The US golf cart market has grown from roughly one billion dollars before the pandemic to about five billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, with street-legal carts spreading well beyond golf courses into suburban neighbourhoods where residents use them for school runs, grocery trips, and short commutes. At the same time, e-bike imports topped an estimated two million units in 2025, and established carmakers are now launching vehicles designed to occupy the space between a bicycle and a conventional car.
Fiat brought its Topolino to the United States in July with a starting price of just under $14,000, making it the cheapest new vehicle Stellantis sells in the country. The two-seat electric quadricycle has a five-kilowatt-hour battery and a top speed of 19 miles per hour, with an optional street-legal conversion kit that raises the limit to 25 miles per hour. Under federal rules, that qualifies it as a low-speed vehicle, legal on roads with speed limits of 35 miles per hour or less.
None of this means Americans are abandoning large vehicles. The EPA’s 2025 Automotive Trends Report found SUVs accounted for 60 percent of all vehicles produced in the US in model year 2024, and Cox Automotive’s June 2026 sales forecast showed full-size pickups and midsize SUVs still claiming more than 30 percent of the market.
