Nauseatingly-punctuated German e-bike brand Car.Los is now selling the V1 – the folding long john e-cargo bike it first unveiled at Eurobike in 2023. Two versions are available with the more expensive ‘Full’ model boasting a collapsible cargo basket.

E-cargo bikes are wonderful things, but they do tend to be quite large – not as big as a car, obviously, but pretty sizeable if you’re looking to store one inside a building.

> Best electric cargo bikes – bikes to replace your car and carry plenty

To address this, Car.Los hit upon the idea of making a 2m-long, 34kg, front-loading e-cargo bike with a hinge in the middle so that it can be made more compact for storage.

The handlebars fold down too, as does the “Vario-Basket” front carrier thing. In its compact form, the bike’s footprint is just 108cm x 44cm.

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CARLOS-Model-V-Folding-small (Image Credit: Carlos)

Car.Los somewhat optimistically suggests this makes the V1 ideal for multimodal commuters, on the basis that, “it can be easily carried in a car, train or public transport.”

We don’t imagine that would be quite as straightforward as they make out, but we’ve few qualms about its credentials as an e-cargo bike.

Front-loaders are appealing to those who prefer to keep an eye on their cargo and the Car.Los V1 can carry up to 65kg.

You get a Brose mid-motor offering up to 70Nm of torque to get you moving and this is teamed with a respectably-sized 522Wh battery which sits beneath the cargo container to help keep the centre of gravity low.

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Carlos V1 (Image Credit: Carlos)

The bike has Enviolo N380 Cargo stepless hub gears, Magura MT05 hydraulic disc brakes and a double kickstand for a bit of stability when loading.

The Car.Los V1 Full costs €5,199 and there’s also a Basic version without the cargo container which is available for €4,799. (We can’t see any other obvious differences, so that front basket costs a bob or two.)

As you’d imagine, folding e-cargo bikes are not that common, but we have reported on a few.

The Tern Vektron arguably qualifies, but it is a rear loader and not rated for anywhere near the same volume of cargo. The Dahon Foldable Cargo E-Bike is therefore perhaps a more obvious comparison – although being as it’s technically a trike, the folded package obviously ends up far larger.

There was also the Calendar Longtail Max. Sadly for those in the market for a longtail glow-in-the-dark folding e-cargo option, that one no longer seems to exist.