EV maker Canoo, once worth $2.4B, files for bankruptcy

What does the inclusion of the move to Texas actually have to do with the downfall of the company?

I get that it is the original title, but even the article itself points out that the company was in dire straits well before the move.

The move (and forced relocation of employees) was likely a way to force attrition, since it was followed fairly quickly with layoffs elsewhere.

If anything, including mention of the move in the title just muddles the readers' expectations of the article, IMHO, and the article would be better off without it.

Has any SPAC ever actually succeeded in the sense that whatever it purchased didn't die after a year or was atleast profitable? Every one of them always seemed like a huge obvious scam to dump the bags on dumb money.

I kind of like what the folks in British Columbia are doing for their EV prototypes for Semi Trucks (technically a hybrid, EV with onboard generator): https://www.edisonmotors.ca/topsy

Funny how different our perceptions are. I've thought cars have been pretty ugly from the late 70s to about 2010, with a few notable exceptions.

Except the cybertruck, of course.

Dunno, I like my MX-5 ND.

> Everything

I'm rather fond of the new Lotus Emira or the Aston Martin Valhalla, both which look like anything but a "nondescript blob".

>Is there a market for a white-label EV platforms that are proven able to be executed well on a production line and allow the startups to actually complete on the fit and finish bits?

That was more or less the arrangement between Magna Steyr and Fisker, which failed

maybe the EV market just ain't big enough. EV car maker going belly up is also happening in China.

EV Platforms, and all car platforms actually, are already white label. Look up "badge engineering".

- So, going back 10-12 years, Tesla suddenly came and ate legacy ICE makers' lunches on many fronts – launching a successful EV, requisite charging network, overall UX, UI, driver assistance features, performance, sales and delivery, costs, software development, components, repair etc.

- Legacy ICE makers took a long time to figure out how to respond. At first, many of them thought all they had to do to compete was to was to throw in a large portrait screen. Then there were many abominations of them trying to fit EV components into their ICE platforms. I would say the Germans didn't get good at it until 2023-2024 (but they still have a lot to figure out).

- During the time, the legacy ICE makers were figuring things out, the EV startups had the advantage of not having the burden of legacy and figuring things out from first principles. There was a lot of money to be made here. In my estimation, this window of opportunity has now mostly passed.

> It seems like a ton of them fail to make a viable base platform profitable and able to mass produce.

Automotive is essentially a volume game in the long run. This is hard and figuring this out is where the value is. Basically, if you're able to figure out this part, it's a lot less effort to figure out the other parts and control the entire thing. This is similar to how car companies make their own engines (other than in specialty, low volume cases).

> Is there a market for a white-label EV platforms that are proven able to be executed well on a production line and allow the startups to actually complete on the fit and finish bits?

There is a market but it doesn't make sense for EV startups to do this because most of the value is in the previous bit, and the value add from this part is marginally less. Also, cars are complex and it takes a lot of work to integrate things made by others. Car companies do form partnerships to share these things.

Some cases:

1. Honda was late to the EV game and found it easier to form a partnership with GM. This resulted in the Honda Prologue, which is built by GM and is essentially a Chevy Blazer [1]. This model has been a success. However, Honda has cancelled the deal and will be releasing new cars built on its own platform [2].

2. Rivian is one company trying to scale on the platform side – they came out with high price-point vehicles. e.g. R1S competes with Range Rover. They're using the same platform for R1T trucks and for Amazon delivery trucks. Rivian had a partnership with Ford, where Rivian would make the platforms for Lincoln EVs, but Ford pulled out and are making Lincoln EVs on their own platform

VW Group was having major issues with its internal software and electronics tier I Cariad. So, they invested $5bn into Rivian so that they could use Rivian's expertise in this. See [3] for Rivian's perspectives on the various partnerships.

[1] https://www.motortrend.com/news/2024-honda-prologue-chevrole... [2] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43699034/honda-new-ev-pla... [3] https://electrek.co/2024/07/23/rivian-ceo-spills-tea-why-for...

Moving your HQ, return to office mandates and similar are a bad idea from an employee's point of view, but an excellent idea for a company if it wants to get rid of employees without having to pay severance. Of course, they risk most of their talented people leaving first, but I'm not sure companies really care about that...

Renewables aren't even a boom / bust cycle now. Their cost advantage, constancy issues aside, means they are an economic inevitability.

I don't think the US is going to have any more problems for quite a while in energy of the petroleum sort. The bakken shale formation isn't running out anytime soon.

Nuclear however, has fundamental issues with getting its costs down.

I'm guessing at some point EV companies from China, which will be normally blocked from the US market we're reform basically as OEM manufacturers for the complete car design and then some US EV company simply badges it.

I don't see why Chinese companies wouldn't start setting up Mexican or Canadian manufacturing facilities. Chinese companies need to diversify their global footprint to avoid the inevitabilities of demographic decline in China and an increase in authoritarianism