Lordstown electric pick-up deliveries begin in the US

After a turbulent two years, US electric start-up Lordstown is celebrating its first batch of customer-ready vehicles.

The first 500 examples of the Lordstown Motors Endurance electric pick-up have rolled off the production line in the US.

Lordstown Motors has announced the first batch of Endurance pick-ups were being delivered to customers from its Foxconn electric vehicle plant in Ohio this week.

The Endurance is equipped with four in-wheel electric motors producing a claimed peak power of 410kW – fed by a 109kWh battery pack for an estimated range of 322 kilometres. The claimed 0 to 100km/h time is 6.5 seconds, making it not much slower than a new Ford Ranger Raptor twin-turbo V6.

The rollout of customer vehicles is a significant milestone for Lordstown, which came close to bankruptcy earlier in the year, before Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn – the company that manufactures iPhones for Apple – stepped in with a $US230 million ($AU343 million) lifeline to buy its factory in the city of Lordstown.

“I am very proud of the Lordstown Motors and Foxconn [electric vehicle] Ohio team for their hard work, grit, and tenacity in achieving this milestone,” Lordstown CEO Edward Hightower said in a media statement this week.

“We are very excited to start delivering vehicles to our commercial fleet customers. The Endurance will provide benefits to customers that use their vehicles for work,” he said.

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Mr Hightower replaced company founder and CEO Steve Burns when both he and CFO Julio Rodriguez abruptly announced their resignation in June 2021.

Part of the motivation behind starting the business, Mr Burns revealed back in 2019, was to save the Lordstown factory following General Motors’ decision to shut it down after more than five decades of operation – buying the plant for the bargain price of $US20 million ($AU30 million) from GM.

The electric car start-up also revealed this week its ute has been certified by the US Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resource Board.

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