The largest US retailer Walmart signed a contract to purchase 4,500 Lifestyle Delivery Vehicles (LDVs) from the startup Canoo in mid-2022. Since then, Walmart has been testing both the LDV130 and LDV190 models and, more recently, Canoo’s new, larger LDV300 model.
In a webinar at the Emerging Growth Conference, the company’s CFO Greg Ethridge reiterated that Canoo has worked “continuously” with Walmart over the past two years, adding that the company’s growth is creating “huge opportunities” for the electric vehicle maker.
“I know we’ve been very focused at Walmart. We announced the partnership with Walmart in mid-2022. Since then, we’ve been working with Walmart literally nonstop,” he explained.
“They have continued to grow their business dramatically in the e-commerce space. But we have worked very quietly and methodically with the team there, and we continue to do so,” Ethridge added.
Walmart raised its full-year guidance last week after reporting a nearly 5% increase in quarterly sales, driven by higher customer traffic in stores and online, as well as higher sales in non-grocery categories.
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“We have tested the LDV 130 and the (LDV) 190 on multiple occasions. I believe we have done over 10,000 test miles with them. Their business continues to grow, which creates tremendous opportunities for us over time,” the CFO said, before mentioning a recent test in Bentonville.
“We recently launched our vehicle in Bentonville with the Walmart team. And I think the feedback was pretty positive. So we’re really excited about the future of this partnership and what it can do beyond the vehicle, because we’re taking another look at ourselves,” Ethridge revealed.
Later in his keynote speech and on the topic of safety, the CFO stated that there had been no accidents in “more than 10,000 miles” of testing vehicles driven by the Walmart team.
During the second-quarter conference call on August 14, Canoo CEO Tony Aquila said the companies had completed “two years of extensive testing and refinement of specifications and use cases.”
When asked by an analyst about the timing of announcing updates to the production schedule for Walmart’s specialty vehicles, the CEO said Canoo did not reveal much because the company “leaves it up to customers to communicate.”
Written by Claudio Afonso | X
