A Bottom-Up Approach To Cheaper, Next-Gen Electric Vehicles

REE Automotive thinks the way to get electric vehicles into the mainstream is to flatten things out–by using a skateboard platform that integrates the battery, motors and driving controls into a flush floor and allows for independent steering of wheels. And while this tech startup’s concept is radical, it’s finding support from traditional automotive partners.

The latest to sign on is Tokyo-based KYB Corp., one of the world’s biggest makers of shock absorbers. The companies said today they’ve formed a partnership to develop suspension capabilities for electric vehicles that will be built off of Tel Aviv-based REE’s platform. Financial details of the arrangement, the first EV project for KYB, weren’t disclosed. REE emerged from stealth mode in 2019 and is also working with Toyota-affiliated truckmaker Hino, Mitsubishi Corp. and FiatChrysler.

KYB is “excited to partner with REE Automotive and share its revolutionary EV vision by engineering a suspension subsystem that supports the needs of tomorrow’s mobility ecosystem,” Kazunori Masumoto, KYB’s general manager of engineering, said in a statement. 

For more than a decade, many companies have touted the benefits of standardized, flat undercarriages that could support multiple vehicle types, from sedans and crossovers to vans and commercial trucks, to dramatically eliminate costs to create individual platforms for each. Most recently, electric truck startup Rivian, automotive tech firm Canoo and the U.K.’s Arrival have promoted flat platforms for a range of battery-powered vehicles, but REE cofounder and CEO Daniel Barel says his company takes the approach even farther. 

“They’re great, but they are not skateboards. Only the middle is a skateboard,” Barel tells Forbes. The difference is how much battery REE’s design can accommodate and the complete integration of drive controls into the floor, he says. “We hold the most batteries per footprint than anybody else in the industry." 

Barel says his company, which is not building complete vehicles, intends to have its technology on the road in 2021. One possible version was shown in October at the Tokyo Motor Show by Hino, with its FlatFormer electric concept vehicle riding on an REE-based platform. The Japanese truckmaker showed variations of the concept modified to serve as delivery trucks, food service and sanitation vehicles, mobile offices and salons and even agricultural and sanitation trucks, with different tops riding on the platform.

“KYB’s technology will play a crucial role in the rapid development of our next-generation EV architecture, which reinvents the electric vehicle with a completely flat, scalable and fully modular platform, ready to carry the future of e-mobility,” Barel said.

Along with lowering development costs, electric vehicles using REE’s technology will be lighter and considerably more compact. “We’re not only 33% lighter, but we’re almost 70% smaller in footprint” relative to Tesla Model 3, with the same interior volume, Barel claims. The business plan would rely mainly on supplying its design to different companies, ranging from auto and truck manufacturers to delivery and logistics companies, that he declined to identify. 

To date, REE has raised “about $100 million” from investors and automotive partners, Barel said, without elaborating. That’s more than double the $40.2 million the company had raised through its Series C round in 2018, according to Crunchbase. Additional fundraising is planned for 2020, though he didn’t provide details. 

If REE or other startups can bring viable platforms to market, demand could be strong, says Gartner IT transportation tech analyst Mike Ramsey. “There's a lot of reasons to think that this would be super appealing. You've opened up the world of automakers very large, potentially, you know, with this platform approach,” he said. “But it does still require a lot of additional work–the crash testing, the assembly system and everything needed to support it.”     

Whether REE’s approach works in the real world remains to be seen, but it’s an approach that could help speed the slow shift away from conventional internal combustion engine designs if it helps make EVs easier to build and much cheaper. Barel sees flat platforms as doing just that. 

“To keep on building vehicles the same way we’ve been doing it for a hundred years doesn't make a lot of sense.”