Suspicious eBay find of the Day: EVE Motors' all-electric SUV
by Sebastian Blanco on Jul 20th 2009 at 11:54AM 
EVE Trinity SUV - Click above for image gallery
With a VIN of 99999999999999999, it has to be good, right?That's the number that EVE Motors SUV gives for their electric vehicle that's currently for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $29,995. This is a great price for an all-electric SUV, but the auction listing raises far more questions than it answers.
AutoblogGreen reader Doug H. wrote in to ask "Any idea who these folks are? I've never heard of this car...." We're unfamiliar with EVE Motors, too, but have to express skepticism about this vehicle and auction. For one thing, the EVE Motors website provides no contact information, never a good sign. On the eBay listing page, the company claims to have 900 cars "available to first come first serve." They claim the Trinity SUV can go 125 miles per charge using lithium-ion batteries and a 25 kW brushless DC motor. They say the car will be delivered anywhere in the lower 48 4-6 weeks after payment has been made. One slight problem: "We are not set up for test drives at this time." They'll take your $30k, but not let you test drive the car first? Hmmm.
EVE Motors says their mission is, "To serve the public by providing cutting edge automobiles coupled with high-end technology that eliminates fuel cost and many expenses from maintenance perminantly (sic)." We're wondering what's going on here.
EVE also sells conversion parts for EVs from their website. Thanks to Doug H. for the tip!
UPDATE: surprisingly, the auction has ended early.
Gallery: EVE Motors SUV
[Source: eBay]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
KenB 1:32PM (7/20/2009)
This looks very suspicious. I would like to think this is legitimate, but this reminds me of Spark-EV or LionEv. Got to be bogus, and that is a shame. The electric car industry is just gaining some ground and we certainly don't need any more scams out there to tarnish the image.
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Tom Prucha 1:12PM (7/20/2009)
With 25kW on tap (~33 HP) this thing should be a real speedster. Just what we all need... yet another reason for the world to believe EVs are not viable. Looking through their online posting I don't see the 25 kW claim, so hopefully that is just a mistake made here. I couldn't find any eBay auction either. Does anyone have an eBay item number to reference?
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Sebastian 1:19PM (7/20/2009)
Tom,
sorry, spaced on adding a link to eBay. You can now find the link in the post.
Ernie 4:44PM (7/20/2009)
Oh, that's okay, because this is almost invariably a scam. There's no way in hell you can make a Li-Ion battery this big for that much money, let alone build a car around it.
But at the same time, most electric motors are not rated at their *peak* power, but their *sustained* power (ie: around the equivalent horsepower of your cruising RPM of 2500). Peak power is probably 3-4 times that.
Throwback 1:34PM (7/20/2009)
One word describes this "auction" Scam!
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John Rowell 2:01PM (7/20/2009)
After a little looking around, I suspect this is a Chinese-built car that has been imported into the US but is not necessarily legal for sale here.
Looking closely at some of the photos provided, I can see a Chinese car shopping website at the corner of one and a sign written in Chinese in the background of another. Their youtube channel is EveGT1 (http://www.youtube.com/user/EveGT1). On nyturtle's youtube channel, he mostly has videos of radio control cars but has one video of this car's headlights (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl8qigR9MMA). Their auction, ebay item # 270429178220, interestingly is by nyturtle2bja, presumably the same person who posted that headlight video on youtube. There is more information about the car on the auction page.
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John Rowell 2:03PM (7/20/2009)
What's suspicious about this is I see no videos of the car itself.
GregR 2:28PM (7/20/2009)
Is that not the Zotye EV2008 ?
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co2112 2:56PM (7/20/2009)
GregR - Good call
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RAN 2:57PM (7/20/2009)
It says inre: "SHIPPING: Will be calculated after the vehicle has been sold." Yeah, Right. I can see that shipping cost now...
Plus, there are so many spelling/grammatical errors on that page, it looks like gorr wrote it lol.
So let me get this straight: you're supposed to pay this guy $29,995 (+ shipping), without seeing or test driving one, and *then* wait 4-6 weeks and hope that he ships whatever it is to you? Good Gawd, is anyone that stupid?
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John Rowell 3:41PM (7/20/2009)
"The seller ended this listing early because the item is no longer available for sale."
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Nixon 4:23PM (7/20/2009)
I guess he sold all 900 of them that he had listed, all in a matter of hours.....
Or something.
Sebastian 5:12PM (7/20/2009)
well, that sure clears things up
Tom Prucha 7:21PM (7/20/2009)
For the record Ernie... many, if not most, electric motors for EVs are "named" for their peak output, similar to how IC engines are rated:
http://www.azuredynamics.com/products/force-drive/TractionMotorswithDigitalMotorControllers.htm
http://www.uqm.com/propulsion_specs.php
http://enovasystems.com/index.cfm?section=Products&linkID=1
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