Canoo suffers battery fire during pre-production testing

According to foreign media reports, on July 8 at Canoo's offices in Torrance, Calif., a trailer caught fire and burned during a test of a lithium-ion battery, theelectric vehiclestartup has suffered over the past year. The second battery fire incident.

Image credit: Canoo

No one was injured in the incident, but an employee "was instructed by management to conduct a smoke inhalation assessment and then travel to urgent care in a private vehicle," according to an accident report from the local fire department obtained by Bloomberg.A Canoo representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the latest incident report, the Torrance Fire Department received a call at 7:37 a.m. local time and two fire trucks arrived on the scene within six minutes to find the office "completely" in flames.The report did not say how long it took to put out the fire.

In August 2021, a similar accident occurred in Canoo.An executive at the time said a battery pack caught fire after it was "improperly placed" in an airtight container after undergoing destructive testing.The fire destroyed a third-party cargo van Canoo used to transport the battery packs back from the testing facility.

Canoo is currently developing a prototype of its electric van, with production scheduled for the fourth quarter.The automaker announced earlier on July 12 that Walmart Inc. had agreed to buy at least 4,500 vans from it as last-mile delivery vehicles.

Other EV makers have also suffered fires during battery tests.Electrek reported in May that firefighters had put out a similar blaze at the Rivian plant in Normer, Illinois.