Slate Auto isn’t the only company betting that customers want to build their own EV from a parts kit. Canadian micromobility company Envo’s Utility Personal Transporter is a modular electric platform that can be reconfigured into nearly 20 different vehicles — golf cart, go-kart, snowkart, ATV, side-by-side, cargo quadricycle, last-mile delivery rig, even a stretcher-equipped emergency vehicle.
Envo has spun the platform off into its own sub-brand, Modular-EV, with a dedicated storefront and online configurator separate from Envo’s main e-bike and gokart business.
This is an electric cart, not an electric car. The UPT tops out well below highway speeds and isn’t meant to replace your daily driver. It’s meant to replace the five or six single-purpose machines currently cluttering your garage, farm shed or fleet depot. Envo’s messaging leans heavily on the smartphone analogy: the idea that UPT should be the only thing you need in your garage, the way your phone replaced your camera, calculator and GPS.
The company already builds e-bikes, go-karts, golf carts and cargo quadricycles, so a modular electric micromobility platform is a logical next step. The UPT rides on an aluminum T-slot Base Block chassis rather than a traditional welded frame, which makes the reconfiguration trick possible. The platform’s length and width can be resized, and suspension, motors and body modules bolt on wherever the application calls for them — no welding required.
Power comes from independently controlled hub motors at each wheel, which Envo says gives it precise, quad-motor torque control rather than a single drive unit sending power through axles and differentials. (This also allows the EV to pull off zero-radius tank turns.) Buyers can spec a short or long wheelbase, 2WD or 4WD, and either a single 2.83kWh battery or dual 5.66kWh packs for up to an estimated 62 to 125 miles (200 km) of range, depending on configuration and payload. That may sound short, but we’re talking about an electric golf cart with a 40 mph (60 kph) top speed; it’s not exactly built for road trips. Keeping with the modular theme, the batteries themselves are swappable and user-serviceable, which is a nice nod to repairability.
From there, it’s a matter of picking tires (CargoBike or off-road), steering (wheel or handlebars, car-style pedals or a bike-crank generator), seating and body components like bumpers and cargo boxes. The whole thing can be disassembled with hand tools and rebuilt from a parts catalog, and folds down small enough to toss in a pickup bed.
Modular-EV is selling the platform both as a bare rolling chassis and as a lineup of preset builds, each with its own model number. There’s the UP20 base platform, the UT20 utility vehicle and UT21 golf cart, the AT20 through AT23 all-terrain and mobility-scooter variants and more. My personal faves are the GC20 buggy go-kart and the LV20 microcar.
There’s also a run of ET-series work vehicles aimed at airports, hospitals, film crews, event marketers and municipal fleets, all sold on the same chassis with different body kits. Envo has also announced a partnership with autonomous-driving company Faction to bring AI-driven, self-driving capabilities to the UPT for last-mile delivery. These commercial fleets are likely to be the biggest market for the modular UPTs, not the average driveway.
That said, I think the DIY nature of the builds is what makes this interesting beyond the world of fleet vehicles. Someone running an electric side-by-side around a large property, or a golf cart in a car-free community, could keep a bin of swap parts on hand and turn the same chassis into a mower or plow when the season calls for it, instead of buying and storing a separate machine for every task.
The Modular-EV UPT starts around $9,000 for the bare UP20 platform, with most finished presets priced between $10,000 and $12,000. That’s not cheap for something you can’t take on the highway, but the pitch isn’t “buy a cart,” it’s “buy a platform.” You can’t mow your lawn with a Honda Civic. With this, you could then turn around and use the same chassis to haul cargo, plow snow and then toss the whole kit in the back of a truck and take it camping.
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