LORDSTOWN MOTORS

Steve Burns was the founder of Workhorse Group, an electric vehicle company focused on delivery trucks. He left Workhorse in 2019 and immediately founded Lordstown Motors with a bold plan: buy the massive General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio — a 6.2 million square foot factory that GM had just closed — and use it to build electric pickup trucks.

The factory purchase was symbolically powerful. Trump had personally pressured GM about the Lordstown closure.

Burns positioned his startup as the savior of American manufacturing jobs.

Lordstown's plan was to build the Endurance, an all-electric pickup truck targeting commercial fleets — landscapers, plumbers, electricians, small businesses that needed a work truck. The innovation was hub motors: instead of a traditional electric drivetrain with a single motor and differential, each wheel had its own motor built into the hub.

This theoretically meant fewer moving parts, lower maintenance, and better traction. Revenue would come from truck sales plus service contracts.

The Endurance was an all-electric full-size pickup truck with four in-wheel hub motors producing a combined 600 horsepower. It had a claimed range of 174 miles on a full charge.

The truck was designed for commercial use — fleet buyers who needed a work truck with lower operating costs than gas trucks. The hub motor design was the key differentiator: by putting motors in each wheel, Lordstown eliminated the need for a traditional axle and differential.

In theory, this reduced complexity. In practice, it created new engineering challenges around unsprung weight and reliability.

SPAC and political marketing. Lordstown went public in October 2020 via a reverse merger with DiamondPeak Holdings, a special purpose acquisition company.

The SPAC deal valued Lordstown at $1.6 billion and provided about $675 million in cash. The company leaned heavily into its "saving American manufacturing" narrative.

Vice President Mike Pence visited the factory. The Endurance prototype raced in the Baja 1000 off-road race (it broke down after 40 miles).

The hype cycle ran on patriotism and the EV boom.

The pre-orders were fake. In March 2021, short seller Hindenburg Research published a devastating report alleging that Lordstown had inflated its pre-order book.

The company had claimed 100,000 pre-orders worth $4 billion. Hindenburg found that many of these came from entities with no means to buy trucks — including a landscaping company that ordered 14,000 trucks despite having fewer than 10 employees.

The SEC opened an investigation. The DOJ followed.

CEO Steve Burns and CFO Julio Rodriguez resigned in June 2021.

Lordstown raised approximately $675 million through its SPAC merger with DiamondPeak Holdings. Post-SPAC investors included institutional funds that bought in during the EV mania of 2020-2021.

The company also received a $400 million conditional loan from the Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, though this was never fully drawn down. Foxconn later bought the factory for $230 million and invested an additional $170 million for an equity stake, hoping to become an EV contract manufacturer.