Two years ago, in July 2022, American retail giant Walmart announced the purchase of 4,500 electric delivery vehicles from 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 still hasn’t added them to its fleet.
In the most recent update provided during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on August 14, Canoo CEO Tony Aquila said the companies had completed “two years of intensive testing and refinement of specifications and use cases.”
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“Walmart is one example. It was in July 2022 when we announced Walmart’s order. We worked with the Walmart team and spent two years conducting extensive testing and refining specifications and use cases for our customers’ workflows,” the CEO said, before expanding the update to cover other companies as well.
The manufacturer has also supplied vehicles for pilot programs to NASA, Red Sea Global, the U.S. military and the state of Oklahoma.
“And there are other examples of large customers at different stages where we work hand in hand to finalize specifications and schedules,” Aquila added.
When asked by an analyst about the timing of announcing updates to the production schedule for Walmart’s specialty vehicles, the CEO said Canoo did not reveal much because the company “leaves it up to customers to communicate.”
“You notice that we don’t brag about what we’ve done with Walmart over the last two years or what we’ve been doing with Red Sea for over a year, frankly. We let our customers decide what they communicate. We see ourselves as part of their competitive advantage. And so at some point this will be super surprising information,” the CEO added.
Tony Aquila hinted that Canoo expects “some of these to be total breakthroughs,” but did not clarify whether they would be part of the Read Sea or Walmart program.
“So we expect that some of them will make a breakthrough in the current quarter. And of course we have indications that they would like to make them public. And we will act accordingly,” he explained.
Last May, Arrival filed for bankruptcy with the Arrondissement of Luxembourg and the court declared it bankrupt on May 22.
In late June, Canoo announced that it had received the first of two tranches of advanced manufacturing equipment from the British electric vehicle startup.
Earlier this week, the retailer was seen testing one of the Arrival vans, as shareholders and fans await further news on whether Walmart is still testing the vehicles two years later or if the vehicles – from Canoo and Arrival – are production vehicles.
HC Wainwright analyst Amit Dayal released a new research note on Thursday, expecting the company to begin production “in early 2025” based on management comments on the company’s recent quarterly earnings call.
Written by Claudio Afonso | X
