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Apple held meetings with California-based startup Canoo in the first half of 2020 as part of the Silicon Valley giant’s covert effort to advance its own electric vehicle project, said three people familiar with the discussions. . The edge. The two companies discussed options ranging from an investment to an acquisition, according to two of the people.
Canoo’s evolutionary electric vehicle platform, or “skateboard,” is largely what caught Apple’s interest, people said. The platform is different from those developed by other startups and major automakers as it incorporates more of the car’s electronics, allowing for greater flexibility in cabin design. It also features steer-by-wire technology, which also increases design flexibility and is not yet widely adopted in the industry.
Canoo was more interested in an investment from Apple, two people said. Ultimately the talks collapsed. Canoo has since become a publicly traded company after merging with a NASDAQ-listed blank check fund in late 2020. Apple has made at least one other mobility acquisition in recent years, buying Drive. have in 2019.
“Canoo does not openly comment on strategic discussions, relationships or partnerships unless it is deemed appropriate,” Tony Aquila, Canoo’s executive chairman, said in a statement to The edge. Apple declined to comment.
News of Apple’s interest in Canoo comes as Reuters reports that the tech company is negotiating with Hyundai to build an autonomous electric vehicle as early as 2024. Apple’s vehicle project, named “Project Titan,” has evolved several times over the years. But the company has now reportedly refocused on making an autonomous electric vehicle and has held meetings with automakers as small as Canoo and as large as Hyundai, as it seeks to outsource tasks such as design. technique and manufacturing.
Hyundai and Canoo previously announced an electric vehicle co-development plan in February 2020, although that project does not appear to be related to the startup’s discussions with Apple. Canoo refers to its partnership with Hyundai in its recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an “engineering services deal” that will see companies co-develop a platform to power a “small segment electric vehicle” . But Canoo did not disclose whether he was paid for the deal with Hyundai or if work had started.
Canoo was founded in late 2017 by a small group that split off from struggling EV startup Faraday Future, including several former BMW executives. As The edge First reported, the effort was funded by a Chinese investor who is the son-in-law of a former CCP leader, and the family in charge of Taiwanese tech company TPK, which provides touchscreen technology to Apple. Canoo plans to manufacture electric utility vehicles, such as delivery vans or food trucks, as well as a consumer-focused van that will be sold on a subscription basis. All of Canoo’s vehicles are equipped with the same upgradeable skateboard technology.
The talks with Apple came at a crucial time for Canoo, which lost $ 182.3 million in 2019 while working on its first prototype vehicle and entered 2020 with just $ 29 million in the bank, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Canoo has held meetings with various companies in Silicon Valley, China, and elsewhere in 2019 and 2020, people said. But since the deals did not materialize, the startup needed money in the short term. It took a $ 7 million loan from the government’s Paycheck Pandemic Protection Program and, as talks with Apple dragged on, another $ 15 million total from Pak Tam Li (the investor Chinese) and the Chiang family (the owners of TPK) in March 2020, according to the SEC filing.
Canoo eventually entered into negotiations with the blank check fund, Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. IV, later in the year. It was one of the first startups to jump on this trend of using a so-called “special purpose acquisition company” to shorten the traditional path to becoming publicly traded. As the deal went on, the Chiang family invested an additional $ 80 million in the startup and the future executive chairman invested $ 35 million, according to the SEC filing. Canoo raised some $ 600 million when the deal was struck in late 2020.
While Canoo now has the money he was looking for at the start of 2020, that hasn’t eased his ambitions to work with big companies like Apple. The startup said in that same SEC filing that it is “currently in talks with several other leading industry players interested in leveraging Canoo’s technologies and engineering expertise for their own products.” commercial.
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