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.
