Do European plates need to be mounted by the manufacturer/seller?

In the US we get plates mailed to us all the time, and we install them ourselves.

What does highway capable mean in US terms?

In the USA there is a vehicle class called NEV, Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, that are restricted to 25 mph ~ 40 kph and local city streets, and my understanding is that in Japan the kei class have similar restrictions, though not quite so onerous. Though the i-Miev did sell in the US and was highway capable, so I don’t claim that kei cars can’t be.

I am not sure what all of the requirements are to move a vehicle out of the NEV category and into the general purpose motor vehicle category. It wouldn’t surprise me if crash test standards factored in somehow. And, obviously, it has to be able to reach highway speeds.

I say that it needs to be highway capable to be successful in the US because US suburbs tend to be connected by highways, and any time you want to go somewhere you need to get on a 55 mph road. For example I do that to get to the grocery store 2 miles away. Sometimes you can stick to slower streets but not always; my local quiet country roads are 45 mph so a NEV wouldn’t be allowed on them.

I like small utility vehicles, and there is a small market for these; I know of multiple places that use 25 year old imported kei vans. But to sell more than hundreds in the US they need to be highway capable and that’s a big hurdle.

short distance is meaningless.

I think you mean “short distance is not enough to overcome the other challenges to electrifying farming equipment.”

Short distance is actually hugely meaningful when talking about electrification. Local fleets tied to a base station are much easier to electrify because the base station can be equipped to provide them with power, and you don’t need a distributed charging network.

It’s been done with batteries. The idea is that they take energy from the grid at a low cheap rate (sometimes from solar panels) and then when a car comes by, discharge rapidly into it. There are multiple vendors with battery backed DCFC.

It cannot be overstated how important electric scooters will be for developing markets in Asia and Africa in the coming years.

I’ll take a shot: Electric scooters in Asia will eliminate anthropogenic climate change singlehandedly.

Not only that, but they will be the key to trillions of people in Asia and Africa achieving immortality. Our transhuman future begins with them! Soon humanity will literally spread our wings (made of energy – clean energy) as we set out to explore our galaxy, and it will all be thanks to electric scooters.

Large scale air transport isn’t going to benefit from electric flight until they switch to zeppelins or we somehow master beamed power from space. The difference in energy density between batteries and combustible fuel is simply too great. If commercial aviation is going to become carbon neutral in our lifetimes it’s going to be through carbon neutral fuels. Can those be made cheap enough? Maybe.

General aviation on the other hand (“doctor killers”) could go electric. The range requirements and the size of the aircraft are much smaller. We already have solar powered drone aircraft; scaling those up to something that can hold a small number of people is a matter of refining the technology, which engineers do very well.

Maybe, like gliders and rockets, we’ll solve the BEV aircraft problem by using multiple stages: a tow plane with enough battery and engine power to get the plane aloft will spend most of its energy at the source airport doing that, and once at altitude it will disengage and return. That would greatly decrease the amount of battery that the main aircraft would need.

Or maybe the first stage is a zeppelin? I still don’t think you could have a BEV 737-sized vehicle but that might work with a smaller but still commercially-sized aircraft.

I’ve really been growing into mine. As long as I don’t need to transport more than two people or anything particularly bulky, it’s met my needs perfectly, and it seems like I’ve been able to fix everything that was about to break. It helps that it shares so many parts with the regular 500.

Though I do have some range anxiety. I’m going to have an activity this winter that’s 24 miles away that I’m nervous about. If the updated one had 50% more range that would be perfect for me.

There are definitely some things that look nice about this vehicle. But it really needs to be about four feet less long, a foot less tall and wide, half as much ground clearance, normal 15" tires, and half or less the weight. Oh, and 1/3 the price. To gain all that I’d be willing to give up half the range and probably some of the luxury features.

As many have said, you’re probably OK, but check your specific model to be sure.

My specific model, the 500e, is reportedly susceptible to 12V battery degradation; some model years really want the voltage to be close to 12V and as the battery ages and the voltage drops to 11.8 or 11.7 or lower, it can cause the car to stop working unexpectedly. Some owners report 12V batteries needing replacement every two years. So I bought a bluetooth battery monitor and attached it to the 12V, and now whenever I walk near my car or past the garage I get a notification on my phone that the voltage is still a-ok.

Another marvelous vehicle that will never be sold in the USA. Alas.