You can now buy a brand new electric ‘MINI’ for just £3,500 – but there's a catch | The Sun

DRIVERS have been left stunned after realising they can buy a brand-new electric ‘Mini’ for just £3,500 – but there's a catch.

A Mini EV is the best of both worlds, offering plenty of style along with green emissions-free motoring.

But a MINI Electric model normally starts from around £32,000, and can rise towards the best part of £40k once you’ve added on a few extras.

Of course, there is a catch to all this, which explains the Mini car’s stunningly cheap price tag.

Firstly, the dinky EV isn’t actually produced by MINI itself, or its famous parent company – BMW.

It’s made by a Chinese company called Shenyang High Power Machinery & Equipment – and it's on sale at online store Alibaba.com.

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This Chinese copy imitates the MINI’s characteristics, but in the end just looks like a jumble of parts, while it’s powered by a much smaller motor and battery – giving it a top speed of just 25mph.

According to the advert, it takes eight to ten hours to charge, while it also claims to have disc brakes all-round.

However, a pricey problem is that you will have to spend thousands to ship the car from China to the UK.

And, of course, when the "fake" MINI is delivered to your house, you won't be able to register it and drive it on public roads.This comes after drivers found out that you can now buy a brand new Mercedes G-Wagen 4×4 for just £5,000 – but of course there’s again a catch to be aware of.