Canoo, a developer and manufacturer of battery electric vehicles, has officially relocated its headquarters from Torrance, California, to Justin, a city around 25 miles of Fort Worth. But its North Texas DNA goes back years longer.

The company’s executive chairman and CEO is DFW-based Tony Aquila, the founder and former CEO of Westlake-based Solera Holdings. An investor in Canoo, Aquila stepped into the CEO role in 2021. That same year, Canoo signed a five-year contract for a facility in Justin owned by Aquila, boosting its North Texas presence.

Walmart has ordered 4,500 Canoo electric delivery vans. [Photo: Walmart]

By 2022, pre-production test models of the all-electric Canoo Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle (LDV) were slated to pop up on Dallas-Fort Worth streets, decked out in Walmart blue. That announced pilot followed an order for 4,500 of the LDVs by the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant, with the option to purchase up to 10,000 of the EVs.

At the time, Aquila said the LDV “has the turning radius of a small passenger vehicle on a parking friendly, compact footprint, yet the payload and cargo space of a commercial delivery vehicle. This is the winning algorithm to seriously compete in the last mile delivery race, globally.”

Canoo’s battery module manufacturing facility in Pryor, Oklahoma. [Photo: Canoo]

Canoo co-founder and CTO has left company 

Along with the HQ move to North Texas, Canoo has seen a shakeup in its C-suite. Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Sohel Merchant recently left the company, according to TechCrunch. Canoo was founded in 2017 under the name Evelozcity, and renamed Canoo in 2019. Only one of the company’s founding team members, Chief Engineer Christoph Kuttner, remains at the company, TechCrunch noted. 

Like many EV startups not named Tesla, Canoo (Nasdaq: GOEV) is still betting on the future for its ambitions to be realized—and for EV orders like Walmart’s to be fully fulfilled. Other companies ordering Canoo LDVs include Kingbee, a Utah-based work-ready van rental company, which ordered 9,300 Canoo LDVs in October 2022, and L.A.-based Zeeba, a commercial fleet management company that ordered 5,450 LDVs that same month. California-based Prime Time Shuttle inked a contract for the purchase of up to 550 LDVs last November.

Delivering Canoos to the USPS, the Army, and NASA

The U.S. Postal Service purchased 6 Canoo EVs in early 2024. [Photo: Canoo]

As you can see in the photos on this story, federal agencies—which have some of America’s largest fleets—have been exploring what Canoo’s LDV can do. 

Six LDV vans were delivered to the United States Postal Service earlier this year for a test pilot in Atlanta, according to Car and Driver. 

Last November, Canoo unveiled its American Bulldog, a derivative of the Screaming Eagle, an EV it had delivered to the U.S. Army “for extensive testing” in 2022. 

Canoo delivered three Crew Transportation Vehicles to NASA in July 2023. [Photo: Canoo]

In July 2023, Canoo delivered three all-electric Crew Transportation Vehicles (CTVs) to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The EVs are intended to transport astronauts to the launch pad for the Artemis Moon missions, the company said.

“We’re thrilled to be a part of the Artemis missions and to deliver NASA’s first zero-emission built for mission crew transportation vehicles,” CEO  Aquila said at the time.  “It’s a very proud day for Canoo and all of our partners who worked so hard to ensure we perform our part to transport the astronauts for the first nine miles of every launch.”

Engineered to carry fully suited astronauts, flight support crew, and equipment to the launch pad, the CTVs feature an exclusive interior and exterior design that will provide astronaut and crew comfort and safety while on the nine-mile journey to the launch pad, Canoo said.

More Looks at Canoos

In 2023, The U.S. Department of Defense Innovation Unit awarded Canoo a contract to supply battery modules for analysis and demonstration. [Photo: Canoo]

Canoo delivered three Crew Transportation Vehicles to NASA in July 2023. [Photo: Canoo]

Zeeba enlisted Canoo to expand its fleet with electric vehicles. [Photo: Canoo]

Kingbee, a national work-ready van rental provider, will use Canoo LDV 130 vehicles in its fleet. [Photo: Canoo]

Prime Time Shuttle employs the use of Canoo’s Lifestyle Vehicle (LV) Premium model vehicles in its fleet that services the Los Angeles metropolitan area. [Photo: Canoo]

Canoo entered a $30 billion market with multiple commercial vehicle sales in Saudi Arabia. [Photo: Canoo]

In 2023, Canoo established an agreement with the Pawnee Nation, based in Pawnee, Oklahoma, to identify and nurture emerging business and job opportunities in Oklahoma’s growing clean energy industry. [Photo: Canoo]

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