If you’ve ever come across a YouTube Shorts video where a small remote control car drives into a grocery store, picks up a banana, and drives back out like it’s on a mission? You’ve probably witnessed what’s known as an RC shopping car, or rather RC shopping cart. This cool and clever concept has taken off on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, thanks to creative creators like Kael Schoerlin, who amassed almost three million subscribers on his YouTube channel. But what exactly is an RC Shopping Car, and why is everyone so addicted to watching the videos?
How Does an RC Shopping Car Work?
At its core, an RC shopping car, also known as an RC car shopping, is a small-scale remote-controlled car, equipped with a first-person-view (FPV) camera, that allows someone to control it from a distance while seeing what the car sees. But instead of just driving around in open parking lots or off-road trails, these drivers have taken things to the next level by sending their RC cars inside real-life stores to shop for items. It’s kinda like a video game meets real life. The cars often have a small shopping basket mounted on top to carry stuff like snacks, fruit, or even Meta Quest VR goggles.
The Skill Behind the Scenes
One of the coolest parts is how the drivers operate them. They wear FPV goggles or use a remote monitor to view a live video feed from the car’s FPV camera, so it feels like they’re literally inside the car, navigating aisles, dodging people, and trying to complete their mission without getting stopped. The whole thing is both novel and impressive, cause it takes real skill to drive one of these cars through a crowded store without getting motion sickness.
Meet the Star: Kael Schoerlin
Kael Schoerlin is the pioneer of this style. His channel features crazy builds and long-range RC cars that can drive deep into shopping centers or city streets while he controls them from blocks away. He adds fun narration and reactions that make the videos even more entertaining.
His amazing exploits have churned multiple copy-cats, such as Dust House, which is based in South Korea, as well as RCxrides and RC Warrior, both based in India. RC Warrior only began its RC shopping endeavors in August 2024, and has now surpassed 632,0000 subscribers with 252,845,174 total views at the time of this writing. Some go beyond shopping by just driving around while handing out free gifts on the streets. All these creators have gained millions of views and tons of fans who can’t wait to see what they’ll send their cars to do next.
Why Are These Videos So Popular?
What started as a niche hobby for RC hobbyists has now become a full-on entertainment genre. And honestly, it’s easy to see why. The idea of doing everyday things like shopping, but using a robotic car instead of going in yourself, is just cool and funny enough to go viral. Plus, now that YouTube pays creators for Shorts, it’s not just for laughs anymore; people are actually earning money from these videos.
How do They Make Money?
When YouTube Shorts was first launched, video creators were not able to monetize their 1-minute videos from ads. That soon changed at the annual Google Marketing Live event in May 2022, where Google announced that creators who are part of the YouTube Partner Program can earn a share of revenue from those ads in the Shorts feed. Shorts creators then started getting a cut of the ad revenue from February 1, 2023 onwards.
Today, you too can make some income by producing short videos on YouTube about RC shopping. However, do note that in order to qualify for revenue-sharing on the ads, you need to be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) by having at least 1,000 subscribers and 10 million short video views in the last 90 days. Once eligible, creators can earn a share of revenue from ads shown between Shorts in the Shorts feed. YouTube collects this ad revenue into a shared pool, from which it first deducts certain costs, such as music licensing. The remaining amount is then distributed to eligible creators based on their Shorts’ view counts, with creators receiving 45% of their allocated share, while YouTube retains 55%.
According to BlueHost, a Shorts creator could make up to $30 from 100,000 views. Surpassing this number can be a walk in the park since an RC shopping video can obtain as many as 50 million views! That would result in $500 to $15,000 income from just one single video alone.
Are You Too Late in The Game?
As long as you continue to be creative, you will not be too late. RC shopping car is just the tip of the iceberg. There are still so many ways you can use an RC car to produce addictive videos for the global eyes to see. Some have tried different use cases and have been rewarded with massive views.
- Delivering a love letter – 2 million views
- Delivering flowers – 70k views
- Proposal – 120k views
- Feeding animals – 40k views
How to Build an RC Shopping Car
The heart of an RC shopping car is the First Person View (FPV) system. It provides the operator with a real-time visual feed from the car to the operator’s location. This system comes in two categories: analog or digital. An analog system offers better affordability with farther range, while a digital FPV system is more expensive but with better video quality and lesser range.
If you’re familiar with RC cars and drone FPV technology, then you could probably build one yourself. But you still need some electronics skills, such as microcontroller programming and designing a circuit on a PCB (printed circuit board).
However, do note that the performance of FPV systems designed for aerial drones often degrades significantly when used on ground-based vehicles. This is primarily due to multipath propagation, a phenomenon where radio signals reflect off multiple surfaces, such as walls, shelves, or pedestrians, before reaching the remote receiver. These reflected signals arrive at different times, causing interference and signal degradation, leading to video lag, dropped frames, or complete loss of signal. Consequently, a typical FPV system optimized for airborne operations may not provide sufficient range or reliability for navigating complex indoor environments, limiting the operational distance of the RC car.
Operational range makes a tremendous difference for an RC shopping car because the concept quickly loses its coolness factor if people can spot the human operator controlling the vehicle nearby. Thus, selecting the most optimized technology (frequency, protocol, electronic devices, etc) to achieve the longest range is critical to the success of your RC car shopping undertakings.
Building a remote-controlled RC shopping car isn’t as simple as it might seem. It takes a solid mix of skills like electronics, mechanical design, radio communication, and software. That’s why putting one of these things together isn’t a weekend DIY project for most people. We know because we tried. It took us many months to precisely engineer our own RC shopping vehicle. If you’re serious about creating a good-quality RC car shopping system, teaming up with professionals like us is usually the smartest and cost-effective way to go.
More Than Just a Hobby
In the end, an RC shopping car is more than just a toy or hobby. It’s a mix of engineering, creativity, and humor, with a potential for an income stream. The sky is the limit on how far you can push the limits of what an RC car can do. Whether you’re an aspiring YouTuber, a coffee shop owner looking for creative ways to deliver coffee, or just an entrepreneur, operating your own RC car shopping vehicle is worth a try. And who knows, you may become the next remote control car legend.
