In 2019, the hitherto unknown Norwegian startup Fresco Motors announced its intention to launch an electric car called to compete against the Tesla Model 3 in 2021: the Fresco Reverie. Its main attraction? An autonomy that, according to the company’s estimates, would be around 1,000 km per charge.
According to Fresco Motors, at the beginning of 2020, it had already managed to accumulate more than 3,000 reserves of the model worth 60 million euros. However, more than two years have passed since then, and the Reverie has not been heard from since. Prototypes were not even presented, just a series of computer renders.
Now, Fresco Motors returns to the fray with a completely different proposal: an electric POD halfway between a minivan and a capsule of the future called Fresco XL. Again, the firm returns to promise striking autonomy as the main claim: 1,000 km per charge.
According to the little information shared, the Fresco XL will have eight seats and will have structural batteries. In addition, it will have an all-wheel drive and a bidirectional charging system, while the passenger compartment (of which no image has been published) can be configured based on the user’s needs.
Fresco Motors has already opened the order books
As it did in 2019, the company has reopened the order books even though all it has shown so far is a recreation, not a working vehicle. The deposit required to make a reservation is 1,000 euros, while the total cost of the car will be around 100,000 euros (in case the project finally materializes).
Does this proposal have signs of reaching production? A priori, the precedents are not encouraging: in recent years, we have witnessed the birth and disappearance of numerous emerging startups seeking to gain a foothold in the thriving electric car sector, some of them with their technology, solvent partners, and prototypes operatives.
Fresco Motors does not currently have any of these ingredients; in fact, it would not be surprising if you intend to take advantage of a third party platform (companies such as BENTELER, Foxconn, or Volkswagen have developed electrical architectures that other companies can take advantage of) to create your vehicle.
