This concept is made to showcase the Canadian automotive industry and is not intended to reach production.
The electric SUV is expected to have an output of 550 horsepower and a range of around 500 kilometres (311 miles).
The APMA says this concept uses parts from 58 different Canadian suppliers.
The Automotive Parts Manufacturer’s Association (APMA) of Canada has been working on its Project Arrow concept for about two years now, culminating in a launch at the CES yesterday.
This concept for an electric SUV is intended to showcase the capabilities of the Canadian automotive industry in the move toward electrification in order to attract more suppliers and automakers.
The project began around 2020 when a contest was set up for design students across Canada to develop a proposition for the style of the vehicle.
A team of four students from Carleton University’s school of industrial design in Ottawa won the contest when their proposition for a boxy SUV with a low roofline beat 20 other entries.
The inside of the SUV is also quite futuristic, with four individual bucket seats and an entirely digital dashboard that seems to be separated into five screens, two of which acting as digital side mirrors and another being placed in front of the passenger.
Since Project Arrow is not intended to reach production, some liberties were taken in its elaboration such as the clamshell doors that open very wide on a single hinge. Even so, the project’s managers believe the SUV could actually be certified for use on Canadian roads.
Once the design work was completed, APMA reached out to its members in order to obtain all of the parts it needed to complete the actual vehicle, such as the motor, the battery, the wheels, the lights, the windows, but also all of the software necessary to make it fully functional.
In the end, 58 companies have been involved in the actual vehicle that is currently on display in Las Vegas, but the president of APMA says over 200 companies have reached out to them and they could have built four vehicles using a different lot of companies each time.
Despite APMA not releasing an official press release, some technical details about Project Arrow have been published by The National Post after an early preview.
This is how we know the SUV should have 550 horsepower and a range of about 500 kilometres (311 miles) on a charge.
Since the project’s aim is to shed more light on the Canadian auto industry, it is not surprising that it received the financial support of the government to the tune of $6.8 million.
$1.8 million of this tab was picked up by the province of Ontario alone since it is the home of most automotive suppliers and manufacturers in the country, and therefore the province that could benefit the most from a boost in the Auto sector.
Motor Illustrated reached out to APMA and we will update this story if more details about Project Arrow become available to us.
Source: The National Post
