Canoo’s Futuristic EVs Get The Cold Shoulder From NASA And The USPS

• NASA will no longer use Canoo’s funky electric vans to shuttle astronauts to the launchpad.
• The USPS has also dropped the bankrupt startup’s vehicles.
• Canoo filed for bankruptcy in January, with the remaining assets being bought by the company’s former CEO.

NASA and the USPS are no longer using Canoo’s futuristic electric vans, according to TechCrunch. NASA had purchased three of the bankrupt startup’s EVs in 2023 to use them as shuttles for astronauts participating in the Artemis missions to the moon.

Now, though, the space agency said that Canoo is “no longer able to meet our mission requirements,” and that it is instead leasing the Airstream-built Astrovan from Boeing. The vehicle, which is based on a combustion-powered Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, was commissioned by Boeing for its own crewed space missions.

At the same time, the United States Postal Service said in an email to TechCrunch that the six Canoo EVs it bought “for evaluation purposes” last year are now sitting unused. The postal service didn’t detail what would happen to the canned electric vans, but said that the “ evaluation has been completed” and “no further investments are anticipated.”

At least one more demonstration vehicle was provided to the Department of Defense, but the DOD did not respond to requests about what happened to the vehicle. The United Kingdom’s postal service, the Royal Mail, also began testing two Canoo EVs and had planned to buy 2,000 units, but there’s no word on what happened to the trial vehicles.

Founded in 2017, Canoo’s plan seemed solid. It developed a skateboard chassis that could accommodate various top hats, from minivans to rugged dual-cab pickups. The idea even drew interest from Hyundai, which wanted to team up with the startup to jointly develop an EV platform.

At its peak, the company employed 800 people, but it all started going downhill after the loans went dry and profits never materialized. Last year, big workforce cuts went into effect, and the startup declared bankruptcy in January 2025. In April, the bankruptcy judge approved the sale of the company’s assets to Tony Aquila, who was the startup’s CEO and one of its main investors.

It’s unclear what will happen to the unused Canoo EVs. Maybe they will one day pop up for sale at a government auction, or they’ll disappear forever by way of the crusher.