×

Lordstown Motors delays production due to pandemic

LORDSTOWN — Lordstown Motors Corp. will delay the production start of its battery-powered Endurance pickup truck until January 2021, one month later than anticipated.

Company founder and CEO Steve Burns revealed the slight setback Tuesday in letter posted to Lordstown Motors’ website, blaming COVID-19, which has caused a virtual standstill to economies and businesses across the United States.

“Like most companies, the pandemic has caused us to tweak our plans. However, it has also dramatically strengthened our conviction and enthusiasm to bring the Endurance to market as soon as humanly possible,” Burns wrote. “Strangely, this clarity probably could not have come to us without the world actually coming to a standstill — and the modern world does not often come to a standstill.”

The company had planned to reveal publicly the light-duty truck in June at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, but with its cancellation, the automaker is switching gears and anticipates doing a virtual reveal from its headquarters in Lordstown sometime in early summer.

Lordstown Motors has in recent months announced partnerships with companies or groups to buy and broker the truck, including a pledge from Akron’s First Energy to purchase 250 Endurances for its fleet.

It also has commitments from Clean Fuels Ohio to encourage the sale of 500 trucks and from Innervation, a Florida company that specializes in electric-vehicle charging stations, to broker 1,000 more of the trucks to clients to convert fleets to electric vehicles.

In addition, Lordstown Motors is sitting on about 6,000 pre-orders in a transfer agreement with Cincinnati-based Workhorse Group for its commercial pickup truck, the W-15. The agreement is part of a partnership between the companies that lets Lordstown Motors use Workhorse technology to produce the Endurance in exchange for Workhorse holding 10 percent of Lordstown Motors.

The truck, which has a starting price of $52,000 before various tax credits, has four moving parts — the hub motors. It can go up to 260 miles on a single full charge and can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds.

rselak@tribtoday.com

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.39/week.

Subscribe Today