#canoo

Canoo Holdings Ltd., creator of highly configurable electric vehicles built atop its proprietary “skateboard” platform, plans to merge with a blank-check firm in order to seek investor cash. If past examples of EV startups going public are any indication, Canoo will soon be valued at eleventy bazillion dollars, give or take a few bucks.

On Tuesday, the company announced a tie-up with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. IV, a special purpose acquisition company, in order to get itself a listing on the Nasdaq.

Developing a new vehicle platform in-house is an expensive affair, making the cost of producing an electric vehicle from the ground up a heavy weight to place on an automaker’s balance sheet. Margins for such vehicles are currently slim, if not nonexistent. No wonder everyone’s trying to free up cash.

And yet, because the world has decided EVs are the future, automakers can’t be without them. Ford recently partnered with Michigan startup Rivian to source a platform for an upcoming Lincoln crossover, and now Hyundai has followed suit.

Hyundai and Canoo. Best buddies.