Atlis electric truck startup has big plans, bootstrap budget

Good News Notes:

“Atlis Motors CEO Mark Hanchett drives a 3/4-ton diesel pickup. He also owns a Tesla Model 3. But he admits he likes driving the pickup more. 

With the Arizona-based electric-truck company he founded, Hanchett says his goal is partly to surpass what his diesel truck can do today, but with a whole line of vehicles offering a ‘seamless, clean ownership experience.’

‘I want to build things that make people’s lives better,’ Hanchett said last month, at the close of a wide-ranging conversation with Green Car Reports.

The start of that will be a crowdfunded product in an untapped market, aiming to provide the same level of towing and hauling capability as that heavy-duty pickup he owns, with a fast and consistent charging experience.

It’s a daunting product in and of itself, but behind that looms a big, seemingly impossible vision. Hanchett’s team is working on a truck, the XT, capable of towing 35,000 pounds or carrying a 5,000-pound payload, and offering up to 500 miles of range. It’s also aiming to conceive a 1.5-megawatt charging network that’s capable of bringing that truck from 0-100% in 15 minutes— ‘that’s as simple to operate as filling up your gas vehicle today or plugging in a Tesla vehicle,’ explains the company’s site. 

To allow all of this, it’s also seeking to develop a new battery cell format (something Tesla is just now tackling), to be placed in an unproven multi-voltage battery layout. 

The company’s vehicle and technology platform will host plug-and-play modules in a vastly simplified but unconventional layout that will apply to forthcoming vehicles as well as the XT.

At face value, it’s the kind of undertaking that sounds like it could bankrupt a legacy automaker. Or from the flip side, to speculators, such a grand vision in developed form could rival Tesla, Rivian, and others, provided Atlis is sitting on game-changing technology. There’s no evidence of that, however.

Hanchett is like no other CEO I’ve interviewed in 20 years of tracking automotive startups. He has a detail or anecdote on the ready for each potential obstacle, and impresses as both down-to-earth and enthusiastic—as well as blithely optimistic.

As is customary in crowdfunding, a price has been given for the product before the bulk of development. An XT pickup truck will serve as the launch vehicle and flagship—starting at $45,000, with a 10,000-pound tow rating and a 125-kwh pack with an alleged 300-mile range. The top 500-mile model will cost $78,000 with the gooseneck/5th-wheel setup required for 35,000-pound towing. 

Atlis hasn’t backed away from a targeted late 2021 arrival—although Hanchett has said that a ‘scalable product’ with the $45,000 price might be nearly three years out from now. Atlis started crowdfunding in January 2018 and then targeted 100 pickups delivered to early customers, with the first pickups complete rather than “beta” efforts. 

For the Atlis XT, Hanchett pointed to a focus on ‘vehicle upfitters and the forgotten markets that are out there for electrification.’”

View the whole story here: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1131139_crowdfunded-electric-truck-hopeful-atlis-has-a-super-size-vision-dollar-menu-budget

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