It's been a while since there's been any good news from the American electric car startup Canoo, but things seem to have moved off the ground: the company will receive from the state Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation, a $110 million long-term investment to build two electric vehicle and battery assembly plants.
Startup Canoo was founded in 2017 by former top managers of BMW and Opel, it offered a really fresh look at the design of electric vehicles without being tied to any existing templates: one-volume layout, steering wheel “by wire”, a large area of glazing with end windows, the widest transformation possibilities and much more.
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Canoo's first model – the Lifestyle Vehicle minivan in passenger, cargo and adventure versions – was supposed to go into production back in 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic 19 broke the schedule, provoked financial problems and leapfrog in the leadership of the startup. The founding fathers have left the company, and it is now run by one of its main investors, entrepreneur Tony Akila.
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Mounting losses and an extremely unfavorable investment climate due to the tense geopolitical situation have brought Canoo to the brink of collapse: at the beginning of the month, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined the company $ 1.5 million due to unreasonable profit forecasts, but these the forecasts were made by the previous leaders of the startup and as a result of negotiations the conflict was settled.
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Against this background, it is especially encouraging that Canoo was able to enlist the support of the Oklahoma state government and local Cherokee Indians in the construction of two plants with a total cost of $320 million. By the standards of the modern car industry, this is quite modest money, but Canoo has no big ambitions yet – at first, it wants to make 20,000 cars a year. The car assembly plant will be located in metropolitan Oklahoma City, the batteries will be made near the Cherokee Nation – in the town of Pryor, both enterprises will create 1360 jobs in the state. Production should start at the end of this year, equipment is being installed and employees are being hired. Canoo abandoned plans to localize its machines in Europe back in 2021.
Development single-volume vehicles, in fact, have already been completed, they have passed a cycle of severe tests, the necessary changes have been made to the design, but the company is very stingy in this sense with details, there are no detailed technical specifications. Recall that in addition to the main family of monocabs, Canoo plans to include a convertible pickup truck with a cabover cab and an angular MPDV van. , the power of the electric motor located on the rear axle is 200-350 hp, the battery capacity is 80 kWh, the power reserve on a single charge is about 320 km. The passenger version can accommodate up to 7 people with a standard overall length of 4481 mm, the cargo version will also be offered with an extended body. A more detailed description will hopefully follow with the much anticipated Oklahoma production launch.
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