MESA, AZ — 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.
On Monday, the company unveiled the prototype for its XT-1 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.
