Oklahoma City is getting a new car plant years after General Motors shut down its manufacturing facility on the southeastern side of town.
Electric vehicle manufacturer Canoo announced plans to construct a plant that is strategically located with easy access to roads and rail. Employment will reach more than 500 workers, and Canoo said it expects to produce up to 20,000 vehicles by the end of next year.
Although the site hasn’t been made public by Canoo, the firm did say it will be situated on more than 120 acres. The Oklahoman reported that real estate agents confirmed the site is at 9528 W. Interstate 40 Service Road, formerly the location of a Terex telehandler facility that closed earlier this year. The newspaper reported the site includes a 500,000 square-foot main building and a 12,000 square-foot training center.
“The Oklahoma City facility has significant room for expansion and is a proven location for large-scale production, with an established transportation ecosystem, including rail,” Canoo chairman and CEO Tony Aquila said in a prepared statement. “We are working with our third-party manufacturing partners to achieve SOP on our own equipment this month.”
Canoo’s Oklahoma City announcement came as the company reported a third quarter loss of $117.7 million, or 43 cents a share. A year ago the company reported an $80 million loss, or 35 cents per share. “The last two quarters have been very tight,” Aquila said. Nevertheless, he said he remains confident and with good reason.
Canoo has $2 billion in EV orders and Aquila said production is sold out through 2024. To fulfill those orders, the company secured another $300 million in financing. Operating expenses in the fourth quarter are anticipated to be between $70 million and $90 million, with capital expenditures of $30 million to $50 million, he said.
Meanwhile, Canoo is moving its headquarters from Texas to Arkansas and constructing an EV plant in Pryor in northeastern Oklahoma.
Canoo announced a battery module manufacturing facility will be built at MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor, expanding the company’s manufacturing and employment footprint in the region. Once ramped, the facility will be capable of approximately 3200 MWhs of battery module manufacturing capacity, Aquila said.
“We are accelerating our hiring plans in Pryor with the establishment of our EV Battery Module Manufacturing Facility, which will produce our proprietary battery modules, energy management system and thermal control technology for our MPP platform,” he said.
“This is the first building block for Canoo’s production ramp strategy,” Aquila said. “The location has been strategically selected due to its proximity to our battery cell partner Panasonic and our future MegaMicro factory. In addition, we will be the first EV company to produce our battery modules with Hydro-Power from the Grand River Dam Authority. We will work closely with and hire within the surrounding communities to create an EV ecosystem in the region.”
Canoo will begin renovations on its 100,000 square-foot building located on a 10-acre campus in Q4 2022 in preparation for delivery of secured manufacturing equipment in Q1 2023. This location will produce proprietary battery modules on high-capacity assembly lines with state-of-the-art automated machinery.
Canoo has refined and validated its battery module manufacturing over recent months and is awaiting delivery of machinery at the new facility. The battery campus will be powered by hydroelectricity from the Grand River Dam Authority.
Canoo’s battery campus will implement workforce training programs in partnership with the Cherokee Nation, MidAmerica, and other local training partners “with a goal to provide high paying light blue collar jobs to the local community,” Aquila said.
“We are 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 MidAmerica Industrial Park.
The battery facility will be in proximity to Canoo’s MegaMicro Factory, a 400-acre campus at MidAmerica Industrial Park, a 9,000-acre industrial complex strategically located near some of the nation’s most highly traveled thoroughfares. When built, the MegaMicro Factory will include a full commercialization facility with a paint, body shop and general assembly plant. “It will be a significant investment in the state and will employ more than 2,000 when fully operational,” Aquila said.
Canoo previously announced an agreement with Panasonic to supply batteries for its lifestyle vehicle. Scheduled for production in Q4 2022, the lifestyle vehicle will be manufactured by VDL Nedcar and will support U.S. and European Union product demand.
Construction on the Panasonic plant that Oklahoma lost – a $4 billion electronic vehicle battery plant – started earlier this month in the eastern Kansas town of DeSoto, at the site of the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant south of highway K-10.
Panasonic indicated mass production of the batteries will begin in 2025.
Kansas committed $829 million in incentives for the project that, according to Panasonic, will bring 4,000 permanent jobs to the state. The incentive package, the biggest in state history, was quickly passed by the Kansas legislature as Oklahoma considered its own offer to attract the plant.