It seems to be the week for cheap EVs. Right after the production model of the Slate electric truck was revealed, complete with a bump in range, a new European entrant in electric mobility is launching out of stealth mode today and plans to bring its own affordable yet stylish rides to market.
Amble’s founders worked at Audi and Ford, started Cowboy ebikes, and cofounded Forpeople, the creative agency that works for, among others, Nio EVs, Arc’teryx, and Herman Miller. Indeed, Amble’s design lead, Julian Hoenig, worked on the infamously canceled Apple car, which goes some way to explaining how this, the $25,000 Amble One, looks like it could have driven straight out of Cupertino, despite hailing from Lisbon, Portugal.
The Amble One is a street-legal, stripped-down electric buggy designed for the kind of places where a normal car feels out of place. Coastal paths, private estates, and those dusty tracks between luxury hotel villas and the sea. Think of it as if Apple decided it was going to design a golf cart, then took the project even further.
The company calls the One a new category of lightweight electric vehicle for short-range mobility, and the specs show a degree of seriousness: a range of more than 60 miles, a top speed capped at 40 mph, a five-hour charge from any standard home socket, and a curb weight under 450 kilograms (992 pounds).
That last figure matters more than it sounds. To qualify as an L7e vehicle in Europe (the category that allows it to drive on public roads without being treated as a car), the Amble One must stay under 450 kilograms. “This is really hard,” says Adrien Roose, CEO and cofounder. “If you take a car and just shrink it, it doesn’t work.” The Amble One’s open, doorless design isn’t just an aesthetic choice that apes competitors such as the electric Moke, it seems. It’s part of what helps make the weight target achievable.
The founding team has pedigree. Roose cofounded Cowboy, one of the more recognized premium electric bike brands. Hoenig spent years at Audi, working on the RSQ, A4, R8, and Q3, then joined Apple’s design team, where he worked on the Apple Watch, Vision Pro, and Apple’s Project Titan car program. Michael Tropper cofounded Forpeople, a 120-person creative agency whose clients include InterContinental Hotels. Keeping the tourism theme, José António Uva, who serves as Amble’s chairman, restored São Lourenço do Barrocal, a 1,927-acre luxury Alentejo estate in Portugal that has become one of Europe’s acclaimed rural retreats.
This premium-meets-Cupertino connection is evident in the Amble One’s design language. Hoenig has made liberal use of aluminum, leather, cotton, and cork. An “unapologetic” flat windscreen emulates Mercedes’ classic G-Wagon, according to Hoenig. An interior dashboard bar is deliberately the same diameter as motorcycle handlebars, so any standard bike accessory mounts directly, should you wish to affix your phone. Large, friendly orange screws throughout mark every removable or reconfigurable element.
Hoenig also tells WIRED the One is directly inspired by none other than the NASA moon buggy. “I always loved the lunar rover, the moon buggy,” he says. “It is fantastic, and there’s not much to it—four wheels and the skateboard. Could we have this feeling of a skateboard, but extreme, where it’s not hidden by your typical exterior sculptural shape?” So here, just as with NASA’s $38-million Lunar Roving Vehicle, the electric platform itself is deliberately visible rather than hidden beneath bodywork. “You see the skateboard,” Hoenig says. “And then we put toppings on it.”
No, nothing from Apple’s canceled Project Titan crept into this vehicle, Hoenig says. What did carry over, however, was a philosophy: Pick the material suited to the job, let manufacturing drive the form.
The Amble One is configurable from the start. Rear seats fold flat. A canvas weatherproofing option is coming. A lockable front box will replace the standard basket for urban buyers. Hard doors are not planned, but a second platform—already in design and targeting a 2029 release—will move further toward conventional-car territory, with removable doors, a lower roofline, and a hardtop; it cleverly aims to replace not a family’s primary car, but its second car.
That incoming “Amble Two” is clearly the larger bet. “Most families do not need twice that $50,000 BYD or Tesla,” Roose says. “The second vehicle for families could be something that is designed for purpose, designed for shorter trips—and that can be much simpler, way more fun, way more open, and also more affordable.”
Car brands have models that are trying to crack this market, too. The 28-mph Citroen Ami with its 46-mile range is a prime example. Stellantis, which owns Citroen, recently announced plans to expand capacity for its supermini electric cars. “This is the beginning of a turning point,” Roose says.
Still, Amble might have a shot. The company apparently has 12 signed clients, over 500 vehicles committed, and more than €10 million in signed revenue, according to Roose. Properties including Amangiri in Utah, Mustique Island, Six Senses Les Bordes in the Loire Valley, and Uva’s own Na Praia in Comporta have placed orders. The first hospitality deliveries of the Amble One begin in mid-2027, while consumer preorders for Europe and the US are now open, with deliveries in 2028, starting from $25,000.
“A lot of companies in micromobility start in the urban market and want to compete with everyone, and we all know that this did not work out so far,” Hoenig says. “We’re taking a different approach: build our brand as a premium brand, and then step by step go more into this urban market.”
Could this “luxury” lunar-inspired supermini EV be the ride to get us all to ditch our ICE second car and finally embrace micromobility? The Amble One is a darn sight more appealing a prospect than the contenders that have come before it.
The post Apple and Audi Alumni Have Made a Luxe EV Based on the Moon Buggy appeared first on Wired.
