Lordstown Motors hits 100K truck orders

Kalea Hall
The Detroit News

Detroit — Electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors Corp. now has 100,000 orders for its electric truck, the company said Monday. 

Lordstown Motors is shooting to start production of its Endurance truck later this year out of the former General Motors Co. Lordstown Assembly complex in northeast Ohio. 

The company is one of several poised to produce an electric truck. But it has differentiated itself by focusing on the commercial market, persuading utility companies and other fleet buyers to consider its electric offering over gas-powered options.

Lordstown Motors Endurance

The startup purchased the 6.2 million-square-foot plant in 2019 with the goal of making 20,000 vehicles in its first year of production, but that number has now increased to 31,000 for the first full year of production in 2022, CEO Steve Burns told The Detroit News on Monday.

"Right now we're scrambling to try to figure out how we can make more than we had planned in the early years just because the appetite is there," he said. "We're tooling for a minimum of 31,000, but we're trying to increase that."

Burns expects to make 2,000 trucks this year since production was delayed until September because of the pandemic. Lordstown is now building the first beta Endurance vehicles. 

The plant once produced more than 400,000 Chevrolet Cruzes a year. Burns has said his company could make 600,000 Endurance trucks there because it has a more simplified build.

The Endurance electric pickup has a range of 250 miles, the equivalent of 600 horse power and can tow up to 7,500 pounds, Lordstown Motors claims.

The Endurance, priced at $52,500, will be entering the market around the time of other electric trucks including the GMC Hummer EV, Tesla Cybertruck and Rivian R1T.

khall@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @bykaleahall