Andy Didorosi is dropping the all-wheel-drive drivetrain of a wrecked Tesla Model 3 Performance into a 1996 Suzuki Carry, and the result is one of the stranger EV builds going. In the video he calls the truck the Senpai and frames it as a halo project for Mutiny, a new Detroit car company he is starting. The plan he describes is to use the fast, attention-grabbing build to clear the way for the company's real goal: an affordable open-source Kei truck he puts at around 15,000 dollars. The Model 3 came from an insurance auction, the Carry came from Ohio, and both were torn down and 3D scanned. This episode focuses on the hard part so far, adapting the suspension and finishing the rally cage.
Kei trucks, Japan's class of tiny light-duty vehicles, have quietly become a cult favorite among US enthusiasts. Under the federal 25-year import exemption, vehicles old enough to clear that threshold can be brought in without meeting current federal safety standards, which is why 1990s models like this 1996 Carry keep showing up in American driveways and on job sites. That regulatory quirk is the backdrop that makes a project like this possible: the donor truck is cheap, legal to import, and small enough that a modern EV drivetrain massively overpowers it.
The video's own framing, a mismatched drivetrain swap as a marketing halo for a cheap electric truck to come, is really a bet that there is US demand for a small, affordable, utilitarian EV the major automakers have not built. Mainstream electric trucks in America have trended big and expensive, which leaves an obvious gap at the small and cheap end that no established brand is filling. Whether that gap is a real market or just a fun internet story is the question a startup like Mutiny would have to answer, and a viral build is a low-cost way to test the appetite before betting a factory on it.
Most of the episode is fabrication. Didorosi walks through lifting the cab off the chassis to finish welding the roll cage, which he describes as a set of structural nodes where the strong tubes need to land. The suspension is the recurring headache: he says adapting parts designed for a roughly 4,800-pound car to a Kei truck he puts near 1,800 pounds has not been straightforward, and the front geometry in particular has fought him. To solve the upper control arm mounting, he uses a blue-laser 3D scanner, which he notes was sent to him free, to capture the exact geometry and design custom clevis plates in CAD before welding them in.
The scanning section doubles as a practical tutorial: he explains using reflective markers so the scanner can track irregular geometry, scanning in overlapping pieces to avoid misalignment, and leaning on a powerful PC to keep the frame rate usable. He is candid about method, joking that his engineering education came from dropping out and breaking a lot of parts. He also flags a weak point that rally forces will bend no matter how well it is welded, and pre-bends a brace to tie it back to a strong node in next week's episode. It is grassroots engineering shown with its seams visible.
Bottom line: As an engineering spectacle this is great content, and the honesty about trial and error is refreshing in a space full of polished sponsor reels. As a business signal, it is far more speculative. A twin-motor Kei truck is a fun halo, but halos only matter if the affordable product behind them actually ships, and a 15,000-dollar open-source EV truck is a genuinely hard thing to build and sell at that price. Root for it, watch the build, but hold the deposit talk until Mutiny shows the truck that is supposed to pay the bills. Right now this is a promising story, not a product.
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