chapotraphouse

That's sort of how it started though, I remember as a kid seeing electric 3 wheel minivans and minitrucks and mopeds chugging along in the bike lanes carrying families and produce. Those really were just batteries, motor, chassis, and sheet metal/plastic shell, they had shitty motors and a range of like 80km at the time, which was fine if you just needed to make a trip in the city (and more importantly, they were cheap). The rapid advances in battery chemistry came about almost 2 decades later.

Chinese ICE engines have also gotten a lot better, but it took much longer considering how long companies like BYD were in the game making licensed versions of Toyotas but becoming EV powerhouses in the span of a decade.