Canoo-ver and Out: Another Electric Dream Goes Up in Smoke
Image Credit: Canoo.
It seems another one has bitten the dust in the electric vehicle world. Canoo, the Walmart-backed electric van company, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Chapter 7. The big one. The "game over, man, game over" of the business world.
I'm not entirely surprised. Remember that time they promised us the moon with their funky-looking electric vans? They even had pilot programs with the USPS, the US Army, and, wait for it, NASA! NASA, people! You'd think if you were working with rocket people, you could probably figure out how to bolt together a decent electric van, right? Apparently not.
Image Credit: Canoo.
But let's give credit where credit is due. Canoo's CEO, Tony Aquila, did thank everyone involved, from the employees who "believed in the company" to the bigwigs at NASA and Walmart. It's a bit like thanking the band on the Titanic for playing their hearts out while the ship went down, but at least he's polite.
I'm not one to point fingers (okay, maybe I am), but it seems like Canoo might have been a bit of a "hot mess." Rumors have been swirling for months about mismanagement, production issues, and even allegations that the vans they claimed to have built in Oklahoma were actually made in Texas. Saying you baked a cake from scratch when you actually just bought one from Walmart and slapped some extra frosting on it comes to mind.
Image Credit: Canoo.
One disgruntled former employee spilled the beans to a local news channel, claiming that "nothing was functioning" at the Oklahoma plant. No working robots, no production lines, just a whole lot of nothing. Sounds like a party I wouldn't want to be invited to.
Of course, you could argue that the employees should also be held accountable for, you know, actually producing something while collecting those sweet, sweet paychecks. But it's hard to do any work with no tools, so let's not get bogged down in the blame game. Instead, let's pour one out for Canoo and its quirky little off-roader that never quite saw the light of day.
The funky Canoo electric off-roader, the one that looked like a futuristic lunar rover crossed with a toaster, is gone. It's a shame, really. I was rather looking forward to seeing those things zipping around, maybe even taking one for a spin myself. Me, cruising down the highway in a toaster on wheels? The headlines would write themselves!
It's a sad day for the electric vehicle world. We've lost another contender, another dreamer, another company that promised to revolutionize the way we get around. But that's the nature of the beast, isn't it? In the world of electric vehicles, it seems, only the strong survive.
Farewell, Canoo. We hardly knew ye. And to all those former Canoo employees out there, chin up. There are plenty of other fish in the sea, or in this case, electric vehicle companies looking for talented folks. And the Canoo bunch are among some of the most talented people out there. They just need to make sure there's actually a working production line before signing on the dotted line.
