China Creates A Better Cybertruck One That Can Transform Between An SUV And A Pickup For A Fraction Of The Cost Of The Tesla With The Shape Shifting Changan E07

I’m not a fan of Cybertruck, as it seems to have been designed by someone who has never seen a pickup truck before. Don’t get me wrong, it looked initially cool enough for me to consider buying one, but I’m not a pickup person and have always thought them to be foolish for most of the folks that buy them since they were explicitly designed for farms, not as sedans with an open trunk. 

What makes the Changan E07 different is that it is one of the first transformer vehicles to hit the market since the ill-fated Pontiac Aztec (ranked in the top 50 worst cars of all time), which had a lot of utility on paper but looked like it was created by a drunk committee rather than a competent designer. However, the idea of a vehicle that could occasionally be a pickup truck but was most often an SUV has merit, and the Chinese have brought one to market with this Nevo E07.

Why Pickup Trucks Don’t Make Sense

The pickup truck was created for farmers who, until Henry Ford created the vehicle, had been putting boxes on the backs of their Model Ts so they could use them on the farm. Growing up on a farm, I knew the vehicle's utility was undeniable. You could quickly load and unload lots of material from the back as you moved around the fields, digging holes and hauling hay to farm animals. It was far more practical than a dump truck or a jeep-like vehicle without that rear bed.

Over time, a back seat was added, which was helpful when you had a crew because all four of you could arrive at the site where work would be done simultaneously and with one less pickup or vehicle. Farms tend to contain fenced-in spaces, so the fact you couldn’t lock the bed down easily wasn’t a problem as long as the truck stayed on the farm.

But, off the farm, whatever was in the truck bed could be easily stolen; the bed wasn’t (whether a cover or a shell) helpful in keeping things long-term because it was out in the weather and things regularly, at freeway speeds, could blow out of the bed. While on the farm, you could load the bed with people, which was generally illegal when driving on public roads and freeways because it was unsafe, and seat belts weren’t installed in truck beds.

So, a pickup makes a lot of sense on a farm or when hauling things from place to place. However, a daily drive for someone not using it as a work truck makes little sense, even for many professionals, because of that unsecured bed.

Tesla Cybertruck

The Tesla Cybertruck does address the unlocked bed with a motorized cover, which turns that bed into a mammoth trunk. But how many people need or would use a trunk that size? The result is a mammoth vehicle with far less interior space than you’d typically have in a smaller sedan. While the truck was marketed as sturdy, we’ve found that it tends to fall apart in daily use, making it a questionable choice for a farm truck (not to mention its price is pretty high for a pickup truck since it starts at just under $80K.

The Changan E07

To my eye, the Changan E07, pictured above, looks more like an SUV and is designed to perform like an SUV for day-to-day use. But once you retract the back, you end up with a pickup truck-like bed without the extreme size that the Cybertruck enjoys.

It morphs between an SUV and a Pickup, giving it a ton of extra usefulness and utility. I wouldn’t use this vehicle as a farm truck either; for most pickup truck drivers who aren’t farmers, this should be a far better choice than the Cybertruck, particularly given its price starts at a fraction ($24K)) the entry price for the Cybertruck making it far more affordable.  In full equipped form, it is well under $50K and will do 0-60 in around 3 seconds (the Cybertruck in Beast Mode will do it in 2.6 seconds, which I think is way quicker than I’d want to do in a pickup given you’d likely leave whatever was in the bed on the road behind you).

So, the result is something more affordable and more valuable than the Tesla Cybertruck.

Wrapping Up: China Is Out Innovating Tesla

Tesla has been regularly outperforming other car companies in the West with electric cars generally because they are bigger than other EV pure plays, and the traditional car makers are trying to have mixed lines of gas and electric vehicles, reducing their ability to compete with Tesla effectively. However, China has funded an impressive number of EV companies that are increasingly not only solely focused on EVs but also bringing out ever more competitive EVs at far lower prices. Even if the E07 were a clone of the Cybertruck at a fraction of the cost of that truck, it’d still be a better value, and while Tesla has a reputation for poor quality, as China once did, China’s car makers have made more significant strides to improve their quality over time than Tesla has.

Tesla continues to weaken against its Chinese competitors. While protected in the US, Tesla also builds cars in China, which exposes it to both Europe (which is trending to treat it equally to other Chinese car manufacturers) and China, where US brands, in general, have been losing status recently, and Tesla is also taking a hit.  

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst at Torque News who covers automotive technology and battery development. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.