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Before the Cybertruck or the Rivian R1T, there was The Havelaar Bison. This was a weird truck. But it was the Canada’s first electric truck. It was designed, built, and tested as a prototype in Canada and it was hailed as just the thing that farmers in Alberta needed.

It was weird, but it beat Tesla to building a prototype

A tweet announcing the launch of the Havlaar Bison truck.

Longtime truck fans, and especially fans of electric trucks, should remember the Bison. Havlaar took a blue, two-door, long-bed, truck to several automotive shows and successfully made a big deal of the Bison in 2017 and 2018.

Around this time, Elon Musk was talking about building the first Tesla truck, and Rivian was just starting to show off its R1T prototypes. Today, you can buy a Rivian, Musk is still promising we’ll see the Cybertruck, but the Bison seems forgotten about.

What was the Bison? Weird.

One reviewer called the Bison’s styling “amateurish.” While it wasn’t exactly the stylish Kia EV6 inside, it looked suitably modern for a work truck. Instead of analog gauges, it had a basic rectangular screen. Just like Tesla it mounted a touchscreen in the middle of the cabin. Three were two cupholders, two seats, and speakers. What more does a farmer need?

But the outside looked, well, future weird. It had flared fenders and a sloping nose. The sides were accented by aluminum-looking panels on the top and bottom. As a two-door, instead of a four-door like most modern pickups, the designed seemed like it was a generation behind even five years ago.

The company promised a 200-mile range from the two-motor all-wheel-drive system. It did feature many of the same options that a Rivian R1T would later offer, such as a power outlet for cordless tools.

A prototype was spotted driving around

Though a few videos exist of the Havlaar Bison driving around, there is no record of a magazine ever doing a road test of one.

Does Havlaar still exist?

The company made a large media splash in 2017, and then disappeared. After its original big splash, the company went dark. It seems there’s no record of any other versions, or colors, of the Havlaar Bison.

Havlaar Canada is now eLeapPower.  Havlaar developer Tony Han is now the founder and CTO of eLeapPower, a Toronto, Canada, based company that is working to develop a new type of powertrain system for electric vehicles. One of the biggest issues eLeapPower says with current electric vehicles is their on-board charger. eLeapPower aims to reduce wait and complexity of electric cars by eliminating the on-board charger.

In 2021, the eLeapPower announced it had received Series A funding. Today, the Havelaar Canada website redirects eLeapPower’s.

Related: Guide to New and Upcoming Electric Pickup Trucks

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Writer - Sedans & Coupes

Dan Mayfield

Dan joined MotorBiscuit in 2022 with over 20 years of experience in journalism and a lifelong passion for anything related to the automotive industry. He grew up wrenching a 1949 Ford pickup truck and an MGB with his dad, learning how not to wire a fuel pump (he inadvertently set the MGB on fire).

After earning a bachelor’s degree in photojournalism from the University of New Mexico, Dan has contributed his expertise to a range of local outlets, including the City of Albuquerque, US Eagle, and the Alliance for Local Economic Prosperity.

On weekends, Dan spends Saturdays enjoying “cars and coffee” chats and, on Sundays, he’s watching the Route 66 Cruise roll through town. He also races motorcycles, and it’s not unusual to find him elbows-deep in his latest cafe racer build.

Taking advantage of the local desert terrain, Dan also enjoys exploring and driving off-road in his trusty Ram Rebel pickup truck, which provides personal insights into his contributions to our Trucks, SUVs, & Crossovers coverage. Dan strives to give our readers unique information about the dynamic automotive market, reading anything that has to do with cars, trucks, bikes, 4X4s, and, in his words, “everything with a motor.”

Dan has earned a number of accolades from the Public Relations Society of America, and is a University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism Fellow.