By Steven Symes 
Canoo, a weird EV startup based out of Texas (it used to be based in California) recently announced it has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In other words, it’s liquidation for the company in an attempt to satisfy debts and the end of the road. Many EV startups shutter all the time, more than you likely realize, but Canoo did get showered with attention by some automotive media sites for reasons we’ll never fully understand.
Watch some cops drive Teslas for the first time and get blown away by the experience.
Instead of concentrating on consumer sales like Tesla, Canoo created commercial vehicles for businesses and government organizations. Those vehicles looked like an eraser on wheels, and that’s being kind, but we’re sure the strange design had nothing to do with the company’s demise.
In a press release announcing the bankruptcy filing, Canoo blames its inability “to secure financial support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office.” Translation: taxpayers were supposed to float this venture, but the DOE instead signed over big money to Stellantis, Rivian, and other automakers for EV production.
With that blow, the American automaker turned to unnamed “foreign sources of capital” to keep the lights on. Those obviously didn’t come through, so the company ran out of juice.
Among the highlights of Canoo’s existence was being selected by NASA to transport the Artemis shuttle crew to the launch pad and selling six all-electric vans to the United States Postal Service. It seems appropriate the failed company was teaming up with those two unironically. Canoo has been around since 2017.
The company also worked with Walmart, the Department of Defense, and the State of Oklahoma. But none of those contracts were near enough to keep things going. It’s a tough market and without big daddy government stuffing the pockets of some of these startups, they don’t seem able to make it. Go figure.
Image via Canoo