Shares of American EV startup Canoo (GOEV) are surging after its Oklahoma City facility received approval as a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ). The approval will help improve Canoo improve profitability as it scales production.
Canoo (GOEV) gets FTZ status for its OKC EV facility
After throwing a lifeline to keep its shares listed on the NASDAQ with a reverse stock split earlier this month, Canoo’s (GOEV) stock is surging following the approval at its OKC EV facility.
Canoo announced on Monday that the US Department of Commerce approved the plant as an FTZ, sparking the rally. The approval will help accelerate Canoo’s Made in America EV strategy, improve unit profitability, and “enable a faster path to breakeven.”
The plant currently employs around 100 workers but is expected to support up to 1,100 at full capacity.
By securing an FTZ designation, Canoo eliminates all customs duties on vehicles sold overseas and defers of customs duties on imported parts for EVs sold in the US.
Canoo sources over 90% of its parts in the US and free trade partners, with about 70% from North America.
First Canoo EVs delivered to NASA (Source: Canoo)
Improving profitability
According to Canoo, the FTZ will “significantly enhance profitability” by lowering vehicle costs by up to 5% on parts imported from other parts of the globe. The cost reductions will be on EVs made in the US and exported overseas, which Canoo intends to announce “in the near future.”
For vehicles sold in the US, FTZ improves working capital “by millions” by derring customs, duties, and tariffs on imports.
Canoo electric LDV 190 (Source: Canoo)
Canoo expects additional cost savings through a simplified customs process and streamlined supply chain.
The EV maker is waiting for approval at its other manufacturing plans. If approved, Canoo FTZs will be one of the largest in Oklahoma.
Canoo (GOEV) stock chart over the past year (Source: TradingView)
Following the news, Canoo’s (GOEV) stock is up over 50% (+1.06 per share). After hitting an all-time low earlier this month, Canoo shares are bouncing. However, they are still down nearly 80% over the past year.
Electrek’s Take
Like other EV startups (or any growth company), a higher stock price makes it easier to raise funds (via debt) and attract new investors.
Despite the win, Canoo’s finances are still a concern. At the end of September, Canoo had only $8.3 million in cash and equivalents.
The EV maker lost $273.6 million through the first nine months of 2023. Although losses slimmed in Q3, Canoo still lost $112 million.
Canoo CEO Tony Aquila explained that although “we still have things left to prove,” Canoo is now manufacturing and generating revenue. The EV maker posted $519,000 in revenue on its first EV sales.
The EV maker is moving toward hitting 20,000 annual vehicle capacity. Canoo is making progress with the first official customer deliveries of its commercial electric van last month. It also announced that USPS is purchasing six LDV 190 delivery vans as a transition to electric.
Several EV startups like Canoo are struggling amid rising interest rates and more competition entering the market.
Fisker (FSR) announced earlier today that it is pausing production after failing to make an interest payment. The company is halting production for six weeks as it looks to get its finances in order.
Meanwhile, Canoo is serving a different market in commercial vehicles that could prove to be a lifeline to continue operations. With its “Made in America” approach, Canoo expects to benefit from the IRA’s Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit. With that, Canoo customers are eligible for a tax credit of up to $7,500.
As of Q3, Canoo had a +$3 billion order book and $750 million in commited orders (18,000 units).
We’ll learn more about Canoo’s financial situation and oulook for the year when it releases Q4 and full year 2023 earnings later this month.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
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To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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The OPEC logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of a computer screen displaying OPEC icons in Ankara, Turkey, on June 25, 2024.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Eight oil-producing nations of the OPEC+ alliance agreed on Saturday to increase their collective crude production by 548,000 barrels per day, as they continue to unwind a set of voluntary supply cuts.
This subset of the alliance — comprising heavyweight producers Russia and Saudi Arabia, alongside Algeria, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — met digitally earlier in the day. They had been expected to increase their output by a smaller 411,000 barrels per day.
In a statement, the OPEC Secretariat attributed the countries’ decision to raise August daily output by 548,000 barrels to “a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories.”
The eight producers have been implementing two sets of voluntary production cuts outside of the broader OPEC+ coalition’s formal policy.
One, totaling 1.66 million barrels per day, stays in effect until the end of next year.
Under the second strategy, the countries reduced their production by an additional 2.2 million barrels per day until the end of the first quarter.
They initially set out to boost their production by 137,000 barrels per day every month until September 2026, but only sustained that pace in April. The group then tripled the hike to 411,000 barrels per day in each of May, June, and July — and is further accelerating the pace of their increases in August.
Oil prices were briefly boosted in recent weeks by the seasonal summer spike in demand and the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, which threatened both Tehran’s supplies and raised concerns over potential disruptions of supplies transported through the key Strait of Hormuz.
At the end of the Friday session, oil futures settled at $68.30 per barrel for the September-expiration Ice Brent contract and at $66.50 per barrel for front month-August Nymex U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude.
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
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