Lordstown Motors Goes Public, Bringing Its Endurance EV Pickup Closer to Reality: Report

Will the infusion of cash let Lordstown win the EV pickup race to market?

A new look at the 2021 Lordstown Motors Endurance EV pickup. [image: Lordstown Motors]

Lordstown Motors, the makers of the upcoming Endurance EV pickup, will take advantage of the market’s appetite for EV companies and merge with DiamondPeak Holdings. The deal allows Lordstown to bypass the time, expense, and dog-and-pony show necessary for an IPO. Doing this lets it tap equity markets much sooner.

The merged company will trade under the ticker “RIDE.” The deal values Lordstown at $1.6 billion after completing the merger. The company has a long way to go to reach Tesla’s $275 billion market cap, but the deal signals an appetite for investors to buy EV manufactures who have their ducks in a row with regards to product, manufacturing and distribution. Start with the Lordstown, Ohio factory. Bought and repurposed from GM in a sweetheart deal, the plant gives the EV maker the infrastructure and an experienced local workforce needed to get the Endurance into production much faster and for much less than it would take to build a factory from scratch.

Lordstown Endurance offroad
The Endurance tackling mud. With motors situated inside each wheel well, will they still work when packed with mud, or ice in the winter? [image: Lordstown Motors]

Endurance Pickup Truck

The pickup, a 4×4 developed and targeted for fleet customers, uses separate motors in each wheel to reduce the amount of moving parts in the truck—the fewest parts in any motor vehicle according to Lordstown. Theoretically, this means much less maintenance and little in the way of repairs. And having 4 motors at each wheel could revolutionize going off the pavements thanks to true all-wheel drive.

At the unveiling of the 2021 Endurance prototype in June this year, Lordstown claimed a starting price of $52,400 (before any tax credits), a range of 250-plus miles on a charge, ability to use the battery to power tools on a job site, a 7,500-lbs. towing capacity, and 600 peak hp. On the Endurance website, the company makes its case for its massively lower “Total Cost of Ownership” by comparing a base Endurance against a similarly priced Ford F-150 Lariat 4WD. Thanks to the Federal Tax Credit, the Endurance pencils out to save fleet owners almost $20,000 over 5 years. There’s even more savings to be had when local state tax credits are factored in. 

Lordstown Endurance Power Outlet
A ability to turn the Endurance into a job-site powersource is a big selling point [image: Lordstown Motors]

Between Rivian, Telsa, Lordstown, and to a degree, Bollinger, a race is underway to bring the first mass-produced EV pickup to market sometime next year. Let us know who you think will win in the comments below. And get a closer look at the Endurance through this 1-minute video the company released over the weekend.