{"id":307506,"date":"2026-05-09T09:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T09:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/307506\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T09:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T09:40:18","slug":"california-cops-caught-a-tiny-chinese-ev-committing-its-first-grown-up-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/307506\/","title":{"rendered":"California Cops Caught A Tiny Chinese EV Committing Its First Grown-Up Offense"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n A tiny electric microcar caught CHP\u2019s attention in California, but the driver\u2019s suspended license became the bigger issue <\/p>\n

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A tiny Chinese-made electric vehicle just got an unwanted CHP welcome.<\/p>\n

The stop began because the mini EV was holding up traffic in Redding.<\/p>\n

California permits mini EVs on some roads, though traffic laws still apply.<\/p>\n

Low-speed vehicles (LSV) exist in a funny space legally speaking in America. Most of them are golf carts, and they\u2019re allowed on some public roads, but there\u2019s a new subset gaining popularity. That group is full of small Chinese<\/a>-made EVs that look like the middle ground between a Fisher-Price toy and an actual car. They gather a lot of attention, and one in California just did so for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

According to CHP<\/a> Redding, the stop started because the tiny vehicle was traveling too slowly and backing up traffic. That\u2019s not all that shocking, given that most LSVs have a max speed of around 25 mph (40 kmh). What police probably didn\u2019t expect to find was a driver behind the wheel who wasn\u2019t legally allowed to be there. During the stop, officers discovered the driver was allegedly operating the vehicle with a suspended license.<\/p>\n

Read: Tiny Daewoo Matiz With V6 Engine Swap Proves Horsepower Can Make Any Car Ridiculous<\/a><\/p>\n

That revelation turned a quirky roadside encounter into a reminder that California\u2019s strangest street-legal vehicles are still governed by very normal rules. California<\/a> classifies low-speed vehicles as four-wheeled motor vehicles capable of traveling between 20 and 25 mph (32-40 km\/h) with a gross vehicle weight rating under 3,000 pounds (1,361 kg). <\/p>\n


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Despite their cartoonish proportions and looks, they\u2019re fully legal to operate on certain public roads if they meet state and federal equipment standards.<\/p>\n

Of course, that means having things like headlights, taillights, brake lights, mirrors, turn signals, seat belts, windshield wipers, a parking brake, and even a backup camera. Drivers also need a valid license, registration, and insurance, just as they would with a normal passenger car.<\/p>\n

Even if the driver of this LSV had a valid license, there\u2019s another wrinkle in the law. They\u2019re not lawfully allowed on roads with speed limits above 35 mph (56 kmh). In essence, they\u2019re made for dense urban areas, retirement communities, beach towns<\/a>, or short neighborhood errands. Put one on a road where drivers in real cars are going 40 mph or faster, and they turn into a traffic impediment and a safety concern quickly.<\/p>\n


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Credit: CHP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tiny electric microcar caught CHP\u2019s attention in California, but the driver\u2019s suspended license became the bigger issue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,113095,236,3607,1264],"class_list":["post-307506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-offbeat-news","tag-police","tag-safety","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}