Flat battery-pack chassis promises EV design freedom

This is the claim of REE Automotive, an Israeli start-up whose REEcorner architecture integrates components including braking, electric-motor, steering, and suspension into the wheel before being integrated into a flat, battery-packed chassis dubbed REEboard.

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According to company CEO and co-founder Daniel Barel, REE is the only company in the world that provides steering, braking and drive by wire on a single wheel. In-wheel condition monitoring is AI-driven and each REEcorner module can be swapped out in under 20 minutes if a malfunction cannot be fixed with an OTA (over the air) solution.

“Each REEcorner is completely independent, there’s nothing connected physically to other corners,” he said. “The degrees of freedom we’ve got by doing that are unparalleled by anybody else’s.”

Daniel Barel, speaking at EcoMotion, 2019

The company is a technology provider that has access to a global network of 300 manufacturing facilities thanks to numerous partnerships formed since its inception in 2013. REE’s target markets are passenger EVs, autonomous cars, EV taxis and shuttles, last mile delivery trucks, heavy trucks and buses.