OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Canoo announced on Wednesday the company has furloughed 82 employees and will idle its factories in Oklahoma. In a news release, the company says both salaried and hourly workers are impacted. “We regret having to furlough our employees, especially during the holidays, but we have no choice at this point. We are hopeful that we will be able to bring them back to work soon,” Canoo said. The company has struggled with production and financing, but say they are in talks with various capital sources. The state of Oklahoma entered into a contract with Canoo, but it sparked controversy after a copy of the contract obtained by The Frontier revealed that the manufacturer was awarded the contract without a competitive bidding process. At the time of the agreement, Canoo had still not put any cars on the market for the public. In January 2024, the state received three vehicles with a cost of just under $120,000. The vehicles were assigned to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Corrections. It has been bad news in the last year. The company’s stock plummeted from around sixty cents a share to around thirty-nine cents a share late this year. On top of that, Walmart had a deal with the company in 2022 to deliver around 4,500 of their EV fleet vehicles, but later announced a deal with Chevrolet for around 4,000 EV vehicles. This is a developing story