Lordstown Motors to ramp up in 2022 with electric SUV, second pickup

Lordstown Motors came to life following the end of the line for General Motors’ assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. Now, the sprawling plant that produced numerous GM cars belongs to the electric-car startup, and its CEO has big plans for the next couple years.

Speaking with the Detroit Free Press, LM CEO Steve Burns said additional vehicles from the company are in the works. They include an electric SUV and a smaller, midsize electric pickup for 2022. Burns didn’t provide any additional details, but it’s probably safe to say its attention is fully focused on launching its first vehicle, the Endurance.

The company underscored a quote from Burns from the original report when Roadshow reached out for additional information: “We didn’t buy a mass volume plant like this and not plan to fill it up.”

As for the Endurance, Burns told the newspaper the company’s registered over several thousand orders for the truck. For its first year of production, the company plans to build 20,000 pickups, so there are plenty of build slots left for now, but the CEO thinks that will change after the Endurance’s formal debut.

The truck was meant for a Detroit auto show reveal this summer, but the coronavirus pandemic led organizers to cancel the show. Now, the company will debut the truck digitally, likely in late June, according to the latest comments from Burns. We’re mighty curious to see the in-wheel electric motors strut their stuff as no other company has pursued them for production. If LM pulls it off, there will be far fewer complicated parts to manufacture for its truck.

With this mentality, Burns thinks its Ohio-based plant will be able to produce even more vehicles than GM ever did annually. Before GM sold the plant, it built around 400,000 Chevy Cruze vehicles per year, but LM believes it could crank out 600,000 units.

Along with the latest news, LM released a couple of updated renderings for the Endurance. So far, the truck’s holding onto most of the design elements previous sketches showed off, though the fascia isn’t as sleek as once imagined. The lights are more realistic, but the line flowing from the headlight to the rear keeps things a tad interesting.

We’ll likely know a lot more as we approach the truck’s debut as soon as next month.

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