100K+ Pre-Orders for Lordstown's Pickup a Shocker
Lordstown Motors announced on Monday that they had exceeded 100,000 pre-orders for their Endurance light-duty, all-electric pickup, slated to begin production in September.
While we covered the Endurance previously, we didn’t pay homage to where it’s being assembled. Lordstown has a long history as the place where Chevrolet and Pontiac vehicles came together. The Vega, Monza, Cavalier, Cobalt, Cruze, and Pontiacs like the Sunbird and Sunfire were made in the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
Looked upon as the place where high-volume, low-margin price leaders were constructed, integrity wasn’t an issue. Driving a Sunbird on the I-880 Freeway near Oakland, California, when traffic came to a halt, the Lincoln Continental driver hadn’t noticed until it was too late, hitting the Pontiac and folding it up like an accordion. While the car was totaled, I emerged without a scratch, thanks to the men and women of Lordstown.
Keeping that in mind, it’s understandable why Lordstown founder and CEO, Steve Burns, chose this assembly plant to create the Endurance. A dedicated workforce comprised of experienced laborers, technicians, and engineers, Lordstown was in operation from 1966 to 2019 under GM’s aegis, then idled for what workers would call a changeover. Lordstown Motors bought the 785-acre, 6.2-million square foot facility to manufacture the world’s first full-size, all-electric pickup for commercial fleet use.
Burns said, “Receiving 100,000 pre-orders from commercial fleets is unprecedented in automotive history. Adding the interest we have received from federal, state, municipal and military fleets on top of that, I think you can see why we feel that we are about to revolutionize the pickup truck industry.”
The Endurance is a full-size, all-electric pickup with a projected range of 250 miles, the equivalent of 600 horsepower, and the ability to tow up to 7,500 pounds. The Endurance will initially come in a crew cab configuration with a medium-length bed, priced at $45,000 after federal rebate. With prototype and alpha builds concluded, Lordstown’s first beta Endurance vehicles are being built, and the company says it’s on track to start production in September.
We’ve not received an invitation to test drive an Endurance, nor to put one through its paces at Holly Oaks Off-Highway Vehicle Park near Detroit, but we’re standing by just in case.
[Images: Lordstown Motors]
With a father who owned a dealership, I literally grew up in the business. After college, I worked for GM, Nissan and Mazda, writing articles for automotive enthusiast magazines as a side gig. I discovered you could make a living selling ad space at Four Wheeler magazine, before I moved on to selling TV for the National Hot Rod Association. After that, I started Roadhouse, a marketing, advertising and PR firm dedicated to the automotive, outdoor/apparel, and entertainment industries. Through the years, I continued writing, shooting, and editing. It keep things interesting.
More by Jason R. Sakurai
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Lordstown Motors has a unique financing plan. Instead of making a fixed monthly payment for six or seven years, you just pay ten percent of your weekly income every Sunday (or Saturday if you're Jewish).
Burns is a scammer, a liar and an expert excuse maker, all the while lining his pockets. They’re not going to start building this joke of a truck in September. Not this or any September. This things looks like a Frankenstein’d mishmash of older generation Tundra and Ford parts with zero imagination added. And the worlds worst pin stripe job. Egads!