The Vanderhall Navarro could have been a great candidate for Unsealed 4X4’s Weird Wednesday but it’s a bit more serious than that.
We got a bit swamped this week and missed our regular Weird Wednesday post but we hope you like this Freaky Friday replacement: the Vanderhall Navarro – an all-electric off-roader that just might not be as freaky as it looks, and it could see the light of day as early as 2022.
Better known for producing cool-looking three-wheel, two-seat sportsters – including the Venice, Edison and Carmel models – US-based Vanderhall says of the upcoming Navarro: “Vanderhall is not just a three-wheel vehicle company. With the production of the Navarro, Vanderhall will revolutionize and create a new category of adventure vehicle.”
Check it out in the teaser video below:
Vanderhall says (tongue in cheek) that one of its greatest ideas ever is the “Three-Wheeled Venice Off-Road Edition…” before promptly squashing said vehicle under a huge block of concrete and adding “… is not one of them.”
On a more serious note, Vanderhall says that the new Navarro will be an all-electric off-roader, and that the company is doubling the size of its factory to make space for upcoming production of said vehicle. The current Vanderhall three-wheeled range includes both petrol-powered vehicles and all-electric models, so the company certainly has plenty of experience with EVs.
Of course, EVs have many advantages for off-roading over conventional ICE-powered vehicles, including the fact that they produce maximum torque from zero revs, making them ideally suited to crawling over off-road obstacles and climbing steep terrain, but the biggest drawback is range… and lack of recharging infrastructure. But the Navarro is clearly a short-range off-roader – not a long distance tourer – and with Jeep recently announcing it would be installing EV charging stations on some iconic off-road tracks, including the Rubicon Trail and at Moab, there’s certainly a future for vehicles such as the Navarro EV off-roader.
With Jeep set to launch an all-electric Wrangler 4xe as early as next year and Ford hinting at an all-electric version of its recently launched Bronco, the Vanderhall Navarro won’t have the all-electric off-roader market to itself.
For more details on the rest of Vanderhall’s line-up you can find the company’s website here.
