No, this is not a Duplo toy – what you see above (and in the versions below) is the design for a pickup truck from the California electric vehicle Canoo.
Unveiled in a leak on Reddit on Wednesday, and subsequently confirmed Reuters, the spinning EV truck should only be out by 2023. By that time, Tesla’s Cybertruck, the electric Hummer pickup, Ford’s electric F-150 and Rivian’s EV pickup would all be on the way. Canoo said it would start taking a pre-order for its pickup later this year, but did not disclose the pricing details. The start-up is apparently also in talks with other states for a ‘micro-factory’ where a contract manufacturer would build the vehicles.
The toy truck shows how far Canoo is willing to push the design of the microbus-style vehicle it first launched in 2019, which was originally planned to sell only on a subscription basis.
However, Canoo has undergone many changes since launching the first vehicle. It is now a stock exchange business after merging with a special purpose acquisition company in late 2020. The new executive chairman also focuses on selling commercial vehicles based on the original order design and the technological platform that can drive it.
But all this does not mean that Canoo is exactly ready to make vehicles for ordinary consumers. This new truck bridges the two sets of customers, thanks in part to its full-featured features.
There are foldable and fold-out work surfaces on the Canoo pickup, with one in the nose of the vehicle and one on the side of the truck bed. There is an extension that pulls out to make the bed a few feet longer. There are power points (120V and USB) that pin the inside of the bed and the storage rooms. Promo images also show how the truck was decorated in a roof rack, and to take advantage of the booming “van life” market, an “overlander” decoration with a camper shell and a doll- uptent.
This is all in line with the vision of Canoo’s original vehicle, which was decorated on the inside of the pin plates that the company suggested people could customize and personalize the vehicle. And the ability to use the modular features of the new truck in so many different ways – and to adapt it to the order from the start – is what Tony Aquila, the new CEO of the startup, hopes to make it a big selling point for small businesses and more adventurous. consumers targeting Canoo.
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‘When the working person sees this, they go,’ I can have a better quality of life with this vehicle, and I can get a return on capital. ‘And each of these areas is a space to create a return on capital, which is why we have spent so much money to develop the most intelligent. [truck] bed, ”Aquila said in a video announcing the truck. (Canoo spent $ 47 million on research and development in 2018, $ 137 million in 2019 and $ 52 million in the first three quarters of 2020, according to a recent government dossier.)
The sloping roof of the truck also follows Canoo’s original vehicle, although it is a much more well-known design for a van. Fortunately for Canoo, Tesla has already begun to expand the public’s imagination about what a pickup can look like.
“It was our dream to make sure we had a vehicle that brought a truck to market that really shocked people, just from the visual and then to the functional,” Aquila said in the video. “It’s for America. That’s what America built, anyway. ‘
Canoo’s truck will be built on the same platform that drives the company’s other proposed vehicles, meaning it has largely the same specifications in a number of configurations. The cheapest four-wheel drive truck has reached about 600 horsepower and more than 200 miles, while the lower cost versions will have reached closer to 100 miles and have a single car at the rear. (Aquila tells Reuters he thinks Canoo can find a way to increase the distance to 300 miles by the time it is released.) The truck also uses the same brake-for-wire and steering-for-wire system that Canoo has for its other vehicles developed, which reduces the complexity.
These technologies have made it possible for startups to link so many different designs to the same underlying technology platform. These are also things that attracted the interest of Apple, which at one point wanted to acquire Canoo The edge reported exclusively earlier this year.
Update March 10, 21:58 ET: Details added from the Reuters report.