The industry is racing to modernize the way in which EVs are built

Much like the industry is racing toward a future of electric vehicles, it is also racing to modernize the way in which EVs are built.

Different designs can improve manufacturing efficiency and provide a modular solution for a variety of transportation applications. They can also accelerate the industry's shift to electrified powertrains.

Some experts suggest seeing things from a smaller perspective when it comes to components — and from a flatter perspective when it comes to the overall architecture. One such possibility: the skateboard chassis.

The modular design of a skateboard allows for a vehicle manufacturer to place any passenger, commercial or fleet body type on top of an electric chassis.

It is easier to modify, reduces weight, increases vehicle efficiency and, ultimately, can help hasten the electrification of the fleet.

Skateboards are well into play already: Amazon and Rivian's electric delivery vehicle uses Rivian's skateboard platform.

Ree Automotive, an electric vehicle startup that plans to go public via a reverse merger, has integrated important vehicle components into the arch of the wheel to carry its flat and modular skateboard platform.

EV startup Canoo also uses a skateboard platform.

"If you take the body out of the vehicle, you're really staring at 100-plus years of legacy," Canoo Executive Chairman Tony Aquila told Automotive News.

"The history of what was on that chassis just keeps reliving itself, and that's why there's so many brackets and parts and pieces. It's really holding up history in many ways. Those things wear out. They rattle. They create noise. They're costly. They can affect the residual value of the vehicle.

"The flatness of [our platform] eliminates all of these brackets. We have hundreds less parts in this because we don't have a steering column. We don't have strut towers. We don't have all these items that are maintenance, noisy, take up space," he added.

"It's a lot easier to perfect a new manufacturing method and it's much more efficient, which reduces cost as well as ecological impact, not to mention shipping in parts."

Traditional automakers are "doing more [modifications] to an ICE chassis, versus really spending the time and money to re-create something totally different, which is why there's so much demand for this type of a platform."

"We actually wanted to do something very different," Aquila said.

"It's to not compete with Tesla, but to build something that has multiple use cases and that can be adapted to the use cases."

Aside from the vehicle architecture, there are other changes in manufacturing that can accelerate the shift to EVs, said Craig Renneker, vice president, driveline product engineering at American Axle and Manufacturing, during Automotive News' Shift Mobility Forum, which was part of CES in January.

The key is making things smaller to reduce certain materials needs and cut costs, Renneker said.

"What we're seeing at American Axle is a trend to making the motors substantially faster so they can get smaller," Renneker said.

"A faster motor makes the same power at a much smaller size, and smaller size means less copper, less rare magnets, less steel. That innovation to drive the cost down will also just reduce the amount we're going to need of all of those critical materials."

Much of the success of EVs is dependent on those innovations.

"In my world, things have got to get a lot cheaper," Renneker said. "We've got to be able to make drive units, and the rest of the vehicle, less expensive, so it's going to be more affordable for that mass-market customer."