Hmm. I’ve had and lives out of a couple different microvans. Have a special place for vws, and was excited by the idea they were doing an electric microbus again, but I can help feel they missed the mark the mark on this. The the thing that makes driving these kinds of vehicles a pleasure (and not a mini van or cargo van experience), is how far forward you are in the cockpit. Old vws and the 60s vintages of American vans in this style out you right in front, giving you excellent visibility. You can practically look down the front of the van while driving. There was also an emphasis on visibility throughout the vans with lots of windows, so that as a touring vehicle, you don’t miss out on sights no matter where you are.

Vw example:

Ford example:

Looking at the interior they’ve got a bunch of bars and supports that interfere with the view and I’m sure interrupt that sense of ‘open’ freedom you get. Also, there is a lot of dashboard. I’m still excit d about more camper style evs, but when I compare it to the Canoo.

The Canoo made several design choices to intentionally act on that sense of openness these kinds of vans are meant to create. First, the made the wild design choices of making practically the entire front end windows. Also, you are very far forward in this vehicle as driver. They put the instrument panel to the side so it doesn’t interupt your forward view. All the interior viewing space if the van is practically windows. Then, instead of making the rear row into jump seats, they made the rear row the legit seats, and the mid seats are the jump seats. So no mid row of seats to interupt your view from forward or aft. Then finally, the whole god damn roof is basically a moon roof. Literally every design choice on this vehicle was made to empanadas openness.

So we’ll see.