This wondrous white little wonder is the Luxing iStar, a new LSEV that I met it on the the 2017 Jinan EV Show. It is obviously not a Mercedes-Benz because the three-pointed star points down instead of up. But the grille and bumper do look very familiar…
That grille is perfectly CLA. Air ducts under the bumper a just brilliant.
The Luxing iStar is manufactured by a company called Dezhou Luxing Vehicle Company, based in the great city of Dezhou in Shandong Province. They handed out a leaflet with two very easy to remember url’s printed on it. But sadly dzlxcy.com is dead and wclxcy.com leads to a Japanese travel site.
Now that is proper marketing and communications!
I searched around a bit and found that the company does have a website, on dzdtcy.com, not on dzlxcy.com or wclxcy.com. Happily, dzdtcy.com is also very easy to remember.
From the sides it doesn’t really look like a Mercedes. But it has sporty black wheel arches, black door handles, and roof rails that looked just strong enough to attach a very light bag to. Now, do you see that man looking under the bonnet? Let’s have a look too:
Yeah lead acid baby! 72 volt this one. 1.6 hp motor. Top speed claimed at 45 km/h and range claimed at 150 kilometers. This is in line with similar sized and powered vehicles on the show.
Interior! Very Mercedes-Benz again. Just check the shape of the instrument binnacle and the tripe air vents in the center stack. The drive selector looks really cool, just like a manual ‘box. Bit it is not! Panic button just in front of the selector. Hitting it will switch off all electrical power and thus the car. The touch screen is a real touch screen, measuring 10 inches. It has radio, it has SD and USB slots, it can play MP3 audio and MP4 video, and it has a rear-view camera!
The lower part of the bumper looks very C-Class. Ultra! The iStar is a new product so it doesn’t have a fixed price yet. When I asked they said it was going to cost about 22,000 yuan or $3190. So cheap, and with the all important badge credibility!
Oh my…. This will never end..
This “toy car” is perfect for order it in containers, ship’em to Rosario, Argentina and use it for a “rent car” to travel on the coast of the city.
Not to be confused with Dezhou Fuxing Vehicle Co. which is also located in Dezhou’s industrial development zone. I wonder if they were at the show as well.