GM In Talks To Sell Lordstown Plant To Electric Truck Maker Workhorse
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General Motors is may sell its former Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio to Workhorse.
The president spoke with GM CEO Mary Barra this week, who informed him that the automaker will sell the former Chevrolet Cruze production site to Workhorse Group for an undisclosed sum, pending a UAW agreement. GM said in a release Wednesday it’s in talks with Workhorse to potentially sell the plant.
Workhorse plans to make electric trucks at the Lordstown plant. Details on production capacity and the number of workers it will employ at the plant are not yet available. It’s also not clear how much GM sold the Lordstown facility for.
“This potential agreement creates a positive outcome for all parties involved and will help solidify the leadership of Workhorse’s role in the EV community,” Workhorse CEO Duane Hughes said in a statement.
….in 3 separate locations, creating another 450 jobs. I have been working nicely with GM to get this done. Thank you to Mary B, your GREAT Governor, and Senator Rob Portman. With all the car companies coming back, and much more, THE USA IS BOOMING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2019
GM has also announced it will invest $700 million in Ohio at three separate locations and add 450 jobs in the state in coming years.
“We remain committed to growing manufacturing jobs in the U.S., including in Ohio, and we see this development as a potential win-win for everyone,” said GM CEO Mary Barra. “Workhorse has innovative technologies that could help preserve Lordstown’s more than 50-year tradition of vehicle assembly work.”
Workhorse recently disclosed plans to put both an electric pickup truck and a small electric delivery van into production. Its plug-in electric pickup truck concept, dubbed the Workhorse W-15, featured a 60 kWh battery, a hauling capacity of 2,250 pounds and a tow capacity of 6,000 pounds. The truck supports both standard socket charging, which will take about 10 hours to fill the battery, along with DC fast charging that can fill it from flat to full in about one hour.
Workhorse estimates the truck will have a pure electric driving range of around 75 miles and a total gas-electric range of 310 miles.
Earlier this year, Workhorse indicated it had around 6,000 pre-orders for the W-15 pickup. The initial vehicles will go to fleets, with deliveries expected to commence later this year.
The final Chevrolet Cruze rolled off the assembly line at the Lordstown plant on March 8th, while Cruze spare parts production ended in early April.
Update: An earlier version of this story cited tweets from President Donald Trump. GM has clarified it’s in discussions with Workhorse and has not agreed to sell the plant at the time.
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Well let see if they are here in 5 years,
If they can keep the price down and interest fleet sales then we may have something. They have done some UPS trucks too. That I think has more potential than the Pick up.
I had a feeling something was in the works as the UAW was keeping quiet here,. I was hoping for a new GM product but it was this.
Prices last year started at $52.000.
Looks like scott3 just isn’t as informed as he pretends to be. Kept saying that Lordstown will get another product from GM, but no, just got screwed over. Workhorse is just another helio motors, waste of time and money. This is what happened to the Shreveport plant
Only said I had a hunch that something was up and assumed it was a new GM model.
Just saw the union leads talk and there is a lot to go on yet and this is far from a done deal according to them. Even GM states talks still need to be done.
It will be interesting to see if Workhorse has the money to buy or will GM make them some kind of deal?
Some of the vehicles they have done used GM platforms.
No matter what happens. Best case they will still only employ a fraction of what GM did.
The bigger news was the investment going to the Parma stamping plant and new jobs there.
Sad really sad…
After lots of government money, my local GM plant was sold to Fisker… Needless to say that didn’t work out so great. This is not great news for Ohio.
I still fail to see how an electric pickup will have any buyers other than those coming from a Honda Ridgeline. The majority of people buy pickups for the exact opposite of what an electric vehicle is. Durable, rugged and reliable with a long travel range.
Here come the dislikes…
Henry
Up before the sun; at shop loading up the truck at dawn; occasional stops at lumber yard; supply houses; Hardware stores; & Home Depot type big box stores; on job sight unloading before most people hit the road;
Less than 100 miles on most days. Only off-roading is 50 ft. of unfinished driveway. Ladders, Lumber, pipes, skids, crates, drywall, ductwork & paint cans don’t do that much damage. Most everything else comes in a box.
Electric truck, if the price is competitive, hell why not. A better way to go would probably be a diesel powered PHEV. That doubles as a generator that can provide enough power for a whole construction crew.
Uuuuuum. EV’s will last much longer than an ICE vehicle.
And EV’s are almost perfectly Taylor made for the Truck Segment. Instant TQ and can tow a lot more than a comparable ICE vehicle.
Also, you can charge your tools on the job site utilizing your vehicles batteries. What are the Downsides that you see exactly?
I am not being sarcastic but truly would like to know what you feel like the downside to EV Trucks would be.
How much of a say did that draft dodging, no tax paying, misogynist, dictator worshiping blow hard have with GM’s decision? He should make note this is how a real company makes money unlike his multiple failed attempts.
Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Obama were all draft dodgers, did not serve in military.
Mitch,
None of them dodged the draft. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar studying at Oxford thus exempt from the draft, Joe Biden received 5 student draft deferments due to medical condition (asthma) thus exempt from the draft, and Barack Obama was too young for the draft. You really don’t want to go into which party has, and has had, the most combat veterans. Trust me, you will lose that argument.
Here are the details on the truck. It will do 80 miles on a charge and recharge in about an hour.
You can get a extender ICE engine that is a 3 cylinder BMW engine as an options over and above the $52,000 price. It uses Panasonic batteries.
The towing is only 6,000 pounds.
Based on what I see this is not something that I would rush out and buy for advancement.
Now if they would focus on aluminum step vans like UPS or Fed Ex. Get the needed range and retain the cost.
Or better yet if the government is paying any money get some mail vehicles made out of light weight materials and have the needed range for the preset route they run.
Work in these markets may have much better success than just trying to pedal a short range truck that is not cheaper than most you can buy.
The key to get people to buy these is normal usefulness, lower operating cost at a similar purchase price.
Agree with pretty much everything you say but I have the following corrections.
Charge time. Workhorse says they will not be offering an option for DC quick charging because they believe their core customers, commercial users, will operate within a limited range of their facility and will have sufficient time to recharge over night with standard Level 2 chargers.
Range and range extenders. Steve Burns ex Workhorse CEO says the W-15 will be offered in two versions, an 80 mile PHEV with a BMW turbo three cylinder range extender or a 200 mile BEV. The latter just eliminating the range extender and doubling the battery. Both versions will be sold for the same price $52,500. Both versions to have similar performance characteristics as a standard half ton pickup.
Step vans mail trucks. This is Workhorse’s core business, they are selling large electric delivery vans to UPS and a finalist for the USPS Next Generation Delivery Vehicle. They will go into production with the NGEN light weight delivery vans this year, like the larger UPS vans they are both all electric and range extended, although with the smaller BMW 640 cc scooter engine. They are AWD with a electric motor driving the rear axle and two hub motors in the front. These vans weigh only about 5,000 pounds and could carry about its own weight in cargo. The all electric range is about 100 miles. I think this is the drive train proposed for the USPS NGDV.
Operating costs. Workhorse says in comparison to their existing fleet of clunkers, the USPS could pay for a new fleet in less than a decade due to their much lower operations and maintenance costs. Not bad since the USPS requires that the new trucks last for at least 20 years.
Just went by the charge time claimed in a story.
While they could pay for it in a decade many companies do not want to wait that long for a return. They can wait 5 years and get a return in 5 more years due to lowering cost.
The way I see it with electric and aluminum or composite bodies these are very easy to refurbish. they could be on the road for a very long time.
Some people do not realize how old some potato chip trucks are.
Like I have stated previously. I think the Lordstown Plant is way too large for a startup like Workforce.
The Rivian Truck and the upcoming Tesla pickup truck will eat this thing alive. I seriously doubt Workforce will be able to utilize a Plant the Size of Lordstown. Too nad Tesla didn’t purchase the Lordstown Plant. Would have been much better for the Town.
The USPS has a $6 billion project to buy 180,000 new mail delivery vans. They just completed a year and a half testing of prototypes from five vendors teams of which Workhorse and VT Hackney is one. They are supposed to evaluate data and announce a winner in the fall, I think Trump just picked a winner for them. Workhorse is a tiny manufacturer. They have no need for something as large as Lordstown unless they were selected by the USPS to build their new mail truck.
Workhorse does not have the finances to buy Lordstown, so GM must be partnering with them in some fashion. Workhorse is a better fit than Rivian because they operate in the commercial sector specializing in electric and PHEV delivery vans. They also build a commercial pickup, the W-15. A partnership with Workhorse would allow GM to sell GM electric trucks under the Workhorse label and quality for the full $7500 EV tax credit which is phasing out for GM.
I had not seen it but I wondered if GM got a stake in the company for the plant.
From what I see a stake from GM could give Workhorse the technology they need to pull it off and GM would not have to to cover all the risks.
Workhorse is a small struggling company that is barely keeping afloat. I can’t see how they can buy the Lordstown plant without major GM help. GM was trying to partner with Rivian but talks fell apart because GM wanted too much control. Considering Workhorse’s fire financial state, I don’t think they would have objected to any help from GM.
By partnering with Workhorse the W-15 could possibly be the pickup GM says they will be producing soon. The beauty of this approach is this does not alienate their core truck customers, it gives them a stronger presence in the commercial sector and they can regain the $7500 Federal Tax credit which is currently being phased out on GM branded electric vehicles.
In the past they have based models on GM chassis so some form of partnership could work.
Maybe GM could supply some design staff to help the pickup.
That’s one ugly pickup…..
couldn’t make the Blazer there WHY? but this pickup must be one low rider
The Workhorse line is not going to be the same as the Cruze. Odds are they are getting pretty much an empty building.
They will have to set up their own line and much of it will hands on for such low volumes.
I was wishful that GM was going to sell the Lordstown Plant to Tesla. At least Ohio would have known that they would actually be producing cars (Jobs) for the next 10 years at least but probably well beyond that.
I fear Workforce just purchased a facility that is way too big for them to handle.
The last thing these folks need is Musk.
And why would that be?
Perhaps this is GM’s way of entering the electric pickup market? Just slap their name on one of these the way that they do with the Isuzu medium duties?
Obviously have no inside info but an educated guess says Rivian wouldn’t dump the Ford pick up chassis underpinning their pick up and SUV. Understandably, GM isn’t going to put money into Ford’s bank account by partnering into a deal where they’d be forced to do exactly that. The Workhorse deal is a much better fit for GM in my opinion. As far as Musk goes, Tesla’s are direct competition in a market where GM has players in the game. Why would GM make the ability for Tesla to grab market share any easier by giving them a large plant and a highly trained work force to boot at substantially reduced costs of building a greenfield assembly plant. And since musk is about as anti-union as they come and prefers to pay their workers well below the industry standard , there’s no way a deal with Musk would ever get UAW approval to the deal.
Really, electric trucks now!? Now let’s see,,using a truck for work hmmmm. Pulling a trailer loaded in the summer time with the a.c. on radio a possible headlights on an going to another job an you don’t run out of gas so no carrying a gas can to the end gas station none the block, your toy truck Energizer Bunny dies! Your boss is paying you by the hour an your battery is dead! Even if you found somewhere to plug it in your not going to charge it in 10 minutes! Sounds like it could interesting. Theonly other thing is wait till you have to get new batteries an have to pay a disposal fee to get rid of them! Everyone knows what it cost when you need a new car or truck battery, better take a second mortgage out!
Oh one more think,, you will have to take your car,or truck to a garage that can do the job . Not all garages will be able to do it so that means a certified garage that Specializes in that ,$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Not a good looking truck
No it is not.
I could be wrong but I think Workforce is going directly for Fleet companies.
I really want one of these.
Workhorse began as the spun-off GM P series step van/motorhome chassis operation. They were fairly successful and eventually were bought by Navistar, which merged Workhorse with Monaco motor homes. That operation came apart in the 2008 banking crisis, not at all helped by Navistar’s financial troubles caused by their failed emissions strategies. Workhorse was once again independant, but went off on a strange tangent involving package delivery drones that has yet to bear any fruit. Freightliner and to a lesser extent Ford blew Workhorse out of the chassis business which seemed to be on the back burner, rumored to be resurrected with BEV and hybrid drivetrains. Oh yeah, and a BEV pickup based on the GM K2XX truck platform. I wish them well.
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