Canoo, the EV automaker startup recently unveiled one of its beautiful-looking pickup truck which resembles a toy unless its a giant one. The EV industry seems to be the new gold rush and the SUV/Truck EV market is getting really competitive with big cars like Tesla’s Cybertruck or the Hummer EV and there are others like Rivian, the Ford F-150 EV.

The unique design aesthetics of the Canoo truck should help it stand out just like the weird-looking Cybertruck when it debuted back in 2019.

Canoo made it known that it will start taking preorders later on this year even though there isn’t any detail about the pricing of the vehicle just yet.

The startup is also reportedly in talks with other states for a “microfactory” where a contract manufacturer would build the vehicles.

The toyish truck shows just how far Canoo is willing to push the design of the microbus-style vehicle it first debuted back in 2019, which it originally planned to sell on a subscription-only basis.

The company is now publicly traded and has continued to evolve in the EV market as the company repurposed the company towards selling commercial vehicles based on the original van design and technology that powers it.

But all of that doesn’t mean Canoo is exactly done trying to make vehicles for regular consumers. This new truck sort of bridges the two sets of customers, thanks in part to being loaded up with all sorts of utility features.

The Canoo EV pickup comes with a lot of components for hauling cargos all around. There are different extensions at different parts of the pickup which can be pulled out and utilized.

To further make this an ultimate utility vehicle for hauling stuffs around, the Canoo pickup comes with a number of power outlets (120V and USB) which are located on the inside of the bed and its storage compartments.

There are in fact promo images that show the truck decked out in a roof rack and, in a bid to capitalize on the booming “van life” market, an “overlander” trim with a camper shell and a pop-up tent.

This is all in keeping with the vision of Canoo’s original vehicle, which was decked out in pegboards on the inside that the company imagined people could use to customize and personalize the vehicle.

The truck is also built to be modular and can therefore be customized in several ways which can make the EV much useful to small businesses which is essentially the target of the company according to its chairman Tony Aquila.

“When the working person sees this they go, ‘I can have a better quality of life with this vehicle, and I can get a return on capital.’ And every one of these areas is a space to create a return on capital, which is why we spent so much money to develop the most intelligent [truck] bed,” Aquila said in a video announcing the truck. (Canoo spent $47 million on research and development in 2018, $137 million in 2019, and $52 million through the first three quarters of 2020, according to a recent government filing.)

“That was our dream, to make sure that we had a vehicle that brought a truck to the market that just really shocked people just from the visual, and then to the functional,” Aquila said in the video. “This is for America. This is what built America, anyways.”

The Caboo truck will be built on the same platform as other EVs proposed by the company and that translates to sharing the same specifications across a number of models.

The highest-cost all-wheel-drive truck will have around 600 horsepower and more than 200 miles of range, while the lower cost versions will get closer to 100 miles of range and feature a single motor in the rear. (Aquila told Reuters he thinks Canoo can find a way to up the range to 300 miles by the time it’s released.) The truck also uses the same brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire system Canoo developed for its other vehicles, which reduces complexity.

With this underlying technology, Canoo’s able to create different cars based on the platform all which is said to have caught the attention of Apple at some point when the iPhone maker was contemplating the acquisition of Canoo.