Amble One: A New EV Startup Challenges Car Norms with a Retro-Styled Buggy

While the auto industry wrings its hands over the electric vehicle market, sweating details like aerodynamic efficiency and range anxiety, a new EV startup based in Lisbon, Portugal, is zagging in a different direction. Amble’s new electric buggy won’t impress anyone with its 0–60 time or its self-driving features (it has none). Instead, it takes a stab at the belief that cars have gotten too big, too fast, and perhaps could use a bit of a downgrade in both departments.

The Amble One is a premium, street-legal buggy with a gorgeous neo-retro design that’s currently being marketed to locations where traditional cars are unnecessary or too large, like hotels or resorts. Developed by a team of alumni from Apple, Audi, and Cowboy, the compact EV is intended to be the solution for a society overrun by oversized, overpowered trucks and SUVs. And it could be coming to a neighborhood near you.

Rather than competing directly with conventional automobiles, Amble wanted to create an entirely new category of vehicle intended to become a household’s second vehicle rather than its primary car, CEO Adrien Roose told me.

Rather than competing directly with conventional automobiles, Amble wanted to create an entirely new category of vehicle

“If we look at the stats, most European and American families have, like, two cars on average,” Roose said. “The reality is that there is one car that brings the emotional freedom or the actual freedom that you need to go on a highway and to go on vacation or to go on long weekends. But the reality is that the second vehicle is mostly used for, like, school runs and grocery shoppings and neighborhoods.”

He added, “We want to be the ultimate solution for these short trips.”

The Amble One is open and minimal, but with a sturdy design perfect for off-road trails and beach paths. Built as an open-air vehicle with no doors, it features folding front seats, a digital display, and physical controls utilizing leather and cork befitting of its Portuguese origins. There’s also a front cargo rack for luggage or other storage, and the rear seats fold flat for surfboards or other gear. Built-in mounts lets you add baskets, straps, mirrors, and other accessories.

With a 15 kW motor and an 11kWh battery, it won’t win any drag or long-distance races. The Amble One caps out at 40 mph (65 km/h) and can travel upwards of 62 miles (100 km) on a single charge. It can fill up its battery from a standard wall outlet in five hours and has a curb weight of under 450 kg (992 lbs).

Roose described weight as one of the company’s greatest engineering challenges because the vehicle is being homologated under Europe’s L7e quadricycle regulations. To qualify, the complete vehicle—including the battery—must weigh less than 450 kilograms. Its a truly demanding that target, with Roose describing it as the source of some of the team’s most intense engineering debates.

With a 15 kW motor and an 11kWh battery, it won’t win any drag or long-distance races

The company is beginning with a resort-oriented vehicle, but Roose says it’s been intentionally engineered for local roads as well. Looking further ahead, the ambition is to introduce a broader family of low-speed vehicles that collectively address short-distance transportation. During our conversation, Roose showed me a rendering of a version of the vehicle with doors and windows that looked like a cross between a dune buggy and a Mini Moke.

But Roose would prefer a more upscale comparison than the breezy runabout.

“The inspiration for this vehicle comes initially from the Lunar Rover, but they also looked into older 4x4 like the G-Wagen, which is very famous for its very flat surfaces and other such vehicles,” Roose said. “Some people could call it a glorified golf cart, but it’s really in between in terms of platform. If you look at the battery, it’s three to four times the range of a golf cart.”

The Mercedes comparison makes sense given the team Amble has assembled. In addition to Roose, who used to helm the premium Belgian e-bike company Cowboy, the company’s leadership team includes founder and chairman José António Uva, a Portuguese hotelier and entrepreneur best known for transforming his eighth-generation ancestral estate into São Lourenço do Barrocal, an acclaimed luxury farm retreat in the Alentejo region. Julian Hoenig, an industrial designer whose worked on the R8, RSQ, A4, and Q3 at Audi, and the Apple Watch, Vision Pro, and defunct Project Titan at Apple, serves as design lead. And Michael Tropper, designer and founder of London-based creative studio forpeople, is cofounder and chief creative officer.

Roose says the pedigree helps explain why Amble choses to begin with fleet sales to hospitality operators, describing it as a simpler way to launch a company as compared to diving directly into the turbulent waters of customer sales. However, an unexpectedly enthusiastic response since the launch of Amble One has caused the team to reconsider its rollout schedule.

“I think we are just going to be forced to adapt our plans and accelerate the deployment of the street legal version in the US,” he said.

Customers can currently reserve the Amble One with a $100 deposit, with deliveries targeted for 2028. Amble is targeting a starting price of $25,000, with Roose noting that the company has already over 1,000 reservations.

Although Amble is headquartered in Lisbon, the company will not manufacture the vehicles itself. Instead, it has partnered with an established contract manufacturer that Roose declined to name but described as a serious Tier 1 automotive supplier employing roughly 1,100 people and already producing sophisticated electric vehicle components, including motors and other systems. Motors come from Germany and reducers from Italy, while the batteries are currently sourced from China. The current plan is to export the initial vehicles to the United States from Europe before eventually establishing American manufacturing for US customers.

When the Amble One finally reaches customers, it may find itself with plenty of competition. There are a growing number of mico-car and golf cart offerings for interested customers, including Microlino, Citroën Ami, Fiat Topolino, and a growing enthusiast subculture around Japanese kei cars.

Unfortunately for Amble, Americans are more drawn to larger — and increasingly more dangerous — vehicles. Just about every truck and SUV sold today is bigger than they were 20 years ago. And those behemoths make up about 80 percent of vehicles sold in the US. Experts have warned that the bigger the vehicle, the bigger the risk to pedestrians and cyclists of injury or death.

Amble’s strategy won’t be to target affluent buyers who want to broadcast their environmental bona fides, like the Toyota Prius, but rather people who genuinely enjoy driving and also appreciate thoughtful design, but would prefer something smaller than your average F-150. He points to the growing popularity of golf carts and other low-speed neighborhood vehicles in many communities across the Sun Belt and elsewhere.

“Many people have this huge pickup,” Roose said. “But next to it, they have these golf carts. And that’s perfectly normal in many places in America.”

Photography by Amble