I remember once I was at a Nissan event in Japan and heard a high-ranking member of the company refer to the country’s Kei-class cars as “Galapagos cars.” I loved this term, as it is an especially apt analogy: Kei cars only exist – and, really, only can exist – in one place in the world: Japan. This is like those species of giant tortoise that only live on a few of the Galapagos Islands, hence the name for a car that really only makes sense in one very specific place.
This one-place analogy is finally showing some cracks, as, just a few months ago, China became the first country other than Japan to specifically design a Kei-class car and sell it in the Japanese market. The car is the BYD Racco, an electric “tall boy”-style tiny one-box vehicle with a range of 199 miles.
Actually, there was sort of another non-Japanese Kei-class car, the Smart K, but that one wasn’t designed from the outset to be sold in Japan as a Kei-class car. It was also kind of a sales flop, so I don’t think we need to count that.
Anyway, the BYD Racco. This $13,000 Kei has had strong initial sales in Japan, and while things have calmed a bit since then, it’s by far the most successful non-Japanese Kei car ever. That’s all great, but what I really want to talk about is this picture:
What, exactly, is going on here? How tiny is that woman? This is a Kei-class car, remember. It’s tiny. But this picture makes it look like a huge van! Is this a bad Photoshop job? A clever camera angle? An unusually tiny woman? All of that?
I mean, the car is almost six feet tall, way taller than me, so this isn’t maybe so off at all. But why does it look so off?
There’s a video with this same model and the car together; maybe it will shed some light on this:
Hm. I think they just found an appropriately diminutive model, and cheated that angle enough to make it look, um, dramatic. There’s still something weird about that press photo, though. Something that kind of messes with your brain?
The Racco is kind of a packaging marvel, though. With the batteries in the floor, MacPherson struts up front and a simple torsion axle at rear, and the drive unit set low and transverse on the front axle, almost all of that volume in that box is usable for people or their stuff.
Of course, Japanese Kei manufacturers have been making combustion versions of this basic design for years and years. But the fact that this is from outside of China and seemingly actually selling is pretty remarkable.
This picture, though. It still kinda freaks me out. She looks like she’s like six soda cans high, and almost as heavy. It’s weird, right? But that car is almost, as I said, six feet tall. But somethig still feels off. Is it just me?
Top graphic image: BYD
It looks like one of those Ames room forced perspective tricks where where you seem to grow or shrink when you cross the room.
If the car is actually six feet tall then in the normal picture you can see she is nearly as tall as the car, probably about 5’9” or or so, so she’s actually pretty tall. I think the issue is that the car has the proportions of a phone booth.
I think the only way to settle this is to send Torch and Griffin over to recreate this photoshoot. For science…
sorry, but there’s no banana for scale in pictures so I can’t tell if this car will fit only ants or Reacher.
I am pretty sure she is touching empty space and then they shopped in the image of the photo after. It just looks too weird to me.
I’m 100% sure that I am about 50% correct.
Model is maybe 5’7 logical for Asia. They put her in some heels to get her about the same height as the Kei box at 5’10. Just weird angles. Weird outfit too. It looks like a several Asian countries traditional dresses mixed together.
In the weird photo the wheels look 1/3 bigger than the driver’s window but smaller in the straight side view picture. yep something is amiss.
I believe she and her twin sister used to be able to call Mothra when Godzilla was rampant.
It was only a matter of time before Kei cars grew to the size of a 1990’s Chevy Tahoe.