- The Mibot comes from KG Motors, a Japanese company founded just three years ago.
- The 98-inch-long Mibot offers 62 miles (100 km) of range and a 37 mph top speed.
- Local pricing for the Mibot starts at just 1 million yen, or approximately $7,000 USD.
When you picture a tiny electric car weaving through tight urban streets, your brain probably goes straight to China. Fair enough, as the country’s been churning out budget EVs like it’s a national sport. But a small Japanese startup is now stepping into the spotlight, aiming to shake up its home market with an even smaller electric city car.
Meet the Mibot, a pint-sized electric car from KG Motor. It’s even smaller than a Kei car and roughly matches the Citroen Ami in stature, which is another way of saying that you won’t be squeezing a suitcase inside – or another person, for that matter, since it only seats one. It’s so small, in fact, that KG Motors demonstrated it can fit inside the back of a Toyota HiAce van.
Read: Japan’s Top Car Importer? It’s Now A Japanese Brand
According to company founder Kazunari Kusunoki, modern “cars are simply too big” and he wanted to create something better suited to Japan’s narrow streets. The Mibot is just 2,490 mm (98 inches) long and has a small battery pack that gives it 62 miles (100 km) of range. That may not sound like much, but as an EV to drive exclusively in a tightly-packed city, or a small village, it should be adequate. The top speed is limited to 37 mph (60 km/h).
Kusunoki founded KG Motors in June 2022 and has already sold 2,250 examples. Oftentimes, it takes new Chinese brands just a matter of minutes to shift “several thousand examples of a newly-launched EV, but as far as Japanese brands go, KG Motors is doing a very good job. In fact, in 2024, Toyota only managed to sell roughly 2,000 EVs in Japan. It’s not just local brands that struggle to sell EVs in Japan. BYD, despite its growing global footprint, managed only around 2,200 deliveries in Japan last year.
KG Motors currently has the capacity to build 3,300 units by March 2027. One thing working in the Mibot’s favor? The price. It comes in at just ¥1 million, or about $6,900 at current exchange rates, or a fraction of Slate Auto’s $28,000 electric pickup, and hilariously, even less than the $7,500 federal credit that truck is banking on.
That puts the Mibot firmly in impulse-buy territory, especially for anyone who just wants a no-fuss commuter or something to zip around the neighborhood.
The firm’s founder hopes that the Mibot can change perceptions about EVs in Japan. “Toyota said EVs aren’t the only solution and, because it’s Toyota, Japanese people assume it must be true,” Kusunoki told Bloomberg in a recent interview. “A large number of people in Japan seem to believe EVs won’t become popular.”
Once the initial batch of 3,300 is sold, KG Motors plans to scale up quickly, with a target of producing 10,000 units annually. That’s an ambitious leap, but if early sales are any indication, the appetite for small, simple EVs might just be bigger than anyone expected.
Photos KG Motors
