Yahoo News EV Startup Canoo Moves HQ from California to Texas and an Exec Exits
Canoo announced that it will be moving its headquarters from California to Texas, as reported by TechCrunch.
The facility in Torrance, Calif., will be shuttered and roughly 70 percent of the employees will be offered relocation to Canoo's operations in Texas or Oklahoma.
TechCrunch also reported that Sohel Merchant, Canoo's chief technology officer and one of its founding members, has resigned.
Startup company Canoo made a splash when it unveiled the pod-like Lifestyle Vehicle in 2019, followed by a neat snub-nosed pickup truck. But Canoo has struggled to put its unorthodox EVs into production, switching focus to commercial variants after Tony Aquila became CEO in 2021 and since delivering a handful of Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle vans to fleet customers. Now, according to reports from TechCrunch, Canoo is undergoing a significant shakeup, with its chief technology officer departing just as the company ditches its office in Torrance, California, for Texas.
TechCrunch reported that Canoo held a company-wide meeting where it announced it would close its Los Angeles-area office, which has been the firm's headquarters since it was founded as Evelozcity in 2017. Canoo will now be based out of Justin, Texas—in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area—where the company has held an office for a few years. Canoo will reportedly offer relocation to 137 out of the 194 employees at its California facility, either to Texas or to Oklahoma, where Canoo is building a factory to assemble its promised lineup of EVs.
This isn't the first time Canoo considered abandoning California. In 2021, Canoo had aimed to move its headquarters to Arkansas while undergoing contract discussions with Bentonville-based Walmart. The retail giant ended up signing a relatively cautious contract with Canoo, but the Arkansas factory never materialized. Canoo instead turned its attention to the facility in Pryor, Oklahoma, and later a separate factory in Oklahoma City.
Just a day after Canoo's reported move to Texas, news broke that the startup's chief technology officer and one of its founding members, Sohel Merchant, had left the company, according to TechCrunch. There is now just one member of the original founding team remaining, chief engineer Christoph Kuttner, after the departure of two CEOs—Stefan Krause and Ulrich Kranz—and the resignation of chief designer Richard Kim between 2020 and 2023.
Canoo has a tough road ahead. According to its second-quarter results, released earlier this month, Canoo has just $19.1 million as of June 30, and while Canoo has built a small number of vans, the Pryor plant is still not fully online. Still, Canoo has built several right-hand-drive LDV190s for the U.S. Postal Service this year, which are currently delivering mail in Atlanta. Canoo also acquired assets from failed commercial EV startup Arrival after the British firm went bankrupt earlier this year.
You Might Also Like
