A new Brit company is building a fabric-covered electric pickup truck

We’ve never really got pickup trucks in this country, have we? Still, that hasn’t stopped a new Brit-based company from launching the rather blocky thing you see above – the Fering Pioneer.

Fering is actually the brainchild of ex-Ferrari and McLaren engineer Ben Scott-Geddes (who was also Technical Director on the Caparo T1 project), so there’s plenty of focus on lightness.

In fact, the aluminium spaceframe uses composite elements and the body panels are made from a fabric that is apparently similar to the material found in high-end hiking boots. Unusual. You can see that better in the testing images below, although Fering seems to have shot them with a potato.

Anyway, Fering describes its new vehicle as a “sustainable electrified pickup which is designed to take on the toughest of terrains while treading lightly on the planet".

To that end, it uses two electric motors to provide four-wheel drive and a small battery with a range of around 50 miles. That’s connected to a range-extending 800cc three-cylinder combustion engine that runs on biodiesel, and with long-range fuel tanks fitted the Pioneer can be good for 7,000km (around 4,350 miles) without a stop. That’s London to Lagos on a single tank. Not bad. 

The Pioneer is mainly aimed at explorers and emergency services, so the powertrain and battery setup can be customised to suit particular needs. The battery also uses Lithium Titanate Oxide cells rather than the standard Lithium-Ion, as these apparently cope better in extreme weather conditions. 

All Pioneers will weigh around 1,500kg all-in, and they should be able to take another 1,500kg in payload. Production will start in the UK during the first half of 2022 apparently. 

Thoughts, Internet?