A minivan with the power of a BMW M3
The Zeekr MIX is a small electric minivan, sold in China since October 2024 for about $40,000. It has 422 horsepower, about the same as a BMW M3, and charges from 10% to 80% in 10.5 minutes.
Its odd feature is what’s missing. Open both side doors and nothing stands between them.
Where the pillar went
Most cars have a B-pillar between the front and rear doors. It holds up the roof in a rollover and protects the people inside in a side crash.
Zeekr moved it into the doors. Each door hides a steel column 1.3 meters long, made of 2,000 MPa hardened steel. When the doors close, they lock into the floor and roof like aircraft doors, and the columns become the pillar. These figures come from Zeekr.
How the columns are made
Seams are where very hard steel fails, so each column is made in one piece. The process is called hot-gas forming (热气胀成形, rè qì zhàng chéngxíng). Gas pressure blows a heated steel tube into a cold mold, which shapes and hardens it in one step. Aerospace makers use the same method for titanium parts.
Did it pass the crash tests?
Yes. At launch, Zeekr drove a 1.7-tonne car into the open side at 60 km/h, then dropped a 2.2-tonne shipping container onto the roof. The doors still opened after both.
Those were company demos. The independent test agrees: China’s C-NCAP gave the MIX five stars in 2024.
Doors that always open
The doors slide in opposite directions: the front one forward, the rear one back. Each has its own radar to spot obstacles.
If the power fails, a backup capacitor can still unlock them, and a mechanical release sits behind that. In 2025, China argued about electric door handles that failed in car fires. Doors that always open became a safety rule, and the MIX already had them.
A room, not a row
With the pillar gone, the side of the car opens onto a room. The front seats turn around to face the back seat, and the center console slides back to become a table. Zeekr called it a home that moves (移动的家, yídòng de jiā).
It was built for robotaxis first
The platform under the MIX was designed for driverless taxis before it was a family car. In a robotaxi, no driver helps you in, so the door has to be wide, low and easy to understand on its own. That explains every unusual choice in the MIX.
- 2022Zeekr and Waymo show a driverless taxi concept on this platform.
- Oct 2024The MIX goes on sale in China.
- 2025Zeekr starts building the robotaxi for Waymo in Ningbo.
- 2026Waymo names it the Ojai and starts carrying paying riders.
Almost nobody bought it
Buyers in China wanted six or seven seats in a minivan. The MIX has five, and its price sat between segments. By 2026, it sold single digits most months.
The lesson
The engineering worked. It served a customer who hadn’t arrived yet: a robotaxi fleet, not a family. Building for a customer who isn’t there is still overproduction.