REE CEO and co-founder Daniel Barel has been through a number of startup phases, most notably bringing the SoftWheel to market internationally. But for the last six or so years, he and the REE team have been in stealth mode working on a completely new approach to the entire automotive segment, that could prove to be his biggest contribution yet.

Electric cars, thought Barel, shouldn't be constrained by the forms and solutions that combustion cars have evolved into over more than a century of development. Old-school mechanical thinking around steering, motors, transmissions and suspension is due for a complete re-think – the kind of re-think that's too revolutionary to come from within the automotive industry itself.

So Barel began assembling a team to pull off an audacious plan: to develop a completely modular, hyper-flexible electric vehicle platform that could be used for anything from a golf kart, a supercar or a delivery van to a 10-ton truck or a high-performance off-road vehicle. And to completely clear out all the space under the hood, handling every mechanical function from steering and suspension to motor, transmission, brakes and cooling in a super-compact, modular unit that lives in each wheel bay.