Latest news with #LordstownMotors
Forbes
a day ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
Ford To Build New $30K Midsize Electric Pickup In Louisville Kentucky
Back in 2019, a startup called Lordstown Motors showed off a full-size electric pickup truck that it planned to build in a former GM assembly plant in Ohio. In spring 2021, Ford showed a small group of analysts and media the F-150 Lightning and all prospects for Lordstown to succeed were immediately dashed. With the announcements being made at Ford's Louisville Assembly Plant today, the Dearborn automaker may have just done the same to another startup, Slate that made a huge media splash this spring. In 2026, Ford will spend $5 billion to retool the Louisville plant to build vehicles based on what it is now calling its Universal EV Platform. The Universal EV Platform is the product of much touted skunkworks that Ford established in Long Beach, California to develop its next generation of electric vehicles. If Ford is actually able to execute on its plan, the first product from this platform could be the death knell for Slate. When it was announced, the Slate truck was touted as starting under $20,000 after the federal EV tax credits. Unfortunately for Slate, just a couple of months after the introduction, the US Congress passed a tax and spending bill that kills those federal incentives for buying an EV less than two months from now while the truck won't arrive until late 2026. That means buyers will be spending at least $27,000 (as it's currently priced although that could change) for a two-door, unpainted pickup with manual windows and no infotainment system. Most customers will probably end up paying prices closer to the mid-$30,000 range. Those are prices comparable to Ford's already popular Maverick compact that has four doors and can seat four (or five in a pinch). The first product from the Ford Universal EV Platform is a mid-size pickup truck that the company announced about a year ago when it also announced it was cancelling a three-row electric SUV program and to focus on the new platform. That truck is now planned to start production around the end of 2026 and go on sale to customers in 2027. At the moment, Ford is saying the new electric truck will have a starting price of about $30,000, placing it right between the $28,145 starting price of a Maverick and the $33,350 entry point for the mid-size Ranger. We haven't seen what it looks like, but Ford says it will have more interior space than the Toyota Rav4 which has 98.3 cubic feet in the 2025 model. The current Ranger has 98.9 cubic feet of passenger space so we can assume the new truck will be somewhere around 100 cubic feet although Ford says that it will have a footprint closer in size to the Maverick which is about 200-inches long. Like the Lightning the new truck will have a frunk as well for enclosed storage. What we can also assume is that while the new Ford will probably be fairly minimalist, following the pattern of Tesla and Chinese automakers in moving as much as possible into the touchscreen interface, it won't follow the Slate route. It will be painted and will have an infotainment system plus we already know it has four seats that will be much more appealing to consumers. Even in base form, Ford will almost certainly offer more than Slate, including range. Ford spokesperson Emma Berg added, 'We do not believe that you need to strip out features, functionality, screens or even seats to make a vehicle affordable. We will achieve affordability by radically simplifying parts and process. Our four-door midsize electric truck – when bought brand new at launch – is forecasted to have a better five-year total cost of ownership than a three-year-old used Model Y.' How are they getting cost down? When it launched the Lightning, Ford promised a starting price for the work truck of $40,000, but within months, the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in mineral prices that led to higher battery costs and a corresponding increase in the price of the trucks. This time, Ford has apparently learned a lot from the way Tesla and many Chinese automakers are building electric vehicles. In 2022, Tesla was the first automaker to adopt an architecture consisting of two large aluminum die castings for the front and rear structure and a structural battery pack that comprises the floor. The Universal platform is doing the same thing. That means this won't be a body-on-frame truck like the Ranger or F-Series, but will be more like the Maverick albeit a bit larger. Instead of a floor panel in the body in the white, the battery pack itself will make up the floor of the truck. When we visited the still under construction Blue Oval Battery Park factory in Marshall, Michigan in June, we learned that Ford is not only producing lithium iron phosphate cells but full battery packs there. These structural packs will be shipped to Louisville for vehicle assembly. The Marshall plant has a capacity of 20 GWh per year and is scheduled to supply eight different models comprising 240,000 units per year in the coming years. That's an average of 83 kWh per vehicle. The battery is being manufactured in a different way from Ford's other packs. Instead of pouch cells using a nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathode chemistry, the new cells are rectangular prismatic cans with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry. LFP has about 30% less energy density than NMC, but it is much more stable and safer. That means the cells don't need to be packed into separate modules to isolate them and try to prevent thermal runaway if they are damaged or defective. The prismatic LFP cells can be packed directly into the outer battery case allowing more cells to be installed. The result is fewer parts, and twice as much of the pack volume being active cell material that stores energy. The combination of LFP being about 30-40% cheaper per kWh than NMC and the simplified back architecture should probably yield about a 50% cost reduction compared to the batteries currently used in the Mustang Mach-E and Lightning. Ford is emphasizing the efficiency gains in this new platform which includes advancements in motor and power electronics that should enable this truck to deliver close to 300 miles of range on a charge if it has a battery in that 83-kWh area although Ford isn't giving any specs at the moment. One thing Ford has revealed is that the platform has a 400V architecture, another cost saving measure compared to some of the 800V systems on the market, but that should still enable charging speeds approaching 200-kW. How are they building it? The Louisville plant currently builds the Ford Escape and Lincoln Corsair on traditional transfer lines. In this process, the body is loaded on one end of the line and components and systems are gradually added as the line moves until a complete vehicle rolls off the other end. It's not a fundamentally different concept from the way the Model T was built a century ago. Starting late this year, production of the Escape and Corsair will end in Louisville and Ford will be removing the traditional assembly line and replacing it with what it calls an assembly tree. The Ford Universal EV Production System will consist of three parallel sub-assembly lines. These will be used to assemble the front structure, rear structure and the battery and interior. Like other leaders in the EV space, Ford is adopting large scale aluminum die castings that replace dozens or hundreds of smaller stamped and cast components that have to be welded together. Tesla calls this 'gigacasting', but that is just a marketing term with no inherent meaning. Like Tesla, Xpeng and others, the carpet, seats and most of the interior will be installed directly onto the top of the structural battery case. This will make assembly much easier since those components don't have to be maneuvered through the door openings. Ford is also using a simplified zonal electrical/electronic architecture. This is a separate development project from a similar system called FNV4 that Ford cancelled earlier this year. Instead of a complex wiring harness with dozens or upwards of 100 electronic control units, a zonal system is more consolidated with just a small handful of ECUs. Last year Rivian adopted a similar system for the revamped R1 series that reduced the system down to four main ECUs and three zone controllers. Ford's executive director of Advanced EV Development Alan Clarke has stated that the new platform will eliminate 4,000 ft of wiring. At the end of the three sub-assembly lines, the structures are joined together to produce the complete vehicle. This approach will make it easier to utilize different variants of the front and rear structures for different vehicle form factors like SUVs and perhaps even cars. In total, Ford is investing $2 billion in Louisville along with the $3 billion around being invested in Marshall and other facilities. Ford is likely to be the first legacy automaker to take this approach to building electric vehicles. If it can execute on its plans (something that is much easier said than done), it has the potential to significantly undercut both traditional competition like GM and Stellantis as well as Tesla, Slate and others. Even without federal tax incentives, these are vehicles that are price competitive with internal combustion vehicles and could even be profitable. If electric vehicles are to succeed in a US market that has one side of the political spectrum fighting to kill the technology, this approach needs to work for Ford. The future competitiveness of the US auto industry depends on it.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Former GM and Lordstown Motors Factory Intended For EV Production Being Sold Yet Again, This Time By Foxconn
Former GM and Lordstown Motors Factory Intended For EV Production Being Sold Yet Again, This Time By Foxconn originally appeared on Autoblog. A former GM plant is changing hands again. Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, the contract manufacturer known for building notable consumer favorites like the Nintendo Switch game console and the Apple iPhone, is letting go of a prominent U.S. facility. According to an Aug. 4 filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange cited by Automotive News, the aspiring electric vehicle hopeful is selling the former General Motors car factory in Lordstown, Ohio, in a series of transactions that would transfer the sprawling site's buildings, land, equipment, and machinery to its new owner. In separate transactions, Crescent Dune LLC has acquired a significant portion of the Lordstown site's assets for a total of $375 million, which it claims will be channelled into 'new business areas.' Per Taiwan stock exchange filings, the site itself, including the land and buildings, was sold for around $88 million, while manufacturing equipment from Foxconn's EV subsidiaries fetched around $287 million. According to state records seen by TechCrunch, Crescent Dune is a Delaware-based LLC that is just two weeks old. In a statement, Foxconn spokesperson Matt Dewine told the tech outlet that the buyer of the Lordstown assets is an 'existing business partner." In a statement to Automotive News, Foxconn said that the Lordstown site is an integral part of the company's footprint in the United States", adding that the decision to sell it "is part of the company's plan to expand into new business areas." At the same time, they also stated that they plan to continue operations at the Lordstown site and still value the automotive segment: 'Foxconn will be involved in the manufacturing of products for customers at the Lordstown facility. The U.S. is a key automotive market, and we are committed to customers and suppliers in this market. Foxconn will be able to rapidly ramp up automotive production to meet customer demand when required.' Lordstown was once a humming car factory. Despite this, sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal said that the Taiwanese electronics company intends to repurpose the EV factory to build cloud computing hardware and server equipment for artificial intelligence (AI) at the site. Already, Foxconn has a manufacturing facility in Houston for AI servers and has partnered with electronics giants like Apple and Nvidia to establish AI-related facilities in the U.S. The sprawling Lordstown facility was once one of GM's key assets when it operated from 1966 to 2019. It made everything from Chevrolet's full-size cars like the Caprice, Impala, Bel Air, and Biscayne to the first-generation Pontiac Firebird, Chevy and GMC vans, and many of Chevrolet's compact offerings like the Vega, Monza, Cavalier, Cobalt, Cruze, and their badge-engineered variants. However, its more recent history began in 2019 when Lordstown Motors purchased the facility to manufacture the Lordstown Endurance electric pickup. In 2022, Foxconn acquired the Lordstown facility after the company encountered financial difficulties. Foxconn managed to assemble a small number of electric pickups before Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy in June 2023. Several other startups, including Fisker, considered partnering with Foxconn to manufacture electric vehicles at Lordstown; however, those plans ultimately fell through. Currently, Foxconn is using the Lordstown plant to assemble electric tractors for Monarch, a California-based startup. Final Thoughts Foxconn's Lordstown factory is a crucial asset, as it serves as a domestic production site for automakers seeking to reduce tariffs by manufacturing a larger portion of their vehicles in the United States. In its GM days, it produced nearly 16 million vehicles between 1966 and 2019, peaking at 290,000 cars in 2014. Although the WSJ report indicates that this plant could be converted into a manufacturing facility that produces servers and other cloud computing hardware for AI solutions, a part of me thinks this was a wasted opportunity to possibly onshore a car company that exclusively manufactures overseas. Then again, Foxconn specializes in electronics manufacturing; specifically, the kind you use daily. Former GM and Lordstown Motors Factory Intended For EV Production Being Sold Yet Again, This Time By Foxconn first appeared on Autoblog on Aug 5, 2025 This story was originally reported by Autoblog on Aug 5, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Foxconn to sell former car factory in Ohio for $375m
Taiwan's Foxconn has finalised a deal to sell a former car factory in Lordstown, Ohio, for $375m, which includes the facility's machinery, according to a report by Reuters. Despite the sale, Foxconn plans to continue operations at the site, focusing on a broader range of products that align with its strategic priorities. The company, known for manufacturing data centre products for Nvidia and assembling iPhones for Apple, did not specify the exact products to be produced at the plant. However, it noted that its cloud and networking product business has experienced "significant growth." A source familiar with the situation informed Reuters that the Ohio facility is expected to support artificial intelligence (AI) data centres. The site spans over six million square feet, making it six times larger than a plant Foxconn is currently constructing in Houston for the production of Nvidia's GB300 AI servers. Foxconn acquired the Lordstown plant, previously a General Motors small-car factory, in 2022 for $230m from the now-bankrupt US electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors Corp, as part of its strategy to expand into the electric vehicle sector. In 2022, the company began pre-production at the Lordstown Motors plant and had initially invested in the facility to produce electric pickup trucks in collaboration with Lordstown. However, the partnership deteriorated, leading to Lordstown Motors' bankruptcy and subsequent legal action against Foxconn. In its announcement, Foxconn stated that it sold the factory to an "existing business partner," but did not provide additional information. The company reaffirmed its commitment to automotive customers in the US, indicating its capability to quickly scale up automotive production to meet demand when necessary. Foxconn's recent activities reflect its ongoing expansion beyond its traditional role as an iPhone assembler. Last week, the company announced a strategic partnership with industrial motor manufacturer TECO Electric & Machinery to develop data centres. In June 2025, Elektrobit signed a joint development agreement with Foxconn to create a new AI-centric software platform intended to support software-defined electric vehicles. "Foxconn to sell former car factory in Ohio for $375m" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Time of India
05-08-2025
- Automotive
- Time of India
iPhone-maker Foxconn sells former GM factory that its chairman had called 'most important electric vehicle manufacturing and R&D hub in North America', says …
Foxconn has sold the former General Motors (GM) factory in Ohio which it acquired three years ago, via TechCrunch. The plant, which was supposed to become a key electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing site, has failed to manufacture any major EV. In a regulatory filing with the Taiwan Stock exchange, Foxconn announced that it sold the factory and surrounding land for about $88 million. It also sold machinery and equipment from its EV businesses for $287 million. The buyer is named Crescent Dune LLC, a business created in Delaware just 12 days before the sale. Foxconn did not provide more details about the buyer. Foxconn bought the factory in 2021 for $230 million when it was owned by EV startup Lordstown Motors. At the time, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said the plant would be the 'most important electric vehicle manufacturing and R&D hub in North America.' Notably, this is Foxconn's second high-profile failure to deliver on US manufacturing promises. Earlier, the company had pledged to build a large LCD factory in Wisconsin, which President Trump had called the 'eighth wonder of the world.' But the project failed to meet expectations. Foxconn's plans to build EVs at the factory faced several setbacks. Three of the EV startups Foxconn partnered with—Lordstown Motors, IndiEV, and Fisker—filed for bankruptcy between 2023 and 2024. Another company, Monarch Tractor, has produced only a few hundred electric tractors at the site. Monarch's CEO has not commented on whether production will continue in Ohio. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Discover the AI-powered language app that's changing how everyone learns Talkpal AI Undo Foxconn did manage to build a few EVs for Lordstown Motors before a dispute arose. Lordstown later accused Foxconn of cutting off funding and deliberately damaging the business, which filed for bankruptcy in June 2023. What Foxconn says on Ohio factory sale The report quotes a Foxconn spokesperson who told Automotive News that the company will still be involved in making products at the Lordstown facility. The company said it remains 'committed to customers and suppliers' in the automotive sector. However, a report by The Wall Street Journal said Foxconn now plans to build AI servers at the factory. iOS 26 Public Beta Is Here: Apple's Biggest Redesign Since iOS 7 AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Yahoo
04-08-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Foxconn sells former GM factory to mystery buyer after failing to make EVs
Foxconn has sold the former GM factory it has owned for three years after failing to stand up any meaningful, large-scale electric vehicle production there. The pivot marks the second major failure of Foxconn to deliver on its promises to help revive U.S. manufacturing. The iPhone-maker once promised to build a giant LCD factory in Wisconsin — a project that Donald Trump called the 'eighth wonder of the world' during his first term — and wound up underdelivering to an extreme degree. Foxconn says the buyer is an 'existing business partner' named 'Crescent Dune LLC,' an entity that was created in Delaware just 12 days ago, according to records filed with the state. Matt Dewine, a spokesperson for Foxconn, declined to say more about the buyer. Foxconn sold the factory and land for around $88 million and machinery and equipment from its EV subsidiaries for around $287 million, Taiwan stock exchange filings show. A Foxconn representative told Automotive News the company will remain 'involved in the manufacturing of products for customers at the Lordstown facility' and claimed it is 'committed to customers and suppliers' in the automotive industry. But The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Foxconn now plans to build AI servers at the factory. Dewine did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Foxconn announced the deal to buy the former GM plant in 2021 for $230 million, when it was still owned by EV startup Lordstown Motors. At the time, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said it was going to be the 'most important electric vehicle manufacturing and R&D hub in North America.' While Foxconn was developing EVs of its own in Asia, it was also focused on contract manufacturing in the United States. And, in short order, three of the electric vehicle companies Foxconn hoped would occupy the factory went bankrupt. Foxconn actually built a few EVs at the factory for the now-defunct Lordstown Motors. But the Taiwanese electronics giant wound up in a bitter fight with that troubled EV startup. Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy in June 2023, and accused Foxconn — which had become an investor in the startup — of 'starving it of cash,' and said it 'maliciously and in bad faith destroyed that business.' Foxconn also took a flier on a small EV startup called IndiEV, claiming it would build its electric SUV at the Ohio factory. IndiEV filed for bankruptcy in October 2023 with less than $3 million in the bank. Foxconn was supposed to build EVs for Fisker Inc as well. Fisker filed for bankruptcy in June 2024. A fourth company, Monarch Tractor, has not had much of an impact, with Foxconn making no more than a few hundred electric tractors. Monarch's CEO, Praveen Penmesta, did not respond to an emailed request for comment about whether its tractors will continue to be built in Ohio. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
