Electric SUV startup tries to collect $140,000 deposits with dubious 700-mile range claim

A new electric vehicle startup based in New Jersey has been making the news after claiming to have a large electric SUV with 700 miles of range, for which they are trying to collect $140,000 deposits, but we are extremely skeptical of the effort here at Electrek.

We often get unsolicited press releases from new companies in the electric vehicle or clean technology space.

If we have time, we look into the information and if we find it credible and interesting, we share it on the website.

Last week, we received a press release from Triton Solar, a New Jersey-based solar power company, that informed us that they have launched an EV division and they are starting to take pre-orders, with a large  $140,000 deposit, for the Triton Model H, a large electric SUV, which they claim has 700 miles of range.

After a quick look at the company and the claim, we quickly determined that it was vaporware at best and a nefarious attempt to collect deposits based on false claims at worst, so we decided not to publish coverage.

Now a few days later, we’ve seen several publications decide to cover with little to no verification of Triton’s claims – prompting us to report on it.

Here are the specs that Triton claims they can achieve

Electrek’s Take

First off, their range claim makes no sense whatsoever.

Triton claims that their giant electric SUV is going to have a 700-mile range on a 200 kWh battery pack, which is virtually impossible unless they are braking some laws of physics.

It adds up to an efficiency of 285 Wh per mile.

For comparison, a Tesla Model X, which is a much smaller and more aerodynamic SUV than the Triton Model H, will normally get closer to 350-400 Wh per mile depending on a few different factors.

Even if Triton has somehow leapfrogged Tesla’s efficiency, it’s virtually impossible for them to deliver a 5,300-lb SUV with this kind of form factor and achieve 700-mile of range on a 200 kWh battery pack.

In short, Triton has released a bunch of renders, which basically looks like a modified Suburban (they didn’t even bother to change the dimension – they are the same to the inch), and claimed a bunch of vaporware specs in order to collect reservations with extremely large deposits.

A word comes to mind. It rhymes with ‘ham’.

They shouldn’t be taken seriously despite their media coverage.