EV startup Canoo has some good news to share ahead of its expected February 27, 2023 earnings report.
Wednesday the EV fleet vehicle maker announced the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) awarded Canoo a contract to supply battery modules for analysis and demonstration. The award supports the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) focus to incorporate scalable and adaptable EV capabilities in tactical environments.
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“We are very proud to be selected by the Department of Defense and to contribute to our country’s global defense technology leadership. This award is another example of our focus and commitment to innovation. We’ve worked hard and continue to develop our patented technologies and ability to deliver flexible, on demand energy solutions that are multi-purpose capable, to serve America’s interests and its allies around the world,” said Chairman & CEO at Canoo Chairman & CEO Tony Aquila in an email to EV Rider.
“We are proud to be selected by the DoD and to contribute to our country’s global defense technology leadership,” he added. The value of the award wasn’t disclosed by Canoo and had apparently not been posted yet at the time of this story’s publication on the Department of Defense’s website.
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Canoo’s proprietary battery system is modular to support different vehicle configurations and engineered to provide what Canoo claims is “industry leading energy density.” That claim has not been verified by EV Rider.
The system is designed to be flexible and compatible with cells from leading battery providers and engineered to evolve with changes in cell size and chemistry as the industry matures, scales and reduces costs.
This contract follows Canoo’s delivery of a Light Tactical Vehicle (LTV) to the U.S. Army in November, and its selection to provide NASA with crew transportation vehicles to support the Artemis lunar landing missions.
The Department of Defense is also working with other EV manufacturers.
“We are engaging industry to utilize commercial building block batteries that can be deployed as the foundational pathway for the hybridization of any ground vehicle platform,” according to DON-OE’s Deputy Director, Daphne Fuentevilla. “Our strategy is to learn how large of a building block we can leverage, how to package the commercial technology into non-proprietary defense interfaces, and how to integrate batteries evolving at the speed of industry into defense platforms with static structures.”
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In September 2022, DIU issued an award to the first of five vendors, GM Defense, to develop a battery pack prototype for testing and analysis on DoD platforms.
In January 2023, EV automaker Lucid was issued an award to develop battery module prototypes for testing and analysis.
The awards are expected to help the U.S. military meet the National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries 2021-2030 objective to “develop form-fit-function battery standards for defense, EV, and grid applications” and a 2030 objective to “meet critical defense battery demand with multiple-source domestic suppliers.”
Editorial disclosure: The author of this post is a Canoo stockholder.