Lordstown Lost: General Motors Offloads Shuttered Chevy Cruze Plant
That didn’t take long. With General Motors now in possession of a ratified four-year labor agreement, a plant the automaker closed down earlier this year, and one it had no intention of restoring to its past glory, is out of its hands.
Ohio’s Lordstown Assembly, which fell victim to dwindling passenger car sales (by the time of its closure, the facility was operating on one shift — down from three earlier in the Chevrolet Cruze’s life), has been sold to Lordstown Motors Corp., the automaker said Thursday.
The move was long expected. Lordstown Motors comprises a combination of business partners, among them Cincinnati-based Workhorse Group — the fledgling builder of electric pickups. Workhorse and its partners hope to use the former GM facility to build a retail plug-in pickup, though Workhorse, which shares its tech know-how with Lordstown Motors, is in the running for the lucrative U.S. Postal Service replacement vehicle contract.
The former Lordstown Assembly would likely be the home of those vehicles if Workhorse wins the contract. It would also be home to some 6,000 W-15 electric pickup prototypes Workhorse received pre-orders for, Bloomberg reports. Those pre-orders will apparently be flipped over to Lordstown Motors, though it’s another plug-in pickup — dubbed Endurance — that LM hopes to put into production on a mass scale, targeting fleet buyers.
The big question mark hanging over the plant purchase and Lordstown Motors’ dreams concerns money. GM didn’t reveal the details of the plant sale, and just how much cash LM has to work with isn’t known.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns, formerly head of Workhorse, said, “We are going to be fundraising for a while. We have to stand up an auto company.”
With money raised, Burns said he hopes to one day employ a number of UAW-affiliated GM workers laid off when the plant closed. Most remaining workers at Lordstown were transferred to other plants in the Midwest. In its tentative agreement, GM claimed the site would initially host 400 jobs, while a GM battery cell plant in the same region would eventually employ 1,000.
To build the Endurance, which Burns describes as having four electric motors, one at each wheel (meaning four-wheel drive), the company plans to tap the industry knowledge of a team containing members hailing from Ford, GM, and Karma Automotive. LM Chief Production Officer Rick Schmidt spent more than three years as Tesla’s manufacturing director.
“We’ve got a solid team and I’m confident in our fundraising efforts,” Burns said.
With Ford and GM both working on electric pickups, joined in that goal by Tesla and upstart (but better prepared than LM) Rivian, it’ll be interesting to see how quickly Lordstown Motors can put its plans into action. Readers at home can place bets.
[Images: General Motors]
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- Wolfwagen I have worked as a manager in both union and non-union locations. The best union employees were the ones who were indifferent to the union or told them to get bent. The worst ones were the ones who would run to the union for every little thing, even when it was their own actions that caused the problem or because they could not understand their own contract
- Harry HOW i RECOVER MY LOST OR STOLEN FUNDS:You should gather and document all relevant details about the theft, such as transaction IDs, wallet addresses, and any communication with the scammer if any, and then proceed to message SYLVESTER. G. BRYANT to get back your lost/ stolen funds by sharing the evidence you've compiled. he was the only one who was able to recover my funds I was so surprised he got back my money worth $52k but glory be to God and all thanks to him.. here is his contact below: Instagram: Yt7crackerszEmail: Yt7crackersz@ gmail,com
- Daniel J I had read an article several years ago that one of the issues that workers were complaining about with this plant is that 1/3 of the workforce were temporary workers. They didn't have the same benefits as the other 2/3 of the employees. Will this improve this situation or make it worse? Do temporary workers get a vote?I honestly don't care as long as it is not a requirement to work at the plant.
- Kosmo Tragic. Where in the name of all that is holy did anybody get the idea that self-driving cars were a good idea? I get the desire for lane-keeping, and use it myself, occasionally, but I don't even like to look across the car at my passenger while driving, let along relinquish complete control.
- Bof65705611 There’s one of these around the corner from me. It still runs…driven daily, in fact. That fact always surprises me.
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It was a mistake to drop the Cruise but now that it has been done GM should take the Malibu and make some minor updates to the interior and lower the price to make it more competitive. There needs to be an affordable car that gets decent mpgs to fill in the void left by not having the Cruze. It is a mistake to totally abandoned the car market at the very least have one or two sedans in the mid to lower price range even if it means making these vehicles in Mexico.
India lost. Europe lost. Japan lost. Malaysia lost. Lordstown lost. Soon GM will be left with only North American and China. Or maybe just China.