Canoo’s Oklahoma City Manufacturing Facility Approved as Foreign Trade Zone

Approval supports American advanced manufacturing, jobs, and delivers up to $70 million in estimated vehicle cost savings and duty deferrals in 2024 and 2025

Justin, TX, March 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canoo Inc. (NASDAQ: GOEV), a leading high-tech advanced mobility company, announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce has approved its Oklahoma City facility as a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ). The approval marks a significant milestone that will accelerate Canoo’s Made in America electric vehicle manufacturing strategy, improve unit profitability and enable a faster path to breakeven. 

Canoo’s Oklahoma City facility currently employs more than 100 workers and will support as many as 1,100 good-paying manufacturing jobs at full capacity. FTZ designation allows for the elimination of all customs duties on vehicles sold to customers overseas and for deferral of customs duties on imported parts used in vehicles sold domestically. The company proudly sources more than 90% of its parts from the U.S. and allied nations. Approximately 70% of parts come from North America, and the remaining from the rest of the world. 

For international sales, the FTZ will significantly enhance profitability by lowering the vehicle cost by up to 5% on parts imported from the rest of the world. This cost reduction will occur when these Made-in-America vehicles are exported to international markets, which we plan to announce in the near future. For domestic sales, the FTZ designation improves working capital by millions of dollars by deferring customs, duties and tariffs related to imports from the time of port-of-entry of the parts until the vehicle is delivered to its customers. Furthermore, Canoo anticipates additional cost savings and benefits through a simplified customs process, a streamlined supply chain, and overall enhancements to its site security. 

“We are proud to announce that we have achieved another important building block in our strategy by creating one of the largest Foreign Trade Zones in the State of Oklahoma. This FTZ will generate economic growth, American jobs, and have a long-term permanent financial benefit to working capital and cost of materials. We want to say a big thank you to the US Department of Commerce, the Port Authority of the Greater Oklahoma City Area, our team, and all our supporters and partners, for guiding us to this important accomplishment” said Tony Aquila, Investor, Executive Chairman, and CEO of Canoo. “We are committed to expanding our 125-acre manufacturing site as a preferred location to bring more of our supply partners closer to us in the state. This strategic expansion is in the heartland of America, directly on I-40 in Oklahoma City, one of the most important and efficient routes for transporting products across the country. This initiative helps bring back American manufacturing by creating, restoring, growing and protecting ‘Made-in-America' products and advanced manufacturing jobs.”