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CANOO/COURTESY IMAGE
OKLAHOMA CITY – Canoo, a startup company that plans to build electric vehicles, has announced Oklahoma as the location for its U.S. manufacturing facility that ultimately will employ more than 2,000 people.
The company will start production and deliver vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2022, investor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tony Aquila said.
The company executed multiple agreements with the State of Oklahoma, which include the state’s purchase of 1,000 Canoo vehicles and a $15 million payment from the state’s Quick Action Closing Fund if the company meets specific targets, records show.
“We invested millions of dollars to find the right location for our manufacturing facility,” he said. “We ran a multistate competition and Oklahoma was head and shoulders above the other contenders because of its leadership, energy forward initiatives, strategic location and the hardworking ethic of its people.
“We congratulate Governor Stitt and his team who competed to have Canoo in their state – and we pledge our commitment to bring more clean energy to the great state.”
Canoo’s 400-acre campus will be in the MidAmerica Industrial Park, a 9,000-acre industrial complex in Pryor strategically located near some of the nation’s most highly traveled thoroughfares, such as Interstate 44, US-69 and US-412, the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System and Tulsa International Airport.
“We have made significant capital investments in speed-to-market capability by building new infrastructure, expanding shovel-ready sites, and strengthening workforce training, recruitment and retention,” MidAmerica CEO David Stewart said.
“As the largest industrial park in the central United States, with abundant renewable resources in power and water, Canoo’s selection of MidAmerica as the site for its inaugural production facility is testament to our competitiveness for new jobs.”
Canoo’s “mega microfactory” will include a full commercialization facility with a paint, body shop and general assembly plant, the company reported. The campus will also include a low-volume industrialization facility. Canoo’s mega microfactory is targeted to open in 2023.
Southwest Ledger asked the company’s vice president of communications to define what is meant by “mega microfactory” and “low volume industrialization facility,” but she never responded to our email.
Canoo will partner with VDL Nedcar in the manufacture of its vehicles while the Oklahoma facility is built, the company reported. VDL Nedcar is an automotive manufacturing company in Born, Netherlands, that previously was owned by Mitsubishi Motors and Volvo Cars.
The George Kaiser Family Foundation announced a partnership with Canoo to attract, train and retain a Tulsa technology workforce. Canoo’s plans for its operations in Oklahoma include a research and development center and a software development center that will bring at least 375 high-paying jobs to Tulsa. Canoo also said its Oklahoma operations also will include customer support and financing centers.
“Oklahoma has always been a pioneer in the energy industry, and this partnership with Canoo shows that our state is an innovation leader in electric vehicle technology,” Stitt said. “We are thrilled to partner with Canoo to provide high-paying jobs for Oklahomans and position America as the global leader for vehicle manufacturing for decades to come.”
Canoo has developed its own unique process that assembles both the cabin and multipurpose platform chassis in parallel, which is expected to significantly reduce costs and improve throughput, Aquila said.
The company’s bifurcated manufacturing process is enabled by its fully self-contained multipurpose platform, which houses all the critical driving components of the vehicle and is common to all Canoo vehicles, he said. The highly automated assembly process allows for the multipurpose platform to be produced at volume without interfering with the upper body production process.
Canoo has designed a modular electric platform purpose-built to deliver maximum vehicle interior space and adaptable to support a wide range of vehicle applications for consumers and businesses, Aquila said.