Arkansas-based electric vehicle company Canoo has just announced its largest order to date. KingBee, a work-ready van rental agency has a new binding order with Canoo for 9,300 vehicles. After receiving vehicles from the order, KingBee will upfit, wrap, and then deliver them to small and medium-sized business customers across the nation.
Canoo’s Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle (LDV) is big on utility and modularity. Those benefits will certainly benefit a company like KingBee which outfits its fleet with whatever features its renters require. The LDV also has the added benefit of potentially requiring less downtime than an ICE van since it’ll get updates, maintenance, and service over the air.
KingBee has also reserved the option to double its order to 18,600 vehicles in total. As of yet, neither KingBee nor Canoo has commented on when delivery of these vehicles is set to begin. Scott Haslam, CEO of Kingbee Rentals said that “Canoo vehicles are designed specifically for fleets to be upfit and last multiple users. This is exactly what we need.”
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“Between Canoo’s platform and Kingbee’s work-ready upfits, our flexible fleet leasing model will significantly reduce the barriers to entry for many fleets owners who think they have to purchase all of their vehicles. It’s even more exciting that it comes in a zero emissions package,” he continued. The order will certainly help with Canoo’s mission to “Bring EVs to everyone.”
After some confusion over the startup’s future earlier in the year, this order is just another bright spot in a series of positive news for Canoo. Earlier this month, it inked a binding deal with Zeeba, a fleet management company, for 3,000 LDVs. That contract also has an option for Zeeba to increase the order to 5,450 vehicles in total.
At the time of that order, Chairman and CEO of Canoo, Tony Aquia said that “We have a large committed, growing order book, are finalizing our multi-year allocations for 2023 customer deliveries and will share our manufacturing plan with the broader market shortly… This order is another milestone validating our product and strategy.”
Surely, this new order from KingBee only helps to solidify that plan. The van features an 80 kWh battery pack and a maximum range of some 250 miles (402 km).
