French Entrepreneur Selling 125 Mile EV In A Box

A French entrepreneur doesn’t think the future of automotive involves large factories and expensive assembly lines. Rather, he has created an all-electric vehicle that comes in a box.

Marc Chevreau has created cube shaped electric vehicles which consumers purchase in a kit. Chevreau’s organization is called FranceCraft. Of the three vehicles in the fleet, the two-seater is all-electric and costs under $20,000 USD including the battery. The French-made machines will not be working with dealers, but for the time being are going to be sold online.

Chevreau spoke about his innovation with Bloomberg in Paris ahead of CES. In an interview, Chevreau said, “Assembly lines mean heavy investments — that keeps carmakers from rethinking their vehicles and coming up with really disruptive innovation We want to create the iPhone of cars and surround it with an ecosystem of groundbreaking tech add-ons with which consumers can customize.”

FranceCraft plans to produce kits for three types of vehicles: 1) Smaller electric commerce trucks, 2) Personal vehicles and 3) Taxis. The three types of machines were displayed in a video displaying a prototype of what each vehicle is supposed to look like. Chevreau is seeking $20 million in investment capital to build up his business.

The FranceCraft machines aren’t just a pipe dream, there are 80 of them being used in France right now and Chevreau reported to Bloomberg an electric range on his vehicles of about 125 miles, thus better than any other production EV on the market not made by Tesla Motors. Has Chevreau, a nuclear physicist, really created a vehicle-in-a-kit with better electric range than current offerings from every automaker except newcomer Tesla Motors?

Do you see FranceCraft kits making their way to the U.S.? Could you see dealers’ one day selling vehicles that come in a kit? Finally, do you believe these FranceCraft vehicles really have an electric range of 125 miles?