Canoo EV News

[jesthorbjorn]

They garnered rather more of my interest when they introduced their pick-up concept. A lot of full size pick-up capability packed in a compact EV foot-print.

Couple of months ago, someone was at the right place at the right time and snapped photos of a prototype sport coupe of theirs also. There was a link in the old forum.

I’m sticking with the Aptera for my primary / commuter vehicle though.

[joshua-rosen]

Looks like a great taxi, 250 miles of range is probably fine for a taxi.

[jonah-jorgenson]

Extended spring break over for me with submission of my thesis and on the way from cold Boston to Sunny Titusville FL. In an effort to get plugged back into work talking with my Artemis Project colleagues, learned that a EV start up called Canoo supplanted Tesla for a NASA contract to transport Artemis Astronauts to the launch pad. Not lucrative from the financial standpoint but great publicity both for Canoo and Nasa (Select an electric startup to support a space mission) Canoo is a startup competitor for Aptera for 2023. A bit of a sleeper. I have a cousin that has one reserved for his family (Married with three children)

Steering is “Fly by wire” so easy to do right had drive. Just move the steering column over to the right side! Ready for the UK and Australia!

Below is an Electrek article on the win. Looks like the URL was deleted

• This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by  Jonah Jorgenson.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by  Jonah Jorgenson. Reason: corrected date and attempted to repost the URL
• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by  bbelcamino.
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[IA-1]

Canoo has a good concept and a good price. Their skateboard modular platform is great, they will have different cabins with the same platform.

It’s good that they have completely different vehicles than Aptera, so they are not a direct competitor. I would like to see Canoo succeed, but unfortunately they had some issues with the upper management and their stock price tanked. We will see what happens by the end of 2022.

[jonah-jorgenson]

They are competitive with Aptera on price and competitive for those that want more than two seats in a vehicle (Families like my cousin), and/or SUV/Crossover fans. They will also have a pickup truck (Of sorts) available with in a year to 15 months. Customers will get the full government tax advantage which makes them even more available to customers with smaller vehicle budgets.

I hope they are successful as well. I am for any positive movement toward the adoption of EVs.

[Leaver]

I have two Canoos reserved… the pick up and the van. They are a long shot for sure, but I love their concept and fingers crossed that they make it to production.

[john-malcom]

I technically track Canoo financials for an EV
manufacturer who is releasing a new EV. They consider Canoo as a potential competitor
to a soon to be released electric SUV. Canoo, in their recent investor relations
report said, “As of the date of this announcement, we
are reporting that there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to
continue as a going concern.” Canoo Merged with a SPAC In August 2020 and
had a market cap of 2.4 billion. Now they are nearly out of money. The
calculated probability of Canoo going bankrupt (Probability Of Bankruptcy = Normalized Z-Score) has moved from 24% a few days ago
to 77% today. The current management kicked out the founders thinking they
could do a better job. Sound familiar? If you don’t think Aptera Management walks
on water, review what they have done and are doing with a few million

• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  John Malcom.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[jesthorbjorn]

I’ve been pulling for Canoo to succeed also but..um…yeah. The current differences between the two start-ups have been pretty stark so far. Your point about the similarity to Aptera part one is ironic. The ultimate bankruptcy for Canoo has already been predicted by some.

[joshua-rosen]

I’m of the opinion that the absolute worst thing for a startup is to have too much money which is Canoo’s situation (they’ve raised $600M). It’s much better to have too little which is Aptera’s situation. Startups need to make quick decisions and to focus on fundamentals, that’s what watching every penny forces you to do. It’s also important to have a small team of high quality people, that’s much more effective than having a giant team of average people. Giant teams can’t optimize, the classic treatise on this is Mythical Man Month. Underfunded companies are forced to have a small tight team. Having too much money removes the discipline necessary to succeed, that seems to be Canoo’s situation. John, you’ve been watching them, how have they managed to blow through $600M so quickly? That’s a huge cash bonfire.

[john-malcom]

That is a great question!

Of course all is conjecture since the finance/accounting data is not available even though the company is public.

The most popular explanation, again without any supportive data, is that Canoo was counting on funding and other support from the Hyundai partnership and over committed to building the US production facility, hire surge staffing in preparation for the expected work, and then when the partnership fell through had more committed than was prudent. The second part of that is that Canoo had arranged and expected to have initial production done in Europe while the OK production facility was being built out planning on early production revenue. That arrangement failed as well so then they had to acquire a short term production facility in AK and outfit it for early production to start getting operational revenue. An unanticipated and unplanned expense. Add that to the move into other facilities in AK (Probably expecting lower operating costs) and their financial over extension caught up with them.

Other thoughts are crying wolf to get current investors to ante up more money so they don’t loose what they have already invested this close to production. The Canoo schedule is almost identical to Apteras.

the least popular but still alive is that they became heady with all of the cash they got from their SPAC and didn’t pay attention to finical controls.

Another thought is that they surreptitiously want to do a Chapter 11, restructure their debt, and continue to operate.

And almost an infinite number of others!!😜 much like American politics.

Does make you appreciate the management of Aptera a lot more.

• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  John Malcom. Reason: add content and corrected grammar
• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[joshua-rosen]

Thanks, that was an informative answer. Unfortunately the market is tanking and when that happens investors would rather lose it all rather part with any new money. In 2009 I had a customer that had really important supercomputer technology. They ran out of cash and they were forced into liquidation. Intel had put $40M into them but they weren’t willing to spend a penny at that moment. Huawei swooped in and bought their assets for $2M and hired their team, these were assets that had taken $80M to develop. CFIUS (the US government committee on foreign investment in the US) got wind of it and made them disgorge the IP, not that it mattered because it had probably all been transferred to China within minutes of Huawei’s purchase. Intel lost their $40M investment rather then spend the lousy $2M it would have taken to bring it in house, but it was 2009 and they weren’t spending money, if they had bought the assets it would be in their cloud products today.

• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  Joshua Rosen.

[john-malcom]

That is a discouraging story but I suspect not uncommon and typical of the way the financial people think. Results in lost opportunities and advantage to the competitors

[joshua-rosen]

It’s also illustrative of how the Chinese handle situations like this. While no one in the US was willing to step up Huawei pounced. The same thing happened to the Aptera Rev 1, the assets were bought by a Chinese company, that didn’t work out for them but the battery maker A123, which had it’s assets bought by Wanxiang, is still around and doing well.

One final thing about the Huawei story. Huawei tried to do an end run around our laws. Acquisitions by a foreign company have to be approved by CFIUS. Rather than apply for permission to buy the company Huawei bought the IP and hired the engineers without buying the company itself. CFIUS found out and made them give away the IP, in CFIUS’s eyes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s a duck i.e. they had bought the company without playing by the foreign acquisition rules.

[daniel-chin]

It’s not clear that Aptera will IPO or take the SPAC route. In one of “Aptera Owners Club” videos of the SEC filing, I recall seeing the CFO’s potential bonus options; one of them included getting a valuation of 1-2B or completing a SPAC transaction.

Edit: Aptera Owners Club just posted a video about the EV cash burn problem – he covers a Barrons article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZdnBxIAYig

• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  Daniel Chin. Reason: typo
• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  Daniel Chin.

[Shawgrin]

I have been following Canoo for awhile and had been planning on buying one for my wife. When I saw the original founders leaving, I cancelled my purchase, feeling that (not being a financial specialist) something fell apart in the well being of the company. I was nearly as jazzed up for the Canoo as I am for the Aptera. Canoo has nearly 40 Delta vehicles and some great contracts that may go unfilled. I dearly hope that we do see Apteras on the road with thousands of people driving them.

[Shawgrin]

Walmart to Purchase 4,500 Canoo Electric Delivery Vehicles to be Used for Last Mile Deliveries in Support of Its Growing eCommerce Business

https://www.press.canoo.com/press-release/walmart-purchases-canoo-electric-delivery-vehicles

• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by  Wyatt Andrews.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by  Wyatt Andrews.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by  Wyatt Andrews.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by  John Trotter. Reason: Title expanded for search clarity
• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[Shawgrin]

The US army is purchasing canoes

https://investorplace.com/2022/07/canoo-goev-stock-gains-on-army-news

[V-Pilot]

They were selected to supply A vehicle for analysis and demonstration.

[jesthorbjorn]

https://youtu.be/b3Sj2jJmug8

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by  Joel Smith.
• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by  Joel Smith.
• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by  Joel Smith.
• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[jesthorbjorn]

Way more information about the Canoo vehicles than we have seen before (from independent sources anyway). And from Sandy Munro, no less!

After watching this, I have recovered a great deal of my enthusiasm for these vehicles.

Completely different use cases than Aptera but still impressively innovative.

[jesthorbjorn]

Wow, it is a pain in the ass to get hyperlinks to work on this website!😒

[jonah-jorgenson]

Canoo is a legitimate competitor to Aptera as it is a weekly popular form factor for a large proportion of the market. I have an uncle that has a Canoo reservation. He is impressed with the “Drive by wire” tech, the seating capacity (He has a large and growing family), and the price in the ’30s. Not so impressed with the range, but rationalizes it with the growing number of charging stations. He will be able to charge for nothing at home as he has a robust, full-home backup solar system.

Canoo recently avoided the same issue facing Aptera, insufficient funds to proceed with production. Saved by Walmart order and support.