• Lordstown Motors is restarting production of its Endurance electric pickup truck.
• The company stopped assembling it in February to address quality issues.
• It's not going to be an easy battle for Lordstown, with competition going stronger by the month.
Talk about electric pickups still mostly revolves around trucks launched or in development by the three major American manufacturers, with Rivian’s R1T and the fabled, still-non-existent Telsa Cybertruck the most prominent outsiders.
We shouldn’t forget another model that is currently on the market. Although, we’d be forgiven for forgetting. This past February, Lordstown Motors made headlines for the wrong reasons, as it had to stop production of its Endurance electric pickup truck to address quality issues.
Now, the company says it’s restarting production of its model this month. Start-up companies have a tough time in the electric vehicle world, as they face the same issues that have and are currently affecting the industry, namely the supply chain crisis, as well as rising interest rates, but without the same resources and capital as Ford and GM have, say.
Ohio-based Lordstown Motors announced as well that it has entered into an agreement under which Amerit Fleet Solutions will service and maintain its vehicles for its fleet customers.
In February, Lordstown confirmed it had only manufactured 31 units of its model for sale at that time. Of the batch, it recalled 19 that had already been delivered to customers; the rest were used internally.
In January, the EV maker had said it expected production to slow down in the first quarter due to supply chain constraints, including the availability of hub motor components.
One can only hope for a successful resumption of operations for this manufacturer, because at the end of the day, the more players in the market, the more options consumers have.