Because coal miners are in such a good position to strike these days.

Steve Burns expects the workforce at the former General Motors Lordstown Assembly Plant to be union workers when production on an electric pickup starts anew there next year.

He likens the workers to a secret weapon.

The CEO of Lordstown Motors, which on Thursday took possession of the more than 6-million-square-foot plant near Youngstown, Ohio, said that will put his company in a league with no one else because he doesn't know of any other electric vehicle startups with a union workforce. The company is a new entity backed by Workhorse Group, a Cincinnati-area electric vehicle company.

"To us, (the workers are) part of the secret weapon because we have taillights, we have seats, we have dash ... we have all the things that require a human to assemble. We still have to paint the vehicle and stamp out the metal so we need that skilled workforce,” Burns said in an interview Friday with the Free Press, a day after the sale closed.

The price has not been disclosed, though the Tribune Chronicle of Warren, Ohio, reported that U.S. Sen. Rob Portman said the price was $20 million. Portman, an Ohio Republican, made the remarks Friday while at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna. Burns told the Ohio paper he didn’t know where Portman got the number, but didn’t say it was wrong.

Burns told the Free Press that 450 production jobs are expected "out of the gate," with the bulk of hiring in September before production starts in November. Wages will be competitive, Burns said. He noted he has not reached out yet to the UAW.

The UAW issued a statement noting that "we are committed to making sure there are quality, good-paying jobs in Lordstown."

That 450 is a far cry from the 5,000 people who once worked at the factory, but Burns said "our goal is to exceed that."

"We’re making this our headquarters, so we want sales and marketing and as much engineering as we can to come out of that facility," Burns said.

He described a vision of an electric vehicle hub for the Midwest and a plant where electric motors, battery cells, battery packs and ancillary products are built.

"Since we’re a pure play electric and don’t need transmissions or engines or differentials or driveshafts, all those things that grew up around Detroit, we want the things that we need to grow up around Lordstown, if possible. We don’t want to be over-lofty, but we have the opportunity to do it, and we are focusing on it,” Burns said.

The company will focus production on electric vehicles for fleet sales, starting with the full-size pickup, then look to add a midsize pickup and SUV. The facility will need to be retooled to produce the new vehicles.

The Lordstown plant produced the Chevy Cruze until earlier this year, when it was idled by GM. The announcement almost a year ago by GM that it would "unallocate" Lordstown, along with transmission plants in Warren and the Baltimore area, was considered a betrayal by rank-and-file workers and was one of the most contentious issues during the recently settled UAW strike. One of the facilities on that initial list of plants — Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly — ultimately was selected for a $3 billion investment for electric pickup production.

Asked about skepticism that the company would be able to succeed, Burns pointed to Workhorse's track record.

"I founded a company called Workhouse and worked there for 12 years as CEO. We're the only company to put electric trucks on the road in the United States, so I think that gives us an edge," Burns said, noting that the company has a very specific focus — fleet sales — that is not likely to put it in direct competition with companies such as Rivian or Tesla.

Workhorse, however, has itself reported lower sales and losses recently. In a news release Friday, the company said third quarter sales were at $4,000, down from $11,000 during the same period in 2018. The company also suffered a net loss in the quarter of $11.5 million, which was higher than a $5.5 million loss during the third quarter 2018.

"The decrease in sales was primarily due to a decrease in volume of trucks delivered partially offset by improved pricing in 2019," the release said. "The greater net loss was due to higher interest expense in the third quarter of 2019 compared to the third quarter of 2018."

However, the company reported more cash on hand.

"As of Sept. 30, 2019, the company had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $9.3 million compared to $1.5 million as of Dec. 31, 2018," the release said.

Due to interruptions caused by the ongoing spread of the coronavirus and resulting COVID-19 pandemic, Lordstown Motors has announced it is pushing back the target date for deliveries of its Endurance electric pickup truck. Plans to unveil the truck this summer, however, remain on track.

In an open letter, Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns provided an update on where the company currently stands in its development and production process for the upcoming Endurance electric pickup truck. Doing their parts to help stop the escalation of the coronavirus, many Lordstown employees have been working from home. However, essential maintenance has continued at the plant, and design engineers have continued to test and tune the technologies that will make the Endurance go.

The current delays have forced Lordstown to reevaluate its timeline for getting the Endurance to the public. Deliveries of the Endurance were previously slated to begin December 2020, but that projection has now been moved slightly back to January 2021. Lordstown had also planned to debut the final production vehicle at Detroit's 2020 North American International Auto Show, but because that has been canceled, the truck will be revealed "in early summer, probably via a virtual reveal from our headquarters in Lordstown," Burns said. "More on those plans as they solidify in the next month or so."

In addition to an update on product scheduling, Burns also added that he and the company have arrived at "two big revelations" during these trying times:

1. Our mission to electrify commercial trucks is even more important than we thought. I think everyone realizes that as tough as it is to stay home, the experience would be much worse - almost unsurvivable - if commercial trucks didn’t keep rolling. Trucks bring supplies, workers and tools to stores and to our homes.
2. The air quality satellite images that are showing the results of having less tailpipe emissions are staggering. Anyone that ever doubted that our air quality could be cleaned up dramatically by eliminating tailpipe emissions should now be cheering for the advent of vehicle electrification - especially truck electrification.

These ideas are far from new, but the see-it-to-believe-it folks have recently been presented with some stark evidence.

When the Endurance does arrive to customers, it's expected to use four in-hub motors to make approximately 600 horsepower while maintaining at least 200 miles of range on a single charge. Read more about the Endurance's technology in our full report. Below is a video playlist focused on the testing of the Endurance.

Lordstown Motors is making good on its promise to unveil the Endurance electric pickup truck this summer, announcing that its maiden product will be introduced during a company meeting the week of June 22, video of which will be released to the public by month’s end.

In a blog post, CEO Steve Burns explained that the original plans were to unveil the truck in June at the Detroit auto show, which was canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak. “It’s not how we’d envisioned unveiling the Endurance, but in the absence of being able to gather a large crowd to see it in-person, this is the next best thing,” Burns wrote.

Burns also used the post to provide updates on preparing the Lordstown factory complex for the start of pre-production later this year. He said workers were finalizing the prototype vehicle battery, with an integrator chosen that has started engineering the semi-automated equipment line. Integration work has also begun on areas like the body shop, general assembly, motor lines and paint shop, with demolition of around 200,000 square feet to make space for lines to build the battery and motors.

“The progress made so far is a testament to the fact that we started in a fully equipped 6 million square foot plant, which meant we were able to get to work right away creating the lines we need to build the Endurance,” Burns wrote.

Lordstown is retooling the idled former General Motors factory in Ohio after receiving a $40 million loan from the Detroit-based automaker in December. The Detroit Free Press recently reported that Lordstown currently employs around 70 people, mostly engineers, and including a team of 20 who work in a design studio in Ford’s backyard in Dearborn, Mich. making clay models of future vehicles, with the remainder working on retooling the plant. The goal is to make 30 pre-production versions of the Endurance by December.

The Endurance will feature four in-hub electric motors, making a combined 600 horsepower, and a battery of unknown capacity, with at least 200 miles of driving range on offer. The company has said that charging on a Level 2 charger takes 10 hours to replenish the battery to 90% capacity (full specs as known are here). It will start at $52,000 before $7,500 federal tax credits for EVs.

The company has also delayed its first deliveries to January 2021, from December of this year. It has already opened the books for reservations for private customers and fleet operators and is targeting production of 20,000 units in the first year.

To tide us over through a week's worth of anticipation, Lordstown released sketches that give us our first-ever look inside the battery-electric fleet work truck. Most notably, they show a large, longitudinal screen with the steering wheel positioned on the left side, suggesting that it will serve double duty as digital instrument cluster and infotainment touchscreen.

Lordstown Motors just fully revealed its electric pickup truck at a virtual event staged in Ohio. It’s called the Endurance, and it rolled on stage with the CEO of the company and Vice President Mike Pence inside of it.Unlike the Cybertruck’s wild and unorthodox shape, the Endurance’s silhouette looks much more like a regular pickup and similar to renderings. That’s by design — the Endurance is aimed at commercial buyers, but private owners will be able to buy the truck, too. The one pictured here is a crew cab with a tall hood, big cab and long bed.

However, there’s plenty of electric vehicle design elements found throughout the truck, too. It starts at the front with the flat, grille-less face. Instead of a huge opening for airflow, the Endurance has a massive front shield with the company’s logo on it with a tiny inlet right below that. The lighting in front is on two levels and appears to be made of LED lights. The bronze coloring on the hub motors is a neat electric touch and truly pops. Black accents travel from the hood through the top of the doors. A separate piece of curved black trim starts at the bottom of the truck’s doors, too, where the “Endurance” emblem can be found. This piece kicks up into the rear fender and eventually ends at the rear taillight. Those LED lights extend from the side of the truck and nearly into the center of the tailgate at both sides. Below the fairly normal looking tailgate, it has steps in the rear bumper, similar to the Silverado.

Steve Burns, LMC CEO claimed that this truck will have the best traction of any other truck out there and handles "like a sports car." Lordstown is using an in-wheel motor design, but it's not quite ready to talk specs yet. We know it'll have a motor at each wheel, but the truck's final range, acceleration and power figures are still unknown.

The premiere event was livestreamed on the company’s YouTube channel.

"Ohio has always been an auto state, an auto parts state ... and really this is the future," Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said of Lordstown Motors' Endurance electric truck on Wednesday.

The fate of the sprawling 6.2-million-square-foot GM plant became a political lightning rod after the largest U.S. automaker announced its planned closure in November 2018, drawing condemnation from U.S. President Donald Trump and many U.S. lawmakers.

As recently as 2016, the GM plant employed 4,500 workers and its March 2019 closure was devastating to the area.

Lordstown Motors, which is 10% owned by Workhorse Group, bought the former GM plant and equipment for $20 million as part of its ambitious plan to begin delivering electric pickup trucks to customers by year end — a goal which has since been delayed to January.

The startup currently has 70 employees and about 100 contractors. Other firms are also preparing to enter the electric truck sector.

GM plans to build its first electric pickup truck in 2021. Tesla plans to start building its electric Cybertruck in 2021, while Nikola Corp plans to build an electric truck by 2022.

Electric vehicle startup Rivian plans to build an electric pickup truck starting in late 2020, while Ford Motor Co will introduce its electric F-150 truck in 2022.

In December, GM and South Korea’s LG Chem said they would invest $2.3 billion to build an electric vehicle battery cell joint venture plant near the Lordstown plant.

About a month after the electric pickup truck's official debut, we finally get a clear look at the 2021 Lordstown Motors Endurance's interior. It's still technically a design rendering, but it's one that's more indicative of the final product than just conceptual sketches.

The interior has a very chunky, truck-like design overall with beveled edges and straight lines throughout. The only curves are the radii on the corners of various trim pieces and the circular horn button on the steering wheel. There's an interesting diamond-stamped steel pattern on the section of dash dividing the climate controls and the air vents. Those air vents are also located in a trim piece that sweeps upward on either side of the top of the dash, echoing the exterior design. Instruments and infotainment are displayed in what's becoming a ubiquitous layout of dual screens mounted in one wide monolith.
The Endurance is slated to go on sale next summer. Pricing has been set at $52,500, and it will be eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit. It diverges from other electric pickup truck designs by using four hub-motors, one for each wheel, rather than dual motors with single-speed transmissions and axle shafts to power the wheels. Lordstown Motors claims 600 horsepower from the quartet of motors. It's also a traditional body-on-frame pickup truck with a solid rear axle. Range is claimed to be over 250 miles and it features support for DC fast charging with a 90% charge possible in 30 to 90 minutes on said charging. The company intends to deliver 20,000 trucks next year.

Lordstown Motors has agreed to go public through a merger with blank-check company DiamondPeak Holdings in a deal that values the electric pickup truck startup at pro forma equity value of $1.6 billion, the companies said on Monday.

The combined company will be called Lordstown Motors Corp following the closure of the deal in the fourth quarter and will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “RIDE,” the companies said.
A blank-check company is a shell company that raises money through an initial public offering to buy an operating entity, typically within two years.

A bunch of electric vehicle makers including Nikola Corp and Fisker have either gone public or are planning to list their shares through mergers with blank-check companies this year.

Lordstown has been working on a new full-size electric pickup truck called Endurance and last year hired Rich Schmidt, a former director of manufacturing at Tesla, as chief production officer.

The company said the truck is aimed at the U.S. commercial fleet market, with initial production expected in the second half of 2021.

Lordstown expects to receive about $675 million of gross proceeds from the deal and will use the funds for the production of the new truck, which has secured $1.4 billion worth of pre-orders, the company said.

The deal includes investments by General Motors and institutional investors, including Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC, Wellington Management Company LLP, Federated Hermes Kaufmann Small Cap Fund, and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, among others, Lordstown said.

A few months ago, Lordstown Motors took the chassis powertrain of an Endurance pickup truck, threw a roll cage on it, and made some fun promo videos showing off the design tackling some rough driving. Things have escalated since then, as the company has now announced that it will be entering a revised version of the that barebones electric truck in the San Felipe 250, a SCORE International Baja race down in Mexico.

This should be interesting for a variety of reasons. The company hopes to be the first electric vehicle manufacturer to complete the race. And that should be a bit of a challenge, because the estimated range of the Endurance is 250 miles. The length of the race, a single loop, will be 290 miles, and that's 290 rough miles driven with a healthy pace. So in addition to proving the durability of the platform, Lordstown will need to strategize and make time for a charging stop.

Then again, we suppose they could add a little battery capacity for the race, since it won't be a straight production truck. We'll have to wait for the company to reveal more details, as a representative told us they're still putting together the race vehicle. This is also why you only see the early skateboard truck at the top of this post.

The race will run on April 17, 2021. It was delayed from 2020 because of the pandemic. We should see the finished truck and have information on the race strategy sometime before then. We're expecting something like a buggy tube-frame atop the Endurance ladder frame. It will still use the same powertrain consisting of hub motors for each wheel making a claimed 600 horsepower.