Struggling electric vehicle startup Canoo has filed for bankruptcy and ceased all operations.
The startup announced its filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Jan. 17 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Delaware. This will result in the federal appointment of a trustee to oversee the liquidation of Canoo’s assets and distribution of proceeds to creditors, the startup confirmed in a press release.
Canoo attributed the decision to declare bankruptcy to unsuccessful efforts to secure additional funding from a Department of Energy loan program and foreign investors. Canoo went public four years ago, raising an estimated $600 million, but the cash-intensive process of developing and manufacturing new vehicles left it looking for other funding sources.
Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle
Canoo has claimed to have substantial numbers of orders from customers like Walmart, but has only managed to deliver small numbers of demonstration vehicles, including to NASA, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Postal Service. It’s mainly focused on electric vans built atop a skateboard chassis, but it also produced two pickup-truck designs, the latter intended for military use and only produced in prototype form.
As first reported by TechCrunch, Canoo’s bankruptcy filing reveals the startup owes approximately $164 million to creditors while holding assets valued at $126 million.
Canoo in December furloughed 82 employees and idled an assembly facility in Oklahoma, then quickly placed the remaining employees on what it called a “mandatory unpaid break.” Earlier in the year, it purchased equipment from defunct U.K. startup Arrival for use at the Oklahoma facility.
Canoo American Bulldog
In 2017, the company was started as Evelozcity by several former Faraday Future executives, although most of the contingent that launched it left some time ago. That’s coincided with a change in direction under current CEO Tony Aquila, who pivoted Canoo from its original plan of selling van-like EVs on a subscription basis toward commercial vehicles and government contracts.
While the broad-strokes plan to manufacture commercial vehicles has remained the same under Aquila’s leadership, the details have changed. Canoo revealed production plans with the Netherlands’ VDL, then canceled them, with a following corporate move to Arkansas and then Texas.