Canoo Pickup

The Canoo Pickup is now remembered as one of the EV trucks that almost made it. Canoo, the US startup behind it, struggled for years and finally filed for bankruptcy in January 2025, shutting down and ending the Pickup along with its van and other projects.

Before that, the Pickup had a real following thanks to its wild, boxy looks and clever utility tricks - pull-out bed extensions, fold-down tables and work surfaces - plus respectable numbers: an 80 kWh battery, around 200 miles of range, up to 600-plus hp in dual-motor form, and a target price near 35,000 dollars. Canoo took pre-orders and even began limited production in Oklahoma, but never delivered at scale. With the company gone, the Pickup is a discontinued, unsupported vehicle - a striking design and a hard lesson in how tough the EV startup world really is.

On its planned specs, the Canoo Pickup was set up to be genuinely capable. The 80 kWh battery promised around 200 miles of range, and buyers were going to be able to choose between a rear-drive version with up to 300 hp and 332 lb-ft, or a dual-motor all-wheel-drive model with more than 600 hp and 550 lb-ft - serious outputs for a compact electric truck, with a useful claimed payload of up to 1,800 lbs.

The catch is that almost none of this was ever proven in customers' hands. With Canoo bankrupt and production effectively stopped, these are target figures for a truck that did not reach the market in numbers. So the performance reads well on paper, but it is best treated as a record of intent rather than verified, real-world capability.

The Canoo Pickup was expected to come with multiple airbags, electronic stability control and some driver-assistance features, built on a rigid skateboard platform. But it never received an independent crash-test rating from a body like the NHTSA or IIHS, so there is no official safety score. And with Canoo defunct, there is no ongoing safety or recall support for the few vehicles that exist. As with everything about this truck, the safety picture is that of a discontinued, unsupported product rather than a current vehicle.

The Canoo Pickup was designed to support DC fast charging through a CCS port, alongside home AC charging, drawing on the same 80 kWh battery and skateboard platform as Canoo's other vehicles. Exact charging speeds were never a major part of the story, and now they are largely academic: with the company gone and the truck out of production, the practical question for any existing vehicle is whether its charging software and systems still work at all. Treat the charging details as historical specification.

Any warranty Canoo offered on the Pickup is effectively worthless in practice, because the company filed for bankruptcy in January 2025 and no longer exists to honour it. A warranty only means something if there is a business behind it, and with Canoo gone, there is no manufacturer warranty, parts supply or authorised service for the Pickup. This is one of the clearest reasons it cannot be considered a viable vehicle to own or rely on today.

The Canoo Pickup is a great idea that ran out of road. Its boxy looks split opinion, but the thinking behind it - a flexible skateboard platform, genuinely useful cargo features, strong power options and an accessible target price - was sharp, and for a while it looked like one of the more interesting electric trucks coming. Then Canoo went bankrupt in January 2025, and the Pickup went with it. Today it is a discontinued, unsupported vehicle that never properly reached buyers, so it belongs in the 'fascinating what-if' category rather than on a shopping list. If you actually want an electric pickup you can buy and rely on, look at established options like the Ford F-150 Lightning or Rivian R1T instead.

On concept, the Canoo Pickup was chasing the same buyers as the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T and Tesla Cybertruck, and it was arguably the most radical-looking of the lot. But the comparison falls apart on the basics: those trucks are real, supported, crash-tested vehicles from companies that are still in business, while the Canoo is a discontinued product from a bankrupt startup with no support. Against any of them - or any current EV truck - the Pickup cannot compete on availability, reliability, service or resale. Its only real advantage was originality of design; on everything that matters to an owner, the established trucks win easily.

Do not buy a Canoo Pickup expecting to actually use and rely on it. The company is gone, the truck never reached proper production, and there is no parts, service or software support left behind it. The only buyers it could make any sense for are collectors or enthusiasts who specifically want the curiosity, fully understand they are getting an orphaned, unsupported vehicle, and have no expectation of warranty or backup. For a usable electric pickup, choose an established model like the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T or Chevrolet Silverado EV from a manufacturer that is still in business.

There is no sensible way to estimate real ownership costs for a Canoo Pickup, because the maker is bankrupt and the truck is unsupported. An EV is cheap to charge, but that is beside the point here. The factors that actually matter are all negative: no warranty, no guaranteed parts, uncertain or unavailable service, software that may stop working, and a resale value that is almost impossible to predict for an orphaned product. Those risks completely overwhelm any energy or maintenance savings, which is why the Pickup is a curiosity rather than a practical truck to own.

Talking about EV tax incentives for the Canoo Pickup is mostly pointless, because the truck is out of production and the company is defunct - new-purchase incentives no longer apply. US federal and state EV incentives are built around currently available models from operating manufacturers, none of which describes the Canoo. In short, there are no meaningful current tax benefits to factor in for this discontinued vehicle.

Maintenance is one of the biggest practical problems with the Canoo Pickup today. An EV drivetrain is simple in principle, but this truck used bespoke parts and a custom platform, and with Canoo bankrupt, spare parts and qualified service are likely impossible to find. Software and over-the-air support may also be gone for good. That means even basic repairs could be extremely difficult, which is a decisive reason to treat the Pickup as a non-viable everyday vehicle and, at most, a collector's curiosity.