The Canoo Anyroad creates a unique hybrid between a city car, sports-recreational vehicle, and a modern pickup truck

Calling the Anyroad a traditional pickup truck wouldn’t really be accurate, given its proportions and its designs, but it seems like the most sensible thing to call it. What IS the Canoo Anyroad, though? Well, it’s got elements of a city car, a pickup, a recreational vehicle, and an ATV. In short, it’s the perfect vehicle for living in a city apartment, a suburban home, or even the great outdoors.

The Canoo Anyroad’s real purpose lies in its name. Of course, one could just throw the word Truck into the name and call it a day, but the Anyroad really sort of blurs the lines between the different car categories. It comes with an incredibly minimalist design (in signature Canoo style) and even boasts of those iconic + shaped headlights and taillights (there’s a clever detail within them too that I’ll talk about later). The automobile exists in two parts (as visible in the image below) that separate into a car on the front, and a collapsible tent at the back. The car runs independently and comes with a bed that’s much shorter than the ones found on traditional pickup trucks. However, plug the folding tent-unit in and the Canoo Anyroad is complete; ready to be driven anywhere for a weekend getaway.

The Anyroad’s design balances the need to be in the outdoors along with the need to have a normal car that can still be driven around in the city. For the latter, the tent unit can be unplugged, while the two-seater truck’s sufficiently modern aesthetic makes it look like quite a natural on the city streets.

The tent-half can be set up either as a mobile shelter attached to the back of the car, or as a separate detached entity, made stable thanks to a fold-out stand. The tent itself is pretty easy to set up, as it expands almost like a bellow would to provide ample space for two people. There’s a small ladder to help people climb up into the shelter, and a tabletop surface on the opposite side, for storing your camping equipment or acting as a table for your meals. Storage panels on either side of the tent offer extra space to stash items like your luggage, medical kits, and other outdoor paraphernalia.

The headlight remains the Canoo Anyroad’s most impressive detail. While it serves its original purpose – of being a road-illuminating light for the car (and its branding element), the Anyroad’s headlights have a secondary purpose too. They detach from the car’s front, becoming portable lights that can then be used as torches/flashlights, or even floor lamps, thanks to a built-in tripod that lets the light stand erect. Conceptually, it’s an incredibly interesting concept, and just goes to show how committed the Anyroad is towards being the ideal vehicle for outdoor travel and recreational camping.

The Anyroad is the brainchild of automotive designer Jerrick Chow. Its existence is summed up by two words “Tranquility Always”, as it aims at providing a tranquil oasis, or a getaway from the chaos of a city’s bustling life. Canoo’s current line-up features a lifestyle vehicle, a pickup truck, and a delivery van. All of them cater to either city life, or outdoor off-road living, but not both. The Anyroad concept aims at bridging that gap, while utilizing Canoo’s advanced electric platform to power the vehicle.

Designer: Jerrick Chow

The Canoo Anyroad is a fan-made concept and has no relation to the Canoo brand. The use of the Canoo name and its brand elements are purely for representational purposes.

Canoo’s iconic headlights carry forward beautifully in this UberEats Delivery Scooter concept

I personally love it when logos have a bit of versatility. Like when they actually make sense beyond just the rules of branding. Remember Audi’s ‘4 Keys’ commercial? Or this Mercedes Redsun concept? When you make your viewer have an “A-ha!” moment, that’s just peak creativity to me, and that’s exactly why I love this Canoo scooter concept so damn much!

EV startup Canoo debuted just last year announcing a strategic partnership with Hyundai to change how car-ownership works. The strategy aimed at providing the car as a monthly service to owners instead of a one-time full-ownership model. This would allow multiple owners to use a limited number of cars as often as they’d need, and the car would be smart enough to customize itself based on their preferences… but I digress. What was immediately memorable about the Canoo car was its design language, and specifically its headlights, which served as the car company’s branding too. Ali Berzah Can’s conceptual Canoo Scoot uses that very design language to elevate two-wheeler design, as the Canoo logo now becomes the vehicle’s headlights AS WELL AS its handlebars!

Since the Canoo brand is all about redefining ownership, Berzah Can’s conceptual bike keeps that in mind too by creating a scooter designed specifically for delivery. The ‘Scoot’ fleet of vehicles belong to UberEats, and are operated by their delivery executives to rapidly transport food from restaurants to the homes of the people who placed the orders. The Canoo Scoot follows the company’s form language, with geometric lines and gentle fillets to create vehicles that have structure and discipline without looking edgy. Thermoregulated containers on the back let riders store food in them for the length of the delivery cycle, and that Canoo logo on the front is instantly iconic, creating branding that isn’t just a graphic, it’s clever and valuable too!

Designer: Ali Berzah Can

Canoo’s multipurpose electric van looks like it’s built out of Lego

Electric vehicle company Canoo caught our attention last year with its plan to offer a subscription-only EV. It’s back with its latest creation, a stylish multi-purpose delivery vehicle that’ll start at around $33,000. Pre-orders are open for the mul...

The Canoo is a car-membership you can use when you need and pause when you don’t

The Canoo is a culmination of a lot of good ideas and technologies, combined into something that creates a futuristic system around car ownership. With the Canoo, you don’t own a car, you own the right to a car. It’s as simple as not owning a tennis court but owning a membership pass that gets you access to one.

Announcing a strategic partnership with Hyundai, EV Startup Canoo is looking at revolutionizing the future with a car membership service that lets you own a car when you need one, and ‘pause’ your ownership when you don’t need one. Designed as a self-driving EV that can be summoned on command, Canoo’s membership service gives car manufacturers the ability to allow a small number of cars serve a wide variety of masters, while giving consumers the ability to own a car only when it’s convenient, and surrender it when it isn’t needed. This offsets a consumer’s need to pay a hefty lump sum of money for ownership and worry about things like maintenance, insurance, garage space, etc. The EV comes with a partner app that lets you own a car for a few months, conveniently giving it up if you’re shifting towns, going on a holiday, or say if you’re under a government-mandated lockdown and you don’t need your car for a month. Think of it as an Uber, but A. it’s a monthly membership, not a trip-based rental, and B. It’s YOUR car, but just under a more consumer-friendly business model.

Speaking of model (and this really isn’t my best segue), the Canoo’s design resembles a modern take on the VW Microbus, with the company’s branding manifesting itself in the design of the headlamps and taillamps. The Canoo is even fitted with seven cameras, five radars, and 12 ultrasonic sensors that help it autonomously drive, although there’s a driver’s seat and steering wheel on the inside should you choose to commandeer the vehicle. Aside from its novel business model, the Canoo’s most interesting feature is its interiors, which features a C-shaped bench at the back, that turns the car into less of a bus/coach and more of a social space. “All seating is designed to feel more like furniture”, says Richard Kim, Design Head at Canoo. “The rear seats are more like a sofa to lounge on than a cramped and segmented backseat, and the front takes inspiration from mid-century modern chairs.” Its autonomous nature and roomy interiors reinforce a steady direction that most electric cars have been taking over the past few years, of turning the car itself into an extension of a living room. Canoo’s interesting subscription-based ownership business model definitely brings a fair bit of disruption to the car industry, giving customers the freedom to own the car only when they really need it, and pause their ownership when they don’t. It’s a little like an exclusive club… except this one drives on four wheels and can transport you as far as 250 miles on a full battery!

Designers: Richard Kim & Canoo Design Team