AUTO

Lordstown Beats Cybertruck to Market

October 3, 2022

In another stunning example of just how long it’s taking Tesla to build the Cybertruck, Lordstown is building the Endurance. (Kinda.)

The press release we received this morning was, admittedly, a shock — we were pretty certain that Ohio-based Lordstown Motors, which seems like it’s been circling the drain for years, would close before it ever put its Endurance electric pickup into production. How wrong we were: they’ve built two.

And, yeah — we know two isn’t a lot, but it’s two more than the number of production Cybertrucks we’ve seen from Tesla, so we’ll take it.

“We will continue to build at a slow rate as we address remaining part pedigree and part availability issues. We expect to increase the speed of production into November and December,” said Edward Hightower, Lordstown CEO and President. “Our homologation and certification processes are proceeding as planned.”

Those certifications Hightower is talking about include FMVSS crash testing, which the Endurance electric pickup completed successfully. They should include EPA and CARB certifications as well, and the company notes that those applications have been submitted, but are not yet approved. Being a fully electric vehicle, though, one imagines it’s clean enough to get a rubber stamp from both emissions-control agencies.

The company claims these first two trucks are part of a 500 unit run that will get the Foxconn-owned plant up to speed, with deliveries expected to happen within the next 6-8 months. “We expect to deliver approximately 50 units to customers in 2022, and the remainder of the first batch in the first half of 2023.”