Canoo Inc. (Canoo) is a high tech advanced mobility technology company with a proprietary modular electric vehicle platform and connected services initially focused on commercial fleet, government and military customers.
The company has developed a breakthrough EV platform that will enable it to rapidly iterate and bring new products, addressing multiple use cases, to market faster than the company’s competition. The company’s vehicle architecture and design philosophy are aimed at driving prod...
Canoo Inc. (Canoo) is a high tech advanced mobility technology company with a proprietary modular electric vehicle platform and connected services initially focused on commercial fleet, government and military customers.
The company has developed a breakthrough EV platform that will enable it to rapidly iterate and bring new products, addressing multiple use cases, to market faster than the company’s competition. The company’s vehicle architecture and design philosophy are aimed at driving productivity and returning capital to the company’s customers, and the software and technology capabilities the company is developing, packaged around a modular, customizable product, have the potential to empower the customer experience across a vehicle’s lifecycle. The company has commercialized its first production vehicles and are delivering them to customers. The company remains committed to the environment and to delivering sustainable mobility to the company’s customers to support them in meeting their net zero emissions goals. The company is proudly manufacturing its fully electric vehicles in Oklahoma and is committed to building a diverse workforce that will draw heavily upon the local communities of Native Americans and Veterans.
The company is one of the first automotive manufacturers focused on monetizing value across the entirety of the vehicle lifecycle, across multiple owners. The company’s platform and data architecture is purpose-built to be durable and serve as the foundation for the vehicles the company intends to offer, unlocking a highly differentiated, multi-layer business model. The foundational layer is the company’s Multi-Purpose Platform (‘MPP-1’ or ‘platform’) architecture, which serves as the base of the company’s vehicles. The company’s first production vehicles are the Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle, including the Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 130 and Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 190. Future models will include the Lifestyle Vehicle (‘LV’) in its Base, Premium, and Adventure trims; the Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle (‘MPDV’) and the Pickup. The next layer is cybersecurity which is embedded in the company’s vehicle to ensure the privacy and protection of vehicle data. The company’s top hats, or cabins, are modular and purpose-built to provide tailored solutions for the company’s customers. This intentional design enables the company to efficiently use resources to produce only what is necessary, underscoring the company’s focus on sustainability and returning capital to customers. The remaining layers, connected accessories and digital customer ecosystem, present high-margin opportunities that extend beyond the initial vehicle sale, across multiple owners. In addition, there are opportunities for software sales throughout the vehicle life, including predictive maintenance and service software or advanced driver assistance systems (‘ADAS’) upgrades.
The company’s platform architecture is a self-contained, fully functional rolling chassis that directly houses the most critical components for operation of an EV, including the company’s in-house designed proprietary electric drivetrain, battery systems, advanced vehicle control electronics and software and other critical components, which all have been optimized for functional integration. Both the company’s true steer-by-wire system, believed to be the first such system applied to a production-intent vehicle, and the company’s transverse composite leaf-spring suspension system are core components of the company’s platform’s differentiated functionality, enabling the development of a broad range of vehicle types and use cases due to the chassis’ flat profile and fully variable steering positions. All of the company’s announced EVs, including the Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 130, the Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 190, the LV, the MPDV and the Pickup, will share a common platform architecture paired with different top hats to create a range of uniquely customized and use case optimized purpose-built mobility solutions targeting multiple segments of the rapidly expanding EV marketplace.
In addition to the company’s vehicle technology, the company is developing an in-house designed and proprietary software platform that aggregates car data from both Canoo and non-Canoo vehicles and delivers valuable insights to the company’s customers. Collected over-the-air for connected vehicles or via an on-board diagnostics (‘OBD’) device for non-connected vehicles, car data is critical to powering the customer journey and maximizing utility and value from the vehicle ownership experience. Leveraging the company’s data aggregation platform, the company intends to create the Canoo Digital Ecosystem, an application store that centralizes all vehicle information for customers and provides key tools across Security & Safety, Household Vehicle Management, Fleet Management, Lifecycle Management and Vehicle Asset Management. Through the company’s software offering, the company can provide substantial value to customers by staying connected throughout the vehicle lifecycle, across multiple owners.
As a Technology Equipment Manufacturer (TEM), Canoo is dedicated to developing vehicles that prioritize high performance, design excellence and seamless integration of purpose-built hardware and proprietary software. The core of Canoo's technology is in its Multi-Purpose Platform (MPP) architecture which has been meticulously engineered for durability and versatility, enabling a wide range of use cases. The company’s integrated software delivers user-centric features and functions that enable the generation of valuable data-driven insights for both fleet operators and consumers. Ultimately, Canoo strives to provide a connected, safe, and personalized driving experience by harnessing advanced vehicle technology.
Core to the company’s values is delivering high quality products while empowering local communities, which drove the company’s decision to build in America and source a majority of the company’s parts from America and allied nations. Vertical integration across the company’s manufacturing and assembly process will enable the company to achieve in-house scale production with less supply chain risk and provide the company better oversight of the company’s vehicle manufacturing. The company is building production facilities in states and communities that are investing in high-tech manufacturing alongside the company, creating American jobs and driving innovation.
The company has made strategic investments in its technology and products that position the company to capture three large and growing markets - commercial and passenger vehicles, upfitting and accessories, and telematics data.
The company continues to innovate and develop every aspect of the company’s business, from capturing opportunities beyond the traditional business model to the company’s built in America, highly utilitarian vehicles optimized to return capital to the company’s customers. Being forward-thinking across these areas has set the foundation for the company to develop into a scalable business that is differentiated from the company’s peers across the automotive original equipment manufacturer (‘OEM’) landscape.
Foundational Chassis and Purpose-Built Vehicles
Multi-Purpose Platform
Technology first, the company views its vehicles as hardware and software solutions and look at the company’s business as a technology equipment manufacturer (‘TEM’). The company has designed the world’s most modular, flattest, production-ready EV platform. It is purposefully engineered to provide maximum consumer and cargo space on a small vehicle footprint. The platform’s modularity supports a wide range of vehicle applications and use cases. With the company’s common platform architecture, the company expects to enable the production of its Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 130, Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 190, Lifestyle Vehicle, MPDV, and Pickup, among other additional vehicle variants.
The company’s proprietary platform architecture directly houses all of the most critical components of an EV. This includes the market’s first true steer-by-wire platform, a composite leaf spring suspension system, an advanced fully electric drivetrain, a modular battery and battery management systems, ‘DC fast charge’ and bi-directional charging capabilities, and an innovative electrical systems architecture. Each of these component systems has been engineered not only for optimal performance but also for efficient packaging into the company’s compact platform. The company places a strong emphasis on efficiency and functional integration, and have designed many components to fulfill as many functions as possible. This strategy reduces the total number of parts, platform size and weight, ultimately providing a more spacious, utilitarian interior and cost-effective vehicle.
The system's architecture consolidates the company’s domain functions across 16 core ECUs all of which support over-the-air updating and data collection via the company’s proprietary hardware and software stack.
Purpose-Built Vehicles
Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 130
The Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 130 offers a spacious cargo capacity on a Class-1 footprint to deliver maximized return on investment for a wide range of commercial customers. The company’s upfit-ready design and top hat is tailored for commercial delivery, providing customization flexibility to meet business needs without compromising space or performance.
Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 190
The Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 190, built on the same MPP-1 platform as the Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 130, is tailored for Class-2 commercial and fleet use. The Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle 190 offers a larger capacity, payload, and cargo utilization while maintaining maneuverability and ergonomics.
Lifestyle Vehicle
The company’s passenger-oriented LV is the result of a completely re-engineered vehicle design, eliminating wasted space throughout the vehicle and providing exceptional utility to the user. By capitalizing on EV architecture, the company’s LV eliminates compartmentalization, featuring more interior volume than a SUV and an exterior footprint comparable to a compact car, the LV accommodates space for up to seven people.
The LV is expected to feature a minimalist concealed infotainment panel and seamless mobile phone and device connection. It is also expected to have SAE Level 2.5 ADAS with compatibility for more advanced levels of autonomy. The company has in sourced all the advanced IP development, including test and validation of ADAS software for the LV. The vehicle architecture is designed to integrate with advanced driver assist technology. As a result, the vehicle will be positioned to evolve and adapt to the next generation of transportation.
Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle
Designed from the inside out, the company’s MPDV will be constructed to be a productivity tool built for small businesses and last-mile delivery companies. With last-mile delivery customers in mind, the vehicle is designed to maximize productivity gains with high roof heights, storage lockers, and slide-out ramps. The unique body design for the company’s top hats allows for modifications as required to facilitate dimensional, performance, and cost requirements, providing maximum utility to each business owner.
Pickup
The company’s Pickup is versatile and incorporates an array of innovative features, designed to help commercial and passenger customers do more with their vehicles. High-utility features include integrated worktables, multi-accessory charge ports for work tools and devices, and multiple spaces for cargo storage to be a ready-for-work vehicle. The Pickup can also be retrofitted with accessories, such as roof racks, camper shells, modular bed dividers and stowage solutions to further customize per the customers’ needs, for work or adventure.
Canoo Digital Ecosystem
The company’s digital ecosystem will be a suite of proprietary products and software tools consisting of the company’s fleet optimized CanooHub, driver mobile app, vehicle Human Machine Interface (‘HMI’) and data analytics.
CanooHub is a proprietary web-based fleet management portal that empowers Canoo’s commercial customers to effectively manage their fleet. To complement Canoo’s Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle, CanooHub will support: tracking and management of vehicles, management of driver and vehicle assignments, user and permissions options, sending vehicle commands, keyless entry to vehicles, bulk operations such as OTA, charging, as well as climate and customer support. It will incorporate data and insight on the individual vehicle and fleet such as trips, battery health and vehicle efficiency. CanooHub will be updated continually and serve as a tool for commercial customers to manage their fleet’s performance, adding more features and expanding insights over time based on feedback from driving optimizations, charging patterns, recommendations, and fleet performance. CanooHub is intended to be customizable and integrate with existing solutions from the company’s customers.
Canoo’s driver mobile app will incorporate valuable insights for real-time vehicle status and access to remote commands. The driver app will enable Passive Keyless Entry (PKE) for keyless entry access and operation of multiple Canoo vehicles and assignment to the appropriate number of drivers for the company’s customers. The company’s driver mobile app will provide remote commands--such as lock/unlock, charging, climate--live vehicle data and insights on vehicle status and performance, vehicle alerts and notifications for safety, and accessing ecosystem of multiple Canoo vehicles. The driver mobile app is intended for fleet drivers and designed to scale to consumer driver’s needs.
Relatedly, vehicle HMI is another component of Canoo’s digital ecosystem where it is interconnected with software applications such as CanooHub, web, and driver app. Vehicle HMI encompasses vehicle controls, customizable settings, range mode, cruise control, vehicle alerts, camera feeds for safety and connectivity such as cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Canoo’s interconnected ecosystem is powered by a proprietary data and analytics infrastructure. The company’s streaming cloud data platform and tooling aggregates, processes, and acts on the vast amounts of data generated by the company’s vehicles and products from battery performance to driving behavior to product usage. This data is analyzed to optimize vehicle performance, improve safety, and enhance the overall user experience throughout the vehicle’s lifecycle. At scale for fleets, these optimizations may be utilized to add significant cost savings and efficiencies.
Canoo digital ecosystem allows continuous innovation and improvement of the company’s products and services with insights the company gains from the entire vehicle lifecycle, as well as every single product and service touchpoint across the customer journey. The company’s end-to-end ownership of digital environment enables the company to scale its offerings and its efficiency for rapid innovation to deliver customized, secured and valuable experiences to the company’s customers. The company is continuously improving its offerings by adding new capabilities and functionalities.
With the company’s integrated digital environment and ecosystem, the company is able to increase customer engagement, improve customer trust and loyalty, enhance customer experience across all touchpoints, and achieve greater efficiency in the company’s software development and innovation. The company’s customers will have access to a seamless experience across all touchpoints within their vehicle lifecycle and related third party services outside of the automotive sector. The company is able to offer personalized experience allowing for quick and easy adaptation and transition between the company’s products and services to increase likelihood for the customer to return as well as to make recommend the company’s brand to others. The company is able to offer consistent and efficient experiences through the sales funnel all the way through product and asset management experiences. The company is continuing its efforts in increasing the company’s innovation efficiency and scalability made possible by the company’s digital ecosystem in terms of automation, integration and personalization capabilities.
Growth Strategies
The key elements to the company’s growth strategy include introducing next-generation models and variants; bringing non-Canoo vehicles into the company’s ecosystem; growing market share and expanding internationally; and increasing penetration of the company’s digital ecosystem.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2023, the company had 128 pending or allowed U.S. patents and 116 pending or allowed international patent applications. The company’s patents and patent applications are related to, among other things, EV platforms, powertrain technologies, suspension systems, battery systems, steer-by-wire design, impact features, manufacturing methods and vehicle and product design. The company pursues the registration of its domain names and material trademarks and service marks in the United States and in some locations abroad. In an effort to protect the company’s brand, as of December 31, 2023, the company had one U.S. registered trademark, one pending U.S. trademark application, and 93 registered or pending international trademarks.
Government Regulations
The U.S. Clean Air Act requires that the company obtains a Certificate of Conformity issued by the EPA and a California Executive Order issued by CARB certifying that the company’s vehicles comply with all applicable emissions and related certification requirements.
Although the company’s vehicles have zero tailpipe emissions, the company is required to seek an EPA Certificate of Conformity for vehicles sold in states covered by the Clean Air Act’s standards and a CARB Executive Order for vehicles sold in California or any of the other 13 states identified above that have adopted the stricter California standards.
The company’s vehicles are subject to the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, as amended, and numerous regulatory requirements established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (‘NHTSA’), an operating administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation, including applicable U.S. federal motor vehicle safety standards (‘FMVSS’).
As a manufacturer, the company must self-certify that its vehicles meet all applicable FMVSS, as well as the NHTSA bumper standard, or otherwise are exempt, before the vehicles can be manufactured for sale, sold, offered for sale, introduced or delivered for introduction in interstate commerce, or imported into the United States.
Research and Development
The company’s research and development expenses, excluding depreciation, were $139.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2023.
History
The company was founded in 2017. It was formerly known as EVelozcity Inc. and changed its name to Canoo Inc. in 2019.
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