PRYOR, Okla. — Despite economic uncertainties, Canoo’s electric vehicle battery plant is gearing up for business. The facility will be located in MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor.
Canoo CEO Tony Acquila says they're focused on being innovative in Oklahoma, and their battery module manufacturing facility will be no different.
Houston Britton may be with the Pryor Area Chamber of Commerce now now, but he’ll always be a Pryor resident first.
“The economic development and the growth that will come from that, and the jobs, That’s very exciting," Britton said. "I’m very excited.”
Aquila says the facility is expected to bring in about 110 jobs by the end of 2023, and an additional 100 jobs in 2024.
“I think the jobs that are here in this part of eastern Oklahoma are organic to people that could really adopt to this," he said.
This promising news comes near a time of disappointing news when Volkswagen decided to build its electric vehicle plant in Canada, instead of MidAmerica.
Sen. James Lankford stopped by to spread some forward momentum on Wednesday.
“Some folks choose us, and some folks don’t," Lankford said. We’re going to keep doing things well. We’re going to keep doing the right thing, and we’ll keep setting the standard on it in the days ahead.”
Canoo reported a more than 125 million net loss in first quarter earnings last year. It put a giant question mark as to whether or not they’d still be able come to Pryor.
2 News asked Acquila how they pushed through.
“That’s why we’re doing this long term contract type approach with the governments," Acquila said. "We just recently announced entry into the Middle East. Those are actually high growth environments while the rest of the world is dealing with the effects of an uncertain economic condition.”
Staff say they plan to start hiring here in June, with applications being posted on their website shortly.
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