Mark Hanchett is the founder and CEO of Atlis Motor Vehicles, but to hear him tell it, building a truck is almost an afterthought.
“The long-term vision for Atlis is much bigger than just vehicles and cells,” he said on Monday. “It's the vehicle and it's changing the world, it’s doing all those things, but how can I leverage this technology to do more than just sell a vehicle? How can I bring a holistic solution to the market that can drive value beyond just the vehicle itself?”
Atlis Motor Vehicles is based in Mesa and the company plans to build out three different pillars of technology: Energy, platform and vehicles. The energy business is all about batteries, platform refers to the vehicle chassis that Atlis will sell to other manufacturers or “coachbuilders” and vehicles are, obviously, the culmination of all this tech.
Atlis Motor Vehicles reveals XT pickup prototype
On Monday, the company unveiled the prototype for its XT pickup truck, an all-electric vehicle that will run on Atlis-built cube cells. Battery cells are the first way that Atlis plans to hit the market; the company said it has signed commitments for 24,000 battery packs and plans to start shipping by the end of this year.
Those battery sales alone would put the company into profitability next year, said Annie Pratt, president of Atlis Motor Vehicles.
Initial reservations
Drivers on Valley freeways may see the all-electric XT as soon as next year after the company fulfills its initial batch of 150 reservations. Atlis will have several model options available, with ranges of 300, 400 and 500 miles per charge and price points between $45,000 and $75,000.
The company has accrued 60,000 nonbinding reservations, the majority of which come from consumers, but Hanchett said the truck is really designed for work crews and for use as a fleet vehicle. Hanchett said that focus on work sets the company apart from other vehicle makers such as Tesla, Lordstown Motors and Rivian, which he described as “lifestyle” truck makers.
Atlis currently employs 42, but hopes to double that headcount in the coming months. The company works out of a 42,000-square-foot facility in Mesa where it plans to start manufacturing batteries later this year.
Once the battery business is up and running, Hanchett said they plan on building a greenfield vehicle factory in the coming years.
Crowdfunding campaigns
Since the startup has yet to begin production, it has been running crowdfunding equity campaigns to fuel the business. Of the company's 60,000 nonbinding reservations from would-be customers, 13,000 of them have equity in the company.
The company has already raised nearly $17 million from accredited and nonaccredited investors in its previous campaigns, and Atlis's current public fundraising aimed to bring in an additional $5 million. The company had raised most of that goal as of Monday and the drive ends on Oct. 1.
Venture capitalists have been funding deals at a record pace in 2021, but Hanchett said raising funds directly from would-be customers helped the company understand exactly what users want in the truck.
“A lot of companies that raise a lot of VC money, and then they don't really understand what they're building, whether or not they have validation in the market," he said. "What Altis has been able to do from day one is get validation in the market. There are people that will hate us for it.”
Atlis has demonstrated that its fast-charging battery can go from empty to a full charge in just 15 minutes, but that speedy charging won’t be available to everyday users.
That charging speed relies on a 1.5 megawatt generator, which far exceeds what people typically have in their homes. The company instead hopes to build out its own charging infrastructure and deploy it sometime next year.
Car startups in Arizona have not exactly had a stellar record in recent years. Elio Motors, a company that hopes to build a three-wheeled car, announced a pivot to electric earlier this month, but public records paint a tough outlook for the company.
Nikola Corp., a Phoenix-based EV startup, saw its founder resign last year after allegations of fraud surfaced. The company admitted its prototype was actually rolling downhill in a 2018 promotional video and not actually running on its own. Since then, Nikola has gone public and projects delivering its first vehicles later this year after inking other key deals related to production.
On Monday in Mesa, Hanchett warned that the Atlis team had recently broken several of the gearboxes on the prototype and that the vehicle may not move. Hanchett said the prototype isn’t perfect but that it demonstrates the company’s intention and capabilities. He got behind the wheel, gave it a jolt, and the truck did move, but only a few inches.
