NASA and the United States Postal Service have stopped using electric vans made by now-bankrupt EV startup Canoo, despite the former CEO’s claim that he would provide support for the vehicles.
NASA purchased three of Canoo’s EVs in 2023 with the intention of using the vans to shuttle astronauts to the launchpad for its Artemis missions to the Moon. The space agency told TechCrunch that Canoo “was no longer able to meet our mission requirements.” As of October, NASA said it is leasing the Airstream-built “Astrovan” from Boeing that the aerospace company commissioned for its own crewed space missions.
Meanwhile, the USPS said in an emailed statement the six vehicles it purchased “for evaluation purposes” in 2024 “are no longer in use.” The “evaluation has been completed,” the postal service wrote, and “no further investments are anticipated.” The USPS declined to share any details or final results of the evaluation.
Canoo also provided at least one demonstration vehicle to the Department of Defense (DOD) before its bankruptcy. The DOD did not respond to emailed requests about whether it has continued using the van.
Canoo filed for bankruptcy in January 2025 after years of financial struggles and failing to establish a market for its electric vans. Soon after, former CEO Tony Aquila made a $4 million bid for the startup’s assets in March. Aquila told the bankruptcy trustee that a “principal motivation” for buying the assets was his “desire to honor [Canoo’s] commitment to provide service and support for certain government programs.”
NASA and the USPS declined to share whether Aquila ever approached either agency about supporting the vehicles. Aquila did not respond to a request for comment. A lawyer who represented Aquila in the bankruptcy proceedings also did not respond.
The bankruptcy judge approved the sale to Aquila in April. He was not the only entity inter …