Once a hotspot for ruin porn, Ford’s Michigan Central Station campus is entering a new era as a hub for mobility innovation.
The adjacent Book Depository, a former post office and book depository for Detroit Public Schools, opened to the media on Tuesday afternoon with the tech startups inside eager to show off their electric vehicle projects. The previously abandoned building was designed by renowned architect Albert Kahn in 1936 and was purchased by Ford Motor Company five years ago.
The 270,000-square-foot building is the first of the Michigan Central projects to be complete and is now home to the Brooklyn-born tech workspace and research hub Newlab. Around 25 startups use the Newlab Detroit headquarters with its high ceilings and open floorplan to build EV and AI technology.
At the opening, Plymouth-based RoboTire showed off its AI-powered system that can efficiently change all four of your tires in 20 minutes, while Cavnue shared plans to develop the world’s first smart highway for connected and automated vehicles in Southeast Michigan.
We were most struck by a collaboration between Biliti Electric and Pluck, on an electric delivery truck that will bring Detroiters fresh produce from local farms. The goal is to eventually build a fully autonomous truck that doesn’t require a driver at all.
Pluck is a Detroit-based company that works with urban farms such as Brother Nature Produce and Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund awardees. It’s been offering produce delivery in Detroit through its online marketplace Good Pluck for two years.
“We've been delivering veggies straight from farms like Brother Nature to people's doorsteps, and Newlab was interested in creating this pilot for an electric delivery vehicle,” Pluck CEO Chening Duker tells Metro Times.
Among all the buzz about “innovation,” the Pluck and Biliti Electric collab may be the most relatable to Detroiters, as it aims to provide a solution to the lack of access to nutrient-dense food.
“We want to get autonomous vehicles delivering produce to communities in need to make it more accessible,” Duker says. “You can get high-quality produce from the farmer’s market or Whole Foods, but that’s not really available to everybody. What we’re trying to do here is cut out the grocery store completely.”
Meanwhile, an RV company called Grounded has used the Newlab space to create the first fully electric RV on the market. While it doesn’t address a community issue, it brings a layer of sustainability to the millennial van life trend.
Grounded communications advisor Lydia Davey tells us the company was developed eight months ago by SpaceX engineers and moved to Detroit to be part of Newlab at the Book Depository.
“We had originally thought about Boston, but when we heard about Newlab and had the chance to come, we were here in a heartbeat,” she says. “It’s access to this incredible ecosystem of people who are doing really interesting things in the transportation space. That was the draw. There is a great network of funding, energy, and ideas here.”
Grounded RVs are available for rent through Simple Campers in San Francisco. Grounded also sells the RVs direct to consumers and offers a subscription service for$2,300 a month for people who just want to use them for a few trips a year.
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