This week Nissan revealed its vision for electric vehicles and mobility and where the two meet. It’s called Ambition 2030. And it includes a pure-electric pickup.
The hyperbolically named plan calls for 15 new EVs by fiscal year 2030. This mostly includes blob-like urban vehicles. However, Nissan did carve out at least one spot for an off-road-y vehicle, the Surf-Out concept.
This round-y yet decidedly truck-y little two-seater is giving me flashbacks to the Datsun PickUp, especially in that ‘70s orange color.
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Before you get too excited about a Rivian-rivaling Nissan pickup, let me encourage you to pump the proverbial brakes. That’s because this thing is a concept through and through. It has no back to its cab, for example. It appears designers penned the Hang-Out concept crossover and then lopped the back off to create the Surf-Out.
Worse yet, Nissan gives no propulsion, capability, or range specs about any of the pure-electric concepts. This is essentially an exercise in “Look what we could do.”
Despite scant details and even scanter designs, I am invigorated by the Surf-Out and, to a lesser extent, the Hang-Out. That’s because these demonstrate that there will be more than just a trio of players (Rivian, Ford, and GM) in the off-road EV segment by the end of decade.
Since competition breeds innovation and aggressive pricing backed by economies of scale, this is very good news for those of us would-be pure-electric overlanders. So, sit tight. There is a lot of cool stuff coming down the pipeline.
