This $7,000 single-seat electric car has become a hit in Japan

KG Motors CEO Kazunari Kusunoki with the ultra compact electric vehicle Mibot | BLOOMBERG

by NICHOLAS TAKAHASHI
Jun 19, 2025

In the rural suburbs of Hiroshima, a Japanese startup is trying to kick-start the nation’s electric vehicle market with the smallest, cheapest car it can possibly make.

KG Motors has developed a battery-powered one-seater that more resembles a futuristic golf cart than it does a modern EV, much less a traditional car. And yet well over half of the 3,300 units it plans to deliver by March 2027 have already been pre-sold to customers.

Incidentally, that puts it on track to sell more EVs in Japan than the world’s biggest automaker, Toyota Motor, which shifted around such 2,000 vehicles in all of 2024. In a country where EVs are still a rare sight, KG Motors is trying to bust a burgeoning myth: that bigger is better.