Oklahoma’s Electric Vehicle Maker Is Going Broke Already
The intrepid and controversial saga of Oklahoma's EV (electric vehicle) manufacturer Canoo continues today as the hopeful automaker shows signs of weakness in its financial status, questioning whether it'd survive as a company or go broke.
Like any other company that has to answer to investors, Canoo recently updated theirs on the company's status, first-quarter achievements, and the outlook for the future.
Among some of the positive things announced, Canoo has now delivered 39 of their vehicles for gamma testing - which is basically the final round of testing before something hits the market. Canoo also announced 17,500 preorders for their vehicles that should be worth an estimated $750million at market. Plus NASA picked Canoo to provide the transportation vehicles for their ground crew throughout the Artemis campaign of moon missions, projected to last at least into the 2030s.
Final product testing, massive orders mounting, a fat government contract from NASA... That's a lot of big news from any startup, but it's also the end of the positive news for Canoo.
As investors read further into the financial well-being of Canoo, the talk of expenditures vs debt, GAAP, EBITDA, net loss, investment gains, etc... the dotted line at the bottom doesn't inspire much confidence.
Due to the timing of our announced funding, and the 2014 FASB accounting rule, 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.
What does that mean? Well, unless Canoo can get an influx of cash, odds are their journey to become Oklahoma's first modern auto manufacturer will likely be over.
In not-so-shocking news, opponents of Canoo's growing aspirations are somewhat celebrating the possible ending in failure of Oklahoma's EV fairytale story. Ironically it's the population left-of-center politically doing the celebrating even though the EV industry is universally celebrated on that side of the aisle.
Why are they cheering on failure? Politics.
It was only a few months ago that the same group of Redditors aimed their impotent rage at Governor Stitt for "giving" so much to this startup in order to attract them and a wealth of good-paying jobs to Oklahoma. A move made mostly because they must resist anything tied to Republicans, good or bad. rabble rabble...
I fully admit, even I was somewhat taken back by Canoo's decision to establish their headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas rather than Tulsa after receiving Oklahoma's massive enticement, land, and tax package worth some $300million. By any measure of standard, it was a dick move by Canoo.
Time will tell if Canoo can bootstrap themselves into successful production one day, hopefully without the need for more of my taxpayer money.