Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Two years ago, in July 2022, the American retail giant Walmart announced the purchase of 4,500 electric delivery vehicles from the Oklahoma-based manufacturer Canoo.
At the time, Walmart said it “would be the first to receive Canoo’s Lifestyle Delivery Vehicles (LDVs)”. However, for unknown reasons, the company has still not added them to its fleet.
In the latest update, provided at the second quarter earnings call held on August 14, Canoo CEO Tony Aquila said the companies have completed “2 years of extensive testing and refining of specifications and use cases”.
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“Walmart is an example. It was July of 2022 when we announced Walmart’s order. We partnered with the Walmart team and completed 2 years of extensive testing and refining of specifications and use cases for our customers’ workflow,” the chief executive said before zooming out the update to cover also other firms.
The manufacturer has also delivered vehicles to NASA, Read Sea Global, the US military, and the State of Oklahoma for pilot programs.
“And there are other examples of large customers in varying phases of how we work hand-in-hand to finalize specs and schedule,” Aquila added.
When asked by an analyst about the timeline to announce the updates on the production timeline for the Walmart dedicated vehicles, the CEO said Canoo didn’t unveil much as the company lets “clients decide what they communicate”.
“You notice we’re not out bragging about any of the things we’ve done with Walmart in the last 2 years or what we’ve been doing for, frankly, over a year with the Red Sea. We let our clients decide what they communicate. We see ourselves as a part of their competitive advantage. And so eventually, this will become super surprising information,” the chief executive added.
Tony Aquila teased that Canoo anticipates “a few of those to fully break through” without clarifying if they will be part of the Read Sea or the Walmart program.
“So in the quarter [the current one], we anticipate a few of those to fully break through. And of course, we have indications that they would like to make them public. And we will follow through accordingly,” he stated.
Last May, Arrival filed a bankruptcy petition with the Tribunal d’Arrondissement de Luxembourg with the Court declaring bankruptcy on May 22.
In late June, Canoo said it received the first of two tranches of advanced manufacturing assets from the British EV startup.
Earlier this week, the retail firm was spotted testing one of the Arrival vans as shareholders and enthusiasts wait for further updates on whether Walmart is still piloting the vehicles two years later or if the vehicles — from Canoo and Arrival — are production vehicles.
H.C. Wainwright analyst Amit Dayal released on Thursday a new research note saying it believes, based on comments from the management at the recent earnings call, that the company will start production “in early 2025”.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
