A little under a year ago, Lordstown Motors was vowing that it would absolutely have its electric trucks in production last September, which came and went without its electric trucks being mass produced. In announcing its first quarter earnings on Monday, Lordstown said that, in fact, the Endurance will enter mass production this fall. Fool me once, etc.
The problem is that Lordstown is running out of money. This time last year it had $587 million in cash, according to Reuters, but on Monday Lordstown said it only has $203.6 million as of the end of March. One boost could be the sale of its plant to the Taiwanese firm Foxconn, but Lordstown said Monday that that sale was not yet final, though it is making progress.
“We also continue to work closely with Foxconn to close our pending transaction and strengthen our manufacturing and product development partnership,” said Lordstown CEO Daniel Ninivaggi. According to CNBC, if the deal doesn’t close, then Lordstown will have to repay nearly all of the money it has on hand currently, meaning that for Lordstown the stakes couldn’t be much higher.
Still, Lordstown says it spent $87.9 million in operating expenses in the first quarter, so by the third quarter, when Lordstown says it will begin commercial production of 500 Endurances, it may be close to out of money anyway. That is unless, of course, Lordstown is able to attract new investment, which it said it would do this year to the tune of $150 million. Lordstown’s stock is trading at $1.80 per share as of this writing, which is penny-stock territory, and revenue is still zero.
I would say who could have seen this coming, except that we all did. Lordstown was probably cursed by its association with former President Trump, anyway.
How does this all end? Well, I’m sure many if not most Lordstown employees are currently polishing their resumes, because unless Lordstown pulls off some kind of magic trick, its future is pretty dim, a disappointment to any of the Lordstown locals who probably still remember the old GM plant, if they ever believed in Lordstown Motors to begin with.
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