Canoo Unveils Electric Pickup Truck 

EV start-up which even piqued the interest of Apple, Canoo, has unveiled a new electric pickup truck which will come out by 2023. Of course, Canoo is late to the EV pickup truck party as offerings like the Ford F-150 pickup, the Rivian R1T and the Tesla Cybertruck all arriving in 2021/2022. However, the car which Canoo has showed off has a very unique design language which could appeal to people even if int comes late. Canoo is in talks with some states in the US for micro factories where a contract manufacturer could make the vehicles. The truck comes at a time where the startup is also willing to push the launch of its microbus for the same which was first unveiled in 2019. The plan for the microbus was to be sold in a subscription format. 

The new pickup truck as completely modular design

Canoo of course is now a publicly traded company after it merged with a special purpose acquisition company. The new executive chairman, Tony Aquila, has refocussed the energies of the team towards selling commercially viable vehicles and in the EV space a pick up truck is exactly that. 

It was also interested in licensing its technology platform also called the skateboard. It even attracted Apple for the same, however, Apple wanted to fully acquire it while Canoo preferred its independence. 

The new truck has a multiple fold down and flip up work surfaces with one in the nose of the vehicle and another on the side of the truck bed. It even has an extension that can be pulled out to make the bed a few feet longer. There are power outlets -- 120 volts and USB inside the bed and the storage compartments. 

The big story around the truck is its modular nature which goes beyond any pickup truck that's in the pipeline. People can also customise it before ordering. 

It has the underpinnings of its skateboard platform

“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 every one of these areas is a space to create a return on capital, which is why we spent so much money to develop the most intelligent [truck] bed,” Tony Aquila, Canoo's executive chairman said in a video announcing the truck.

“That was our dream, to make sure that we had a vehicle that brought a truck to the market that just really shocked people just from the visual, and then to the functional,” Aquila added. 

It has been reported that it will be built on the same platform which has been used for some of the other proposed vehicles by the company. It also largely shares the same specs and configurations. The highest cots all-wheel-drive variant will have around 600 bhp and 320 kilometres of range though Aquila admitted that the team is figuring out a way to extend the range to 480 kilometres by the time the vehicle launches.