Hyundai Reveals Future Skateboard EV Platform

Hyundai Motor Group has a new pure-electric vehicle development partner, and it's one you may never have heard of: Canoo. Based in Los Angeles, Canoo is relatively new to the scene, working to develop electric vehicles intended solely for subscription rather than individual ownership. The startup has created its own proprietary flexible "skateboard" EV architecture - one good enough, apparently, to capture Hyundai's attention.

In the future, Hyundai and Canoo will jointly develop a new fully scalable, pure-electric platform capable of accommodating an array of different vehicle sizes and body styles.

"Skateboard" EV platforms like the one Hyundai Motor Group will develop with Canoo incorporate the batteries, drive motor(s), suspension, and other components into a single vertically compact package that can be adapted to suit numerous vehicle designs. Canoo's architecture was developed with a particular emphasis on functional integration - that is, deriving as many uses as possible from each included component.

An example of that might be a battery pack housing serving as a structural crossmember, lending its own strength and rigidity to the vehicle chassis, as seen in a Ford patent application thatwe uncovered recently.

Hyundai Motor Group's current battery-electric vehicle models - cars like theHyundai Kona EVand克钦独立军尼罗电动车- don't ride on dedicated EV platforms, let along flexible skateboard architectures.