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    EV Van maker Canoo to locate Battery Module Manufacturing plant in eastern Oklahoma

    Nov. 2, 2022
    The EV startup, which was down to a financial quarter worth of cash balance earlier this year, has rebounded with lucrative orders from Walmart and rental firm Kingbee.
    Canoo Van 6362d1531e97d

    Electric van startup Canoo, which has experienced its share of ups and downs in the past year, is on another high Wednesday while announced it will locate a battery module manufacturing facility in Pryor, Oklahoma.

    Canoo, which already announced plans to make its speciality all-electric vehicles in the region, says the facility at MidAmerica Industrial Park (see image gallery) will be capable of approximately 320 MWh of battery module manufacturing capacity, according to the release.

    “We are accelerating our hiring plans in Pryor,” Canoo CEO and Chairman Tony Aquila said in the statement. “This is the first building block for Canoo’s production ramp strategy, with more news coming very soon."

    The location, Aquila added, will be strategically close to the company’s future Mega-Micro vehicle manufacturing factory and also to facilities for battery cell supplier partner Panasonic. The module manufacturing site will be powered with electricity from Grand River Dam Authority, which generates carbon-free hydropower as part of its resource mix.

    Canoo will begin renovations on the 100,000-square-foot building in this quarter. It hopes to take delivery of manufacturing equipment by the first quarter of 2023.

    “We are very excited about Canoo accelerating their activities in Pryor with this Battery Module Manufacturing facility as they ramp up production and ultimately prepare the site for their previously announced MegaMicro Factory,” said Dave Stewart, CEO of the MidAmerican Industrial Park in Pryor.

    The battery campus will utilize workforce training programs in partnership with the Cherokee Nation, the industrial park and other entities.

    Canoo, by its own admission, was in tougher straits earlier this year, announcing its cash balance was down to $104 million after burning through $125 million in operational losses for the first quarter of 2021.

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    At the time, however, CEO Aquila assured investors and the public that the company still had $600 million in accessible capital to support its start of production. And, he noted, good news would be on the way.

    In fact, two months later retail giant Walmart announced it would purchase 4,500 of Canoo’s electric delivery vans in support of its eCommerce business. Delivery of the Canoo Lifestyle Deliver Vehicle models to Walmart would begin early in 2023, according to the report.

    Last month, rental van provider Kingbee signed an order for 9,300 electric vehicles to be supplied by Canoo. The agreement includes an option to increase that order to 18,600 vehicles.

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    (Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]). 

    Follow us on Twitter @EnergyTechNews_ and @rodwaltonelp and on LinkedIn

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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