EV startup Canoo has announced it has finalized agreements on workforce and economic development incentives from the state of Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation for its vehicle assembly and battery module manufacturing plants in Oklahoma City and Pryor.
Canoo says the estimated combined value of the incentive agreements is up to $113 million over 10 years. The deals require Canoo to meet job creation and investment targets.
Related: More Canoo coverage
“It’s been a multi-year effort to get to this point, and we are delighted to have finalized these agreements which enable Canoo to hire more than 1,300 Oklahomans and fulfill the vision of its state and tribal leaders to bring new industry to the state,” said Canoo Chairman and CEO Tony Aquila, Chairman in an email sent to EV Rider.
Aquila says that Canoo is pushing ahead with investments in equipment and jobs. Canoo expects to invest more than $320 million in its Oklahoma City assembly facility and Pryor battery module manufacturing plant. Together, these facilities will create more than 1,360 jobs at wages that exceed average state and local salaries, according to Department of Commerce data that Canoo cited.
Canoo is hiring for both sites and advertising for its open positions, working with the Cherokee Nation and with the State of Oklahoma and local career technology schools and staffing agencies to recruit and train a skilled advanced manufacturing workforce.
Vehicle assembly equipment is in place and is being readied for installation work involving commissioning, testing, validation, and optimization at its Oklahoma City facility, Canoo said Monday.
In Pryor, similar work is underway to complete installation and begin months of work to calibrate, test, and validate the performance and integrity of the high-tech systems. Both plants will incrementally expand production capacity in line with the company’s revenue forecasts, Aquila added.
Canoo has scheduled an earnings call after the market closes on Monday, Aug. 14. Among the major questions investors will likely have is whether the company has secured enough capital to survive long enough to ramp up production and whether it is still on track to reach volume production before the end of the year.
In its first quarter earnings report Canoo said it had an order book valued at $2.8 billion with customers that include Walmart. It also said at the time it remains on track to end 2023 at a 20,000-vehicle run rate, ramping up to 40,000 vehicles in 2024.
Canoo lost almost $91 million in the first quarter. NASDAQ has notified Canoo it is in danger of being delisted because its stock price has fallen below a dollar a share for 30 consecutive business days. The NASDAQ has given Canoo until September 25 to get its stock price back into compliance. At the time of this story’s posting Canoo stock was trading at 50 cents per share, down from 1 January 27 high of $1.38.
Editorial disclosure: The author of this post is a Canoo stockholder.