Exclusive: Microlino EV bubble car on sale in UK this year

Swiss firm Microlino will begin selling its Isetta-inspired electric quadricycle in the UK imminently, Autocar can reveal.

The company is currently advertising a vacancy for a UK country manager, who will be responsible for establishing a sales infrastructure and a marketing strategy for the Microlino.

Co-founder Oliver Ouboter told Autocar that the brand will begin sales “before the summer” and it aims to launch its retail network by partnering with an existing dealer franchise.

The Microlino was first unveiled at the 2016 Geneva motor show and entered production six years later. The company has since launched across continental Europe and built its 1000th example of the bubble car in June 2023 but it has yet to launch in the UK.

Ouboter cited Brexit as the reason for its delayed UK launch. He said: “We needed to understand how we do it with logistics, importing and so on. After careful analysis, we decided that we see a huge potential in the UK.”

The bubble car has the same heavy-quadricycle (L7e) classification as the old Renault Twizy, meaning that although it is only marginally larger than a Citroën Ami, it offers a much more useful 17bhp motor and has a 56mph top speed.

The Microlino can be had with battery packs of 5.5kWh, 10.5kWh or 15.0kWh, corresponding to claimed ranges of 58 miles, 110 miles and 142 miles.

It mimics the Isetta’s front-mounted door, but unlike its spiritual forebear, the Microlino has a reverse gear, so drivers are not trapped when parking forward against a wall.

The target, Ouboter said, is to make 300 UK deliveries by the end of 2024. He said: “We consider that a decent start. It takes some time to get the vehicle known, launch everything, and we are a small company so we don't have a huge marketing budget.”

He added that the UK could eventually become one of Microlino’s top three markets. “I think there could be several thousand vehicles that we sell in the UK, but of course it will go step by step,” said Ouboter. “It will not be from one year to the next but will take several years.”