Hyundai and Canoo announced today the establishment of a joint venture (JV) to develop a standardized, scalable electric vehicle platform to underpin future Hyundai and Kia vehicles, but buried in the release was a hint at a completely new market segment for the Korean automaker: purpose-built vehicles.
Purpose built vehicles are vehicles designed for a specific application, like last-mile delivery, autonomous shuttles, and chauffeur-driven luxury vehicles.
These vehicles are designed from the start with a specific application in mind, and because of the standardization efforts up front, they can be produced at scale at a much lower price point than could otherwise be achieved.
Canoo Headquarters in Torrance, California already has a number of 3D-printed, purpose-built vehicle designs waiting in the rafters, and it was not only the potential Hyundai saw in the skateboard, but the full vision of an army of fully electric last-mile delivery vehicles, autonomous shuttles, and chauffeur-driven luxury vehicles can also be seen.
Last-mile delivery vehicles are infamously inefficient, with a high number of starts and stops per route, and the increasing number of miles per day they rack up, makes them juicy targets for conversion to electric vehicles and we may soon see Hyundai delivery vehicles underpinned by a Canoo skateboard.
Reference- Clean Technica, Canoo website, HyundaiPR