, said Zhao Tongwei, a resident of nearby Jinan, shopping for a new ride at that city’s annual LSEV expo in March. “It’s definitely safer than picking up your kids from school on a scooter,” said Mr. Zhao, whose wife relies on a minicar to get around town. “And in winter our son would get cold.”

A car like this for under $1,000 ? Sign me up any day !