GM’s Lordstown, Ohio, plant has been sold to an EV startup, “Lordstown Motors Corp.,” which is affiliated with Workhorse Group, the company behind the Workhorse W-15 plug-in pickup truck.
Workhorse shares no ownership with Lordstown Motors Corp., but the two companies are affiliated. They plan to share intellectual property, and Workhorse’s ex-CEO Steve Burns is now CEO of Lordstown Motors.
The deal has been brewing for some months now. Talks were prematurely revealed in May on Twitter, though nothing had been finalized yet.
We now know that Workhorse itself won’t own the plant, but that a new company has been formed that plans to work with Workhorse in the future.
Workhorse is currently bidding on the contract for the next US Postal Service delivery truck. This contract would be very lucrative if it comes through. There are several other companies bidding on the same contract, but Workhorse is the main bidder with an electric option, which would likely be a huge money saver for the USPS as compared to gas options.
Workhorse has also taken approximately 6,000 pre-orders for its plug-in hybrid truck. The company plans to build those in the Lordstown plant.
But Lordstown Motors has plans to design its own pickup model, too, which they’ve dubbed the “Endurance.” This would be an all-electric pickup truck with four motors, one per wheel.
Burns says the startup has enough money to buy the plant, but “we are going to be fundraising for a while” in order to raise the money required to for retooling, development, and homologation. He has hired talent from across the industry, including GM, Ford, Karma, and Tesla’s manufacturing director Rick Schmidt.
Workhorse’s stock, previously down several percent this week, shot up more than 30% on the news.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.