Canoo’s electric van is a triumph, and today Canoo revealed its second vehicle, what it is calling a multipurpose delivery vehicle. It looks kind of like the Tesla Cybertruck, if the Tesla Cybertruck were actually practical.
Canoo says that it will begin limited deliveries of this all-electric vanlike thing next year, with a full launch in 2023. It starts at $US33,000 ($43,316). Canoo says there will be three different battery options, 40 kWh, 60 kWh, and 80 kWh, which will get 130, 190, and 370 km of range, respectively, with slightly worse range on the MPDV2, a bigger version of the vehicle. Peak torque on the electric motor is 107 kg-ft.
Onboard will also be a 125/240 volt plug to run power equipment. The Canoo will compete with cars like the Ford E-Transit, as startups and legacy automakers alike try to capture the market for vehicles to be used in so-called last mile deliveries. That’s because deliveries are expected to skyrocket even after the pandemic is over, and electric delivery vans are well-suited for such work, given that range doesn’t have to be mind-blowing.
Still to come from Canoo: A truck and what looks like a small car or sedan.
“If this company was just a fancy electric car company, you know, that was selling a tricked-out $US300,000 ($393,780) electric vehicles, I’d be like, Cool, live your life,” the celebrity chef Roy Choi said in Canoo’s unveiling video.
Choi was highlighting what could set the MPDV apart, in that Canoo is the opposite of that description. And sure, Canoo still has a lot to deliver on — I’ll be pretty curious to see if that price holds, though more curious how much options will drive it up — but even aspiring to be the everyperson’s delivery vehicle is a start.