Lordstown Motors Share Price Drops Following Short Seller Claims
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Investment research firm Hindenberg Research published a report this week accusing Lordstown Motors of misleading investors, causing the start-up automaker’s stock price to fall by more than 18 percent.
In its report, Hindenberg Research said Lordstown Motors is “an electric vehicle SPAC with no revenue and no sellable product, which we believe has misled investors on both its demand and production capabilities.”
More specifically, the report says Lordstown Motors lied about receiving 100,000 pre-orders for its Lordstown Endurance electric pickup truck, which it is marketing toward fleet buyers as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional pickups like the Chevy Silverado and Ford F-Series.
“Our conversations with former employees, business partners and an extensive document review show that the company’s orders are largely fictitious and used as a prop to raise capital and confer legitimacy,” Hindenburg Research claimed, as quoted by Reuters.
Hindenberg Research was the same firm that took aim at electric vehicle startup Nikola last year, accusing the firm of misleading investors and customers with regard to the capability of its electric semi-truck prototype. Nikola eventually acknowledged the accuracy of the report, with company founder and CEO Trevor Milton stepping down from his position shortly thereafter. The report also led GM to back out of a partnership it had entered with Nikola, which would have seen the automaker engineer and produce an electric pickup truck on Nikola’s behalf.
Nikola semi-truck concept
Similar to Nikola, Lordstown Motors also has a loose relationship with GM. Lordstown Motors purchased the Lordstown Assembly plant from GM back in 2019, with the automaker providing the start-up with a $40 million mortgage to secure the deal. Production of the Endurance, which features four in-wheel hub motors and is priced from $52,500 before government incentives, is expected to begin at the Lordstown facility later this year.
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Everyone chasing the next Tesla Lol
I really hope this is not true, but there’s no way to know unless the books are opened.
Hindenburg did the same BS to nikola, I’m not buying it, and I can’t understand how investors can see through their MO of being a hedge fund company. Of course they’re going to make up false claims to make gains on puts and short selling.
To say this about a legitimate company is asinine. They actually have working models unlike nikolas bs
Cant*
For a very short time in the 70s GM had an engineer for a CEO, they started to build some good cars, then the bean counters took over and it’s been downhill ever since. If they weren’t so huge they would’ve gone under many moons ago. Bean counters should be contained in a small darkened room somewhere and only open the door when a check needs to be signed. All their screw ups can be traced to a bean counter decision to over rule engineering in favor of cutting cost. I worked for them for 30 years and saw many great engineering ideas trashed and substituted with cheap parts to save 17 cents on that part, like they wasn’t going to raise the prices anyway.
Well Nikola admitted that Hinenburg wasn’t lying. They fired the founder from the CEO Position and he’s not even allowed on the premise from what I understand. I am not a financial adviser by any means but when you have a Company that basically admits what they were doing was lying and is still under investigation by both the SEC and the DOJ I would be staying away. The same will most likely happen with Lordstown.
Everyone is just chasing the next Tesla and are buying into these Spacs. I hope that Lordstown isn’t fake like Nikola but if I was a betting man, I would unfortunately side with Hindenburg….and I LOATHE short sellers. That should be illegal in my opinion. You’re basically trying to destroy a Company that has people working there to feed their families.
This is not a big company with a lot of engineers and capability.
While some are chasing the next Tesla many will end up with the next Tucker.
The truth is this is a very small company that still lacks a product and production. They had high hopes on a larger government postal contract that did not go to them. Now that that is off the table they have little in the way of a source of income other than a half finished truck that still lack enough funding to finish development let along a production line that could produce a profit.
Lordstown motors only has one way out and that is if someone buys them. The trouble they have so little to buy.
I laugh every time they show their testing at the plant. It looks like they send someone out to do some drive byes on the plant property to make us assume they are serious.
Let’s face it they had a GM truck wired up and it may have been the most extensive vehicle they had till it burned to the ground. Even the show vehicle failed in DC to perform.
Once they lost the Postal deal they started the clock till the end.
Like in the early days of the ICE vehicles there will be many who try but only a few that survive.
Now in the future if there is more off the shelf components available I can envision small pop up companies building niche market vehicles.
Until the infrastructure is in place to support EVs it’s never going to get any larger than it is now. The existing electrical grid has a hard time keeping up with demand now. As a matter of fact CA has rolling blackouts because their “GREEN” power plants can’t produce enough electricity, since they shut down all their coal and oil fired power plants you only can use electricity so many hours per day. It’s like everything else the liberals come up with, they don’t think beyond the end of their nose as to what will happen if we do this, all they think about right now.
Bob it is all supply and demand.
Demand is growing and the market will see money to be made and react.
Same for the grid as electric companies are being given a major increase in income so they will build in the next 15 years stations to increase the available power. Even California is backing of gas fired plants.
I am conservative, I am far from a tree hugger and not really planning buying an electric but I can finally see this stuff coming together. I read much from the SAE and see what they are working on.
GM knows what is coming and what they will have. They and a good number of other mfgs know the next gen stuff is going to be lower cost, higher range and will not be lifestyle changing.
It is time for people to realize this technology is much farther along than they realize. Just because we don’t see it yet they are 2 gens ahead on what they are working on.
The truth is these EV models will be cheaper to build and. Buy w it’s more profits for the mfg. Electronic generally decrease the cost.
@C8.R
I have been saying for at least two years that EV’s are inevitable for multiple reasons. First is that the younger Generations is concerned with the Environment. Second is that Europe and China have already spoken and they’re going Full Blown EV. American Auto Manufacturers will not be able to split their R&D into two completely different Tech. One being EV and one being ICE while most others Manufacturers are ONLY spending R&D on EV’s while furthering their lead.
Third reason is that once the average consumers figures out how much easier and cheaper it is to operate EV’s they will flood the market and never go back.
And the Fourth reason and most important is the fact that ICE vehicles will keep getting much more expensive to produce while at the same exact time EV’s will drastically reduce in price and will become so much cheaper to produce that Automakers themselves will give up on ICE.
Hopefully GM has something in store soon but we shall see. So far I like the Hummer and the Lyriq (I am not a CUV guy as of yet) but that is about it. The Bolt cars are ok at best but that DC Fast Charging is not good at all. GM better have a Tesla M3 Cadillac ASAP and a VW ID.4 and Ford Mustang Mach-E for Chevy ASAP.
And yet, there’s suddenly Foxconn! Lordstown May yet prevail.
So a ‘short seller’ makes a claim that they hope will cause the stock price to drop? They know that all too many people will accept those claims as possibly true enough for that short seller to make a fortune.
Short sellers do help correct the market at times,remember the guy that shorted mortgage backed securities?
This is a good time for savvy investors to put there money into lordstown.
I guess Lordstown Motors forgot to hire someone to design a front grill for this vehicle?
What do you need a grill for more weight to discharge the batteries sooner?
Let’s go back to 2010 and see if Tesla had any of the same teething problems with his vehicles. And promises shattered.
If Tesla did Elon would say anything about it he’s to proud to admit he made a mistake.
I think the point is that this Short seller is saying Lordstown has announced fake sales and yet Lordstown has not defended themselves. Again I personally LOATHE short sellers but on this one it is not a good look for Lordstown.
The difference with Short selling Tesla is with a quick search, you quickly found out that the report from the Short Seller was nothing more than a FUD Story to try and destroy the company. The problem with this is that you do not have any Fleet companies coming out and defending Lordstown. I hope this Short seller is lying but as of right now it is not looking too good. On a personal level, I found it kind of insane that the Lordstown starts well over 50K and they got 100K Pre Orders this quickly when they’re not even close to production. I mean think of it this way, Toyota sells a little over 100K Tundra pickup trucks per year and they’ve been around for decades. But like I said I hope this report is false and Lordstown pans out.
I hope it isn’t another Spac that started just to lie to investors while the early investors sell out right away. We shall see.
Since they were right about Nikola (IE:Truck rolling down hill no power!) they may have a point. Who can verify the pre-orders that is primary if there is a market for the truck. It definitely wins the ugly pickup truck award hands down.
Can you possibly come up with an uglier vehicle !!!
Pretty sure Tesla has the award for the “Ugliest Electric Truck Award” pretty much wrapped up right now!
At Cyber Truck is a new look even if a bit mad max, LT truck is just booring..
Well Tesla as I predicted the day it was shown is blowing up with Pre orders. There are 1.5 Million so far.
Even ig half are fake, that is still a ton of orders for the Cybertruck.
Get ready to see them flood your neighborhood in the next five years.
Wonder how it handles with motor on end of the axle?? Perhaps affect steering but good for traction..