Man ships $1,000 Alibaba boat from China to Miami and gets a major surprise when he unboxes it
Published on Sep 03, 2026 at 6:06 AM (UTC+4)
by Ben Thompson
Last updated on Sep 03, 2026 at 6:06 AM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Mason Jones
When this American man had a $1,000 Alibaba boat shipped into Miami from China, what he found inside left him stunned.
Micah Toll, who hosts the YouTube channel EbikeSchool, has plenty of experience with ordering stuff from China.
Usually, it was vehicles of the four-wheeled variety.
So now that he was ordering in an electric boat, what could he expect to find when he unboxed it?
Alibaba is a treasure trove of weird and wonderful stuff
If you want something and have the funds for it, chances are you can find it on the internet.
And never has that been more true than with Alibaba.
There’s no shortage of nifty things on there, from ‘Range Rovers’ to ‘Bugattis’.
And perhaps no man is better versed on the various products lurking on the Chinese site than Micha Toll, the man behind the YouTube channel EbikeSchool.
He’s taken a look at tons of various Chinese imports in his time as a YouTuber, from electric trucks to mini excavators to cheap EVs.
This time around, it’d be a boat that he’d be taking a closer look at.
What was lying in store for this man who bought a $1,000 Alibaba boat?
On paper, it doesn’t sound quite right, does it?
A boat for $1,000? There’s got to be some sort of catch, you might think.
Well, there was only way to find out.
Toll set about opening up the box that encased the boat with the help of his dad.
The boat itself was serviceable but limited, with very low power meaning this would probably be better suited for a pond or a lake than a moving river.
But what really took his attention was the sheer number of life jackets contained within the boat.
Now, you might be thinking that this is standard health and safety.
Nobody would be opposed to life jackets being included with a boat, but all in all, there were 10 life jackets in this five seater boat.
Whoever packed this delivery was very safety-conscious, that’s all we’ll say.
Not that that’s a bad thing.
What updates has he added to the boat?
In a video uploaded in November 2024, Toll provided an update on what he’d been up to since he unboxed the boat a year earlier.
It’s safe to say that he’d made some changes.
He’d purchased a $200 Minn Kota trolling motor and modified it to fit the boat’s dimensions, replacing the original rusted rudder.
This enabled thrust-vector steering.
Out on the water, they noticed that the boat was much faster and made less noise.
However, removing the original rudder had eliminated straight-line tracking, meaning it oversteered and felt like ‘driving a car on ice’.
But on the whole, he was happy about the boat, particularly because he’d added some polar panels.
“The new motor is much, much more powerful—increasing the top speed from about one or two knots to around five knots,” he said.
“And with the solar panels, I never have to worry about charging the boat again.”
Solar-panel boats must be the in-thing at the moment, especially if this man from Finland is anything to go by.
Ben joined Supercar Blondie in February 2025 after being published by international organizations including LADbible, The Sun, the New York Post, and the Daily Mail. He covers supercars, rare and collectible vehicles, aviation, luxury assets, and the fascinating people behind them. His reporting has explored everything from seven-figure supercars and historic Ferrari collections to unusual aircraft adventures and extraordinary automotive discoveries from around the world. Ben has also gained first-hand insight into vehicle craftsmanship and customization, including visiting specialist workshops to see bespoke vehicles up close.
