Lordstown Motors, Foxconn come to terms

May 12, 2022

The companies’ contract manufacturing agreement has an initial length of 18 months and Foxconn has taken on 400 workers.

Geert De Lombaerde

Executives of Lordstown Motors Corp. and Hon Hai Technology Group, the parent company of Foxconn, on May 11 signed agreements to have Foxconn buy Lordstown’s large manufacturing complex and take over the manufacturing of the Endurance electric pickup truck. The companies also have sealed a joint venture deal to design, develop, and build other commercial EVs based on Foxconn platform technology.

Shares of Lordstown (Ticker: RIDE) jumped more than 30% to about $2 in after-hours trading on news of the deals. They had lost 80% of their value in the past year, cutting the company’s market value to just $300 million. Early this week, Lordstown CEO Dan Ninivaggi said he was still optimistic the two companies would reach an agreement after Foxconn had extended the negotiations deadline, meaning Lordstown wouldn’t have to return to Foxconn $200 million in down payments—money Ninivaggi said Lordstown didn’t have on hand.

Per the companies’ agreements, Foxconn now owns the Lordstown factory—which was in the past owned by General Motors Corp. and which spans 6.2 million square feet—and has taken on 400 Lordstown workers as part of a contract manufacturing commitment of at least 18 months. The company has paid Lordstown the $30 million it still owed per the companies' November preliminary agreement as well as roughly $27.5 million in estimated cost reimbursements.

For more on the agreements, visit our sister brand IndustryWeek.

About the Author

Geert De Lombaerde | Senior Editor

A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of experience in business journalism. Since 2021, he has written about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications FleetOwner, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, Oil & Gas Journal, and T&D World.

With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector and many of its publicly traded companies.