German Post reportedly finds buyer for StreetScooter

Deutsche Post has apparently found a buyer for its electric vehicle subsidiary StreetScooter. According to a media report, a company called Odin Automotive is the buyer. Odin is backed by a well-known eMobility manager.

According to research by German publication Die Welt, the company Odin Automotive was founded in Luxembourg in mid-September and, according to a notification to the Federal Cartel Office, intends to take over all shares in the Post subsidiary StreetScooter Engineering, based in Aachen. Odin is headed by manager Stefan Krause, who is the main shareholder.

Deutsche Post did not want to comment on the information to the newspaper, StreetScooter itself did not react to a corresponding enquiry. Die Welt speculates that the companies do not want to comment on the possible deal because the Federal Cartel Office has not yet given its approval – or that contract details such as the purchase price or possible acceptance guarantees have not yet been negotiated.

If the sale goes through, it would end a seven-year experiment for the Post. In 2014, the logistics group took over the fledgling vehicle manufacturer to develop and build its own electric delivery vehicle – because, in the view of the Swiss Post board of directors at the time, the market did not offer any suitable electric transporters. However, the StreetScooter project was not a success under Post’s leadership: the vehicles had numerous technical problems, and StreetScooter also made high losses in some cases.

There had already been efforts to sell StreetScooter in the past. Although there were apparently some interested parties from China and, according to information from electrive, some serious and advanced negotiations, a sale never took place. For this reason, production was to be discontinued in 2020, but this was later postponed to the end of 2022 – and could now possibly continue under new ownership.

The last report was in February 2021, according to which four investors were still vying for StreetScooter in view of the boom in electric vehicle markets. Odin Automotive was not among them at that time. No wonder, after all, Odin was only founded this September.

According to the article, Odin Automotive has Stefan Krause as its main shareholder, but the former BMW manager and former board member at eMobility start-ups such as Faraday Future and Canoo is not raising the money on his own: Other Odin shareholders are “the Singapore-based financial expert Djamal Attamimi from the Indonesian coal mining group Toba Bara and the manager and entrepreneur Matthew Paul Richards from the Indonesian telecommunications company Trikomsel Oke”.

welt.de (in German)