Canoo Reveals Minecraftian-Designed Electric Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle

In recent years it was Bollinger and its B2 pickup truck that reminded us of just how unnecessarily fancy our rounded cars are, with Tesla's Cybertruck somehow following suit - though the angles of that design were a little more on the flashy side.

If you think back long enough - well, as long as memory will serve you - there are other examples as well. A very good one that shouldn't put too much strain on anyone's brain to recollect is the Volvo 240 wagon (and the 850 as well), a model that, not at all coincidentally, was known as the "Volvo Box Car".

Considering the footprint of a vehicle is roughly rectangular, it makes perfect sense that a parallelepiped is the best way to maximize the use of space once you go into three dimensions. For once, squarer means better. Carmakers have known this for ages, yet they always tried to make their designs less threatening to the human eye by rounding things off just a little.

Not Canoo, though. The startup has just taken the wraps off its second product, and the first thing that goes through your mind the first time you see it is "how did I end up in Minecraft?" It's called the "Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle" and try as you might, you won't come up with a better name.

Canoo has been around for a few years fiddling and it already had one other EV available for pre-ordering. That was a lifestyle vehicle named Lifestyle Vehicle - gotta hand it to them, they know how to name their products - that would only be available on subscription because future people don't want to own their cars anymore. Or so we're told.

The MPDV, on the other hand, is aimed at business owners (big or small) and has a price attached to it (starting at $33,000). Like the Lifestyle Vehicle and in true Canoo spirit, the MPDV is designed from the inside out. That means it's built primarily to fulfill a large range of needs, from delivering stuff to morphing into a food truck or just a mobile stand at a food market. You only need to look at its frame and notice how it's reinforced on the left side, but not on the right where a food truck would have its opening.

The company plans to offer the electric van in two versions: the MPDV 1 and MPDV 2 (we're telling you, the naming is on another level). The MPDV1 is smaller (200 cu ft/5.66 cubic meters of cargo space, 6.2'/189 cm tall, 1,980 lbs/898 kg max payload), but has a longer range - between 130 and 230 miles (210-370 km). The MPDV 2 is larger (400 cu ft/11.32 cubic meters of cargo space, 8.4'/256 cm tall) but has a lower range of between 90 and 190 miles (145 to 305 km) and a lower maximum payload of 1,760 lbs (798 kg).

As boxy as the MPDV undeniably is, that doesn't mean it has no design value whatsoever. The team put some effort into giving the electric van some stylistic value, and the way the lights (both front and rear) curve around the edge to the side is actually quite a nice touch. The glossy finish also gives it a high-tech and premium feel, which is something it didn't need to have, but it's nice that it does.

We'll have to wait and see whether Canoo manages to get a foothold into the automotive market, or will go down as one more startup that, ironically enough given the nature of the MPDV, failed to deliver. As it stands, the offer sounds pretty good and we expect to see more and more last-mile delivery EVs over the coming years.