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Sparks

Canoo Has Made Another Sick Truck That You Can’t Buy

The American Bulldog is inspired by a vehicle made for the U.S. Army.

Robinson Meyer •
11/11/2023
Canoo Bulldog.
Heatmap Illustration/Canoo

The electric vehicle startup Canoo Technologies has announced another extremely cool-looking pickup that you probably won’t be able to buy. On Friday, Canoo unveiled the “American Bulldog,” a gray, weatherized, all-electric pickup truck that the company says is inspired by a vehicle initially made for the U.S. Army. Here’s the hype video:

The American Bulldogwww.youtube.com

“Like the American Bulldog, this vehicle is loyal and courageous. It’s woven into the American spirit and reflects this country’s innovation,” Tony Aquila, Canoo’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “When we say ‘Made in America,’ we mean it.”

Ah, but do they? Canoo, which went public in late 2020, has hemorrhaged cash over the past three years and persistently struggled to produce and deliver vehicles. Briefly valued at more than $5 billion in 2021, it is now a $176 million company that sold shares at a steep discount earlier this year just to stay solvent. And while you can pre-order its Pickup Truck or Lifestyle Vehicle (basically a camper van) online, none have seemingly been delivered yet.

In fact, most of the people who have driven Canoos so far are U.S. government employees. Canoo is in charge of making the three astronaut-transportation vans for NASA’s moon-bound Artemis program, and it has delivered at least three of them. They seem to work! They look really cool! In September, NASA used them in a motorcade:

Two Canoo-made \u201cCrew Transportation Vehicles\u201d drive down a Florida highway while bystanders wave at them.Two of the “Crew Transportation Vehicles” that Canoo has delivered to NASA.NASA / Chris Chamberland

But we’re talking three (3) vehicles here.

Canoo is also collaborating with the Pentagon on a new style of battery pack, and it has sent at least one of its pickup-style Light Tactical Vehicles to the Army for “analysis and demonstration.” (The American Bulldog is supposedly inspired by that Light Tactical Vehicle.)

Canoo is supposed to deliver the first of more than 4,500 delivery vans to Walmart this year, but so far nothing has been announced. The automaker says that it is ramping up a major manufacturing facility in Oklahoma, which will eventually be capable of making 20,000 vehicles a day.

I don’t know. Canoo’s vehicles look so cool. The Bulldog, for instance, is like a 1990s Toyota Previa crossed with a Volkswagen Thing. But Canoo’s path is narrowing and it seems likely to become even more reliant on government contracts over time. Canoo’s target audience should be fleet managers at large companies that need to buy thousands of electric vans. (Like Walmart!) But just a few days ago, its competitor, Rivian, announced that it would start selling its vans — which were previously only available to Amazon — to other companies. Unlike Canoo, Rivian has already delivered tens of thousands of electric vehicles and it does not seem in immediate financial peril. It also hasn’t been investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I’m rooting for Canoo. I want a small electric pickup as much as anyone. But I also know not to get fooled by vaporware — or, in this case, a vaporvehicle.

Green
Robinson Meyer profile image

Robinson Meyer

Robinson is the founding executive editor of Heatmap. He was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covered climate change, energy, and technology.

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Sparks

Don’t Look Now, But China Is Importing Less Coal

Add it to the evidence that China’s greenhouse gas emissions may be peaking, if they haven’t already.

Matthew Zeitlin •
05/09/2025
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Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Exactly where China is in its energy transition remains somewhat fuzzy. Has the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases already hit peak emissions? Will it in 2025? That remains to be seen. But its import data for this year suggests an economy that’s in a rapid transition.

According to government trade data, in the first fourth months of this year, China imported $12.1 billion of coal, $100.4 billion of crude oil, and $18 billion of natural gas. In terms of value, that’s a 27% year over year decline in coal, a 8.5% decline in oil, and a 15.7% decline in natural gas. In terms of volume, it was a 5.3% decline, a slight 0.5% increase, and a 9.2% decline, respectively.

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The nonprofit laid off 36 employees, or 28% of its headcount.

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The Trump administration’s funding freeze has hit the leading electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, which announced Thursday that it will be cutting its workforce by 28%, or 36 employees. In a letter to the team, the organization’s cofounder and CEO Ari Matusiak placed the blame squarely on the Trump administration’s attempts to claw back billions in funding allocated through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

“The volatility we face is not something we created: it is being directed at us,” Matusiak wrote in his public letter to employees. Along with a group of four other housing, climate, and community organizations, collectively known as Power Forward Communities, Rewiring America was the recipient of a $2 billion GGRF grant last April to help decarbonize American homes.

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Sunrun Tells Investors That a Recession Could Be Just Fine, Actually

The company managed to put a positive spin on tariffs.

Matthew Zeitlin •
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Heatmap Illustration/Sunrun, Getty Images

The residential solar company Sunrun is, like much of the rest of the clean energy business, getting hit by tariffs. The company told investors in its first quarter earnings report Tuesday that about half its supply of solar modules comes from overseas, and thus is subject to import taxes. It’s trying to secure more modules domestically “as availability increases,” Sunrun said, but “costs are higher and availability limited near-term.”

“We do not directly import any solar equipment from China, although producers in China are important for various upstream components used by our suppliers,” Sunrun chief executive Mary Powell said on the call, indicating that having an entirely-China-free supply chain is likely impossible in the renewable energy industry.

Hardware makes up about a third of the company’s costs, according to Powell. “This cost will increase from tariffs,” she said, although some advance purchasing done before the end of last year will help mitigate that. All told, tariffs could lower the company’s cash generation by $100 million to $200 million, chief financial officer Danny Abajian said.

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