Lordstown Motors Hits 50K Preorders, Opening 2 Satellite Sites

LORDSTOWN, Ohio – Lordstown Motors Corp. has hit 50,000 preorders for its Endurance electric pickup truck and expects to have 500 employees by the end of the year, the company announced Monday morning.

“We continue to make significant progress across all fronts, and we are excited to reveal these developments with the investment community and future customers today,” said CEO Steve Burns in a statement.

In addition, Lordstown Motors will be opening two satellite centers: a research center in Farmington Hills, Mich., and a service center in Irvine, Calif. The research center will serve as a space for vehicle inspection, testing, validation and prototyping. The site in the Detroit suburbs, which will open this week, was chosen because of its proximity to tap into the area’s deep pool of automotive engineering talent. 

Meanwhile, the Irvine service center will be the company’s first outside Ohio. It will open later this month.

“The facility, combined with the company’s mobile service, will enable Lordstown Motors to service commercial users in the southern California region,” the statement said. “The company has chosen California as the location for its first service center outside of Ohio due to the favorable regulatory backdrop in the state, which is aggressively promoting more widespread adoption of electric vehicles.”

Following the company’s listing on the Nasdaq at the end of the third quarter, the company will begin releasing earnings reports on a regular schedule beginning with year-end results for this year, the company said in its announcement. 

While those reports are awaited, the company also released highlights and an update on where Lordstown Motors currently stands.

Deliveries of the Endurance are expected to being in September 2021 – with full production ramping up through 2022 – a sign the company is on track after announcing delays earlier in the year, mostly caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to the 50,000 preorders, which are nonbonding, the company said the average order size is 500 vehicles.

“This figure does not capture interest the company has received from organizations that are not in position to be able to place pre-orders, such as federal, state and municipal governments and military fleets, the statement continued.

Part of ramping up production is construction on a 700,000-square-foot battery pack and hub motor production facility at its Lordstown site.

By the end of 2021, Lordstown Motors expects to have 1,500 employees. Currently, it employs 250 and expects to double that by the end of the year. 

In addition, Lordstown Motors also announced promotions among its management team: Rich Schmidt, previously chief production officer, has been promoted to president; Shane Brown, previously director of plant operations, to chief production officer; and John Vo to vice president of propulsion from director of propulsion.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.