Cars were much more adventurous up until the 1920s and 1930s. Then they settled into a format that is familiar to this day. The motor sits at the front, in its own compartment, and the rest of the car is built around that. Only limited divergence with mid-engine sportscars and the Porsche 911s persists. But electric cars don’t have a big motor in the same way as those using internal combustion engines. So why do EV designs obey the same rules? This was the theory behind AEHRA’s rethinking of car layout. I talked to founder Hazim Nada about what makes his company’s vehicles different.

“I am a pilot and a parachutist,” says Nada. “From those hobbies, I developed a vertical wind tunnel in Italy that for many years was the biggest in the world. It is still the biggest in Europe.” Nada had worked in finance with energy commodities but wanted to build something with more lasting impact. His experience with aerodynamics made him question existing car design. “The key question was why electric vehicles still had such a long hood, where you sacrifice cabin space and aerodynamics for a front that is seldom used. Some electric cars have a frunk, but generally the architecture is the same one that was developed for the optimization of the internal combustion engine. This is not an architecture that was designed to optimize…