Calif.-founded EV maker Canoo, once worth $2.4 billion, goes belly-up after moving to Texas

[nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org]

Sad. I was rooting for their weird-looking trucks, though they looked more and more like vapor-ware.

[karpintero@lemmy.world]

I was hoping their truck or lifestyle vehicle would make it to market, but yeah they had a steep hill to climb with all the turmoil surrounding the company, scaling production, and the change in political winds now being essentially hostile to EV manufacturers.

In August, Canoo moved its headquarters from Torrance, Calif., to Justin, Texas — asking 137 of the office’s 194 employees to relocate, while cutting the remaining staff.

Moving wasn't going to save the company so why uproot your employees only to fold 5 months later

[drahardja@lemmy.world]

I wonder if Texas has better bankruptcy laws.

[frunch@lemmy.world]

My takeaway as well! Canoo can go eat a dick, but Texas can go eat a huge dick

[ilovethebomb@lemm.ee]

There's a reason why vehicles look the way they do, and why EVs and ICE vehicles look similar, and it's because that's what customers want.

I look very suspiciously at a car company whose product looks radically different from everyone else.

[blady_blah@lemmy.world]

It was probably part of a cost cutting plan too show they were trimming costs in order to get more funding from investors. It clearly didn't work.

[bakkoda@sh.itjust.works]

Me thinks the United States economy has a small valuation problem.

[brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

In August, Canoo moved its headquarters from Torrance, Calif., to Justin, Texas — asking 137 of the office’s 194 employees to relocate, while cutting the remaining staff.

Yikes, not great for all those employees that moved their entire lives out to TX just to get laid off. They weren't even working in TX long enough to qualify for unemployment. Hopefully they were getting paid enough to deal with relocation and maybe have enough saved up to get out of TX after this.

[xanthrax@lemmy.world]

Does anyone else only remember their dream if they're lucid dreaming, but for some reason, it immediately wakes you up when you realize you're lucid dreaming?

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

The stock market isn't the economy, but yes, I generally agree, everything tech is overvalued.

[bakkoda@sh.itjust.works]

No one said it was and it's not even remotely exclusive to tech.

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

You said the economy has a valuation problem. That doesn't make sense, since the economy is about jobs and trade, not about valuations. The stock market (including public and private markets) is about valuations.

[kata1yst@sh.itjust.works]

Writing was on the wall after they lost their Amazon and USPS bids. Their entire model was based on landing fleet contracts.

[thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org]

the US Dollar is partly based on value. The value of American ingenuity and brands, and the dollar availability and acceptability.

[yerbayerba@lemm.ee]

Reality check!

[upperbroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

I am confused: why should Texas be rewarded with dick-meat? Should they not rather eat excrement?

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

The US dollar, or any currency, isn't the economy either. Look at the recent bout of inflation we had, unemployment remained pretty steady despite relatively extreme rate hikes.

The US dollar is based on supply, which impacts relative value. It's all interconnected, but central banks can manage inflation/deflation regardless of what happens to the economy.

[bakkoda@sh.itjust.works]

Valuation allows for borrowing. If a company can determine it's worth to a potential lender by using it's valuation, which we agree is under the markets domain, then they are now hand in hand. If you can borrow against valuation they cannot be exclusive.

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

Sure, and that's a stock market issue (broadly speaking), not an economic one. Someone losing their shirt for investing stupidly is not indicative of an economic failure, but of a valuation failure.

Valuation problems can lead to economic problems if it's widespread enough, such as with the .com or RE market collapses, but they can also be pretty isolated and have minimal impact. Intel's valuation, for example, has been cut to almost a third (not by a third, but to a third), and that hasn't triggered or indicated much of anything in the economy, it's just Intel failing over and over to live up to their valuation. Yeah, jobs get cut (economic indicator) when there's a huge discrepancy w/ valuation, but they also tend to get created at other orgs as they snap up the business left behind by the failing company.

The economy and the market are certainly related and linked, but they're not the same thing. An economic collapse usually causes or is caused by a market collapse and vice versa, but not always, especially if it's isolated to a sector like we see with AI. If everyone completely 180s on AI, it's not going to change the jobs landscape much, but it will cause a lot of valuation corrections throughout the tech industry. Companies like Microsoft and Nvidia will be fine since they have other core businesses, but companies like OpenAI won't be nearly as resilient since that's their entire business. Likewise, financial companies investing in AI companies will also likely be fine, provided they have a sufficiently diversified portfolio.

[karpintero@lemmy.world]

Incorporated in Delaware so HQ location wouldn't matter. My guess is a last ditch cost cutting attempt and possibly got some local tax breaks. Moving is expensive though so I doubt they even recouped their moving expenses.

https://investors.canoo.com/company-information/faq