Apple held meetings with California EV startup Canoo in the first half of 2020 as part of the Silicon Valley giant’s secretive effort to advance its own electric vehicle project. The two companies discussed options ranging from investment to acquisition.
A few days back we covered if Hyundai and Apple are looking to partner to develop a self-driving car. The talks regarding the Apple car is increasing at a rapid pace since the last few weeks.
The US tech giant was attracted by ‘Skateboard’, which is Canoo’s scalable electric vehicle platform. Canoo is basically known for its flexible and innovative designs.
It integrates a variety of electronics required in a car. It also consists of steer-by-wire technology. Both of these features combine to increase design flexibility while building a car.
But, Canoo was more interested in taking on investment from Apple, two of the people said.
Ultimately, the talks fell apart. Canoo has since become a publicly-traded company after merging with a blank check fund that was listed on the NASDAQ in late 2020.
After this update came out in the market, its share price of went up as high as 25% in pre-market trading.
“Canoo doesn’t openly comment on strategic discussions, relationships or partnerships unless deemed appropriate,” Tony Aquila, Canoo’s executive chairman, said in a statement.
We are seeing that Apple has tried to diligently focus on building its EV car under the project named ‘Project Titan’. That is why we are seeing them holding meetings with automakers like Canoo and Hyundai.
Rumors and speculation surrounding an Apple electric vehicle picked up again in December 2020 when Reuters reported that the company could debut a vehicle with “next level” battery technology by 2024.
Rumors of Deal between Hyundai and Canoo
Hyundai and Canoo previously announced a plan to co-develop electric vehicles in February 2020, though that project appears to be unrelated to the startup’s talks with Apple.
Canoo refers to its partnership with Hyundai in recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an “engineering services agreement” that will see the companies co-develop a platform to power a “small segment electric vehicle.” But Canoo has not disclosed whether it has been paid for the Hyundai deal, or whether any work has begun.
Canoo has continuously failed to generate money for short-term purposes. In fact, they took a loan of $7 million from the government’s pandemic Pay check Protection Program. They also received $15 million total from Pak Tam Li, who is the Chinese investor.
In the meantime, it has debuted its super-interesting and super-configurable MPDV (Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle).
its aim is to have that MPDV in limited production next year, with full-scale production in 2023. It’s also reportedly in talks with other big-name tech companies interested in the startup’s engineering and design chops, not to mention its technologies.
The startup said in that same SEC filing that it is “currently in discussions with multiple other blue-chip industry participants interested in leveraging Canoo’s technologies and engineering expertise for their own commercial products.”
Neither Apple nor Canoo responded immediately to Roadshow’s request for comment.
