The founder of the defunct electric vehicle firm Lordstown Motors, who was fired, has formed a new business called LandX Motors. He is showcasing the electric pickup truck he initially said would outsell models from Tesla, Ford, and General Motors.
(Image Source: Techcrunch.com)
As part of Lordstown’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, Steve Burns, a self-described “serial entrepreneur,” acquired most of the startup’s residual assets late last year, including a sizable portion of its electric pickup trucks. He states that LandX Motors would map out “the future of mobility” and that he would develop an entire range of automobiles on the platform that served as the foundation for the Endurance. These statements are made on the company’s new website. The EV trucks with the Lordstown emblem are shown in a video on the LandX Motors website, even though the company doesn’t call the vehicles the Endurance.
The website needs to explain how Burns intends to tackle some of the most significant issues that Lordstown Motors could not resolve. Significantly, Lordstown Motors executives stated that Endurance’s construction costs were considerably higher than its $60,000 suggested retail price in the months preceding its bankruptcy filing. Furthermore, the corporation must specify how or where to construct the trucks. In response to an email, a representative for LandX Motors declined to answer inquiries and offered no other details.
Burns had previously founded a new electric vehicle company with connections to an earlier one. In 2019, he left Workhorse, another faltering EV firm, to launch Lordstown Motors. With that firm, he negotiated a license for the ideas of a pickup truck project that would eventually become the Endurance.
Later, in 2020, he purchased an abandoned General Motors facility in Lordstown, Ohio. He then coordinated its merger with a particular purpose acquisition company to form Lordstown Motors.
After much struggle, the startup sold the factory to Foxconn, the manufacturer of iPhones. When the massive Taiwanese electronics company began manufacturing Endurance vehicles in late 2022, they were swiftly recalled, and the two businesses fell out. In June 2023, Lordstown initiated bankruptcy proceedings. According to recent court filings, the Securities and Exchange Commission has announced a lawsuit against the company, seeking $45 million in damages for “violations of federal securities laws.”
Throughout it all, Burns sold Lordstown stock for tens of millions of dollars. Late last year, he paid roughly $10 million for the Lordstown assets through LAS Capital, a holding entity that already owns stakes in three other startups.
Past the truck, the new EV startup is a reunion. Thirteen of the sixteen LandX Motors workers listed as their employer on LinkedIn were once employed by Lordstown Motors. According to documents filed with the state of Michigan, Duane Hughes, the CEO who took Burns’ place at Workhorse in 2019 (later replaced in 2021 due to the startup’s difficulties), was an executive. (Julio Rodriguez currently serves as LAS Capital’s chief financial officer.)
(Information Source: Techcrunch.com)
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