Motive Industries Develops New Composite Truck of the Future

While engineers have been working for years on a variety of new truck designs to find that balance between light-weight yet rugged and heavy duty, Motive Industries thinks it might have the answer. Their design is a composite-body midsize truck.

This new truck design, internally named Bison, is meant as a demo that to show potential clients. The design works well with different powertrains including hybrid and battery storage capability. It also is viewed as being the future of transport designs. The design concept is a shell that is designed to showoff Motive’s goal of developing a model to work with the emerging powertrains, renewable fuels and new materials and technologies. It features a ground-up design so that the batteries and powertrain package isn’t compromised by a pre-existing chassis.

The Bison prototype features:

• Carbon Fiber construction
• Bed size of 52 inches wide, 75 inches long and 21.5 inches tall
• The cargo dimensions are close to a larger full-size short bed
• Ground clearance of 9.5 inches (varies on powertrain and suspension package)

“The overall design character is sporty and assertive, communicated by its wide front-end graphic elements and aggressive wheel arches. The geometrical and angular form language, along with wedge profiles throughout, evolves the typical square pickup form into something much more modern and provocative,” according to Motive.

Motive points out that there are many benefits to a composite-bodied pickup. Chief among them is how lightweight the design is with the use of carbon fiber over steel. This change from the traditional frame material reduces the weight by as much as 50 percent.

Also, composite-built vehicles can be produced with lower production runs and still be profitable. This is attributed to the lower cost of producing stamped steel parts versus composite. Quite often, the difference in cost for producing a composite piece is a fraction of what steel costs.

In the end, the Bison is a sporty, light-weight, large cargo carrying pickup truck. What’s not to love?

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