WATT EV and AVANT design bring low-volume EV prototype development under one roof

The FlexTech® platform underneath this WATT EV and AVANT Design concept carries none of the tooling overhead that makes low-volume EV prototype development prohibitive at conventional scale

(Image courtesy of WATT Electric Vehicle Company)

WATT Electric Vehicle Company and AVANT Design have announced a combined programme offering that takes concept and one-off electric vehicle development from initial brief through to a fully functional, road-legal prototype. The partnership is notable not for the breadth of services it lists, but for what it eliminates: the handover gap between design intent and engineering execution that typically inflates timescales and forces compromises in low-volume EV prototype development. For procurement teams and brands evaluating vehicle concepts without the manufacturing infrastructure of a large OEM, the offering addresses a well-documented gap in the UK market.

PACES platform anchors the engineering case

The structural foundation of the combined offering is WATT EV’s PACES platform, which stands for Passenger And Commercial EV Skateboard. Its construction centres on patented FlexTech® thin-wall aluminium extrusions that interlock and bond without conventional pressing tooling or complex jigs, enabling dimensional accuracy and torsional rigidity at production volumes ranging from a single unit to single-digit thousands. The PACES platform covers L7, M1, and N1 vehicle categories across front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive layouts, and is available in combustion, hybrid, range extender, and full EV configurations.

That flexibility has already been demonstrated in practice. WATT EV and Donut Lab showed a functional in-wheel motor chassis prototype built on PACES at CES 2026 in Las Vegas. Earlier this month, PACES was named winner of the Innovation Award at the Autocar Awards 2026, judged in partnership with Siemens, in recognition of its versatility across automotive, defence, and municipal vehicle applications. WATT EV states the platform can deliver a road-legal prototype from render in six months or less.

VR as a development tool, not a presentation medium

AVANT’s contribution to the programme centres on a design workflow built around immersive VR rather than conventional clay modelling or late-stage visualisation. The studio uses Gravity Sketch for concept-stage 3D development inside VR, imports data into Autodesk VRED for materials and lighting review, and uses Varjo XR-series headsets to allow clients and designers to evaluate multiple configurations at full scale simultaneously. The workflow allows design intent to be interrogated and resolved before engineering lock-in, reducing the risk of changes after tooling commitments have been made.

This approach compresses timelines in a way that matters commercially. For low-volume EV prototype development, the traditional route through clay models and physical mules either compromises design integrity or delays decision-making. AVANT’s virtual environment allows a brand to present investors and partners with a dimensionally accurate, configurable representation of a vehicle before physical build begins.

The two companies previously collaborated on a concept developed for Autocar for a Lotus 2+2 EV daily driver, described by WATT EV CEO Neil Yates as “far closer to production-ready than a typical design study.” Yates states that with funding confirmed, the vehicle could reach the road within a year and enter production within twelve months of that. Whether those timelines reflect the engineering foundations already in place or are contingent on further development work is a distinction the announcement does not fully resolve.

White label and series production pathways

Beyond one-off and show vehicles, the combined programme includes a route to series production for clients who want to take a concept beyond prototype stage, including full white-label build options. WATT EV’s existing client base includes tier-one and tier-two suppliers who use the PACES platform as a demonstrator for brake parts, software, and ADAS components, avoiding the cost and complexity of stripping production vehicles for the same purpose. That use case suggests the commercial model already extends beyond vehicle brands to the supplier community, which broadens the addressable market for the programme.

On the regulatory side, WATT EV states the PACES platform is designed to comply with national and European Small Series Type Approval standards. For clients targeting the GB market, the Vehicle Certification Agency’s Individual Small Series approval route covers M1 and N1 vehicles produced at fewer than 1,500 units per year, providing a structured pathway from prototype into limited series manufacture.

The partnership is based in the UK, with WATT EV operating out of Cornwall and Worcestershire and AVANT Design located in Leamington Spa, at the centre of the UK’s established automotive engineering cluster. Whether the six-month prototype timeline WATT EV describes will be tested by external clients at scale will depend on how the market responds to a programme that packages capability the industry has long had access to – but rarely under one commercially accountable team.

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