Lordstown Motors kicks off Endurance electric pickup production ahead of sales in Q4
After a tumultuous four year journey to this point, Lordstown Motors has announced it has finally reached that pivotal moment in any flagship EV lifecycle, the start of commercial production. The American EV automaker shared that it has already completed two production-ready Endurance pickups as part of a slow ramp up in Lordstown, Ohio toward 500 units that will begin sales next quarter.
As you may recall, Lordstown Motors ($RIDE) is a relatively young EV automaker that came out swinging with the prospects of its flagship EV, the Endurance pickup truck. Following initial financial backing from General Motors – the former owners of the Lordstown manufacturing facility in Ohio – and over 100,000 reported reservations in place, there was a lot to be excited about surrounding this new brand… at least for a while.
Things began to sour for the automaker after one of its early prototypes caught fire in early 2021, quickly followed by a less than stellar performance at the San Felipe 250 due to incorrect estimates of the pickup’s energy consumption.
Despite two beta versions of the Endurance rolling off the assembly lines, Lordstown continued to take steps backward, losing its CEO and CFO to resignations in June of 2021. By October, Lordstown was shopping around its manufacturing plant with hopes that someone else would come in and build the Endurance EV for it.
Chinese manufacturing expert Foxconn answered the call, and by this past May the sale was complete. Foxconn’s chairman also vowed that Lordstown Endurance deliveries would begin before year’s end. We’re still not sure if the companies can make good on that promise yet, but it appears that sales are going to begin very soon following the official start of commercial Endurance production.
Lordstown builds 2 of 500 Endurance trucks in first batch
The American automaker announced its trickled start of production in a recent press release, relaying that two Endurance pickups have rolled off the assembly line with a third not far behind. Lordstown was candid in stating that the ramp of of Endurance production will be slow to begin and its acceleration will be governed by a number of factors including supply chain constraints, engineering readiness, quality checks, and part availability.
The initial batch of Endurance pickups planned for Foxconn’s Lordstown facility is 500, but the automaker is already taming expectations for 2022, sharing it expects to only deliver 50 trucks before the ball drops in Times Square. The other 450 trucks or so are expected to deliver in the first half of 2023, pending “sufficient capital” required to keep going. Per the release:
We anticipate ending the third quarter with approximately $195 million in cash and cash equivalents, including $27.1 million of proceeds from equity issuances during the third quarter of 2022. We now anticipate ending 2022 with approximately $110 million in cash and cash equivalents, excluding both any additional capital raises and funding of any contingent liabilities. Our cash outlook is better than our previous outlook by approximately $75 million and we continue to explore opportunities for capital raising alternatives, including in connection with the initial Foxconn JV program and strategic partnerships.
Despite the looming need for more cash, Lordstown is pushing forward to get this first small group of Endurance trucks out in 2022. Crash testing is already complete and automaker says it has already submitted applications for EPA and CARB certification, imperative to the start of sales. Lordstown says it will continue to work through other additional vehicle certifications and software updates ahead of a start of sales sometime in Q4.
Check back with Electrek when we get those ever-so important EPA ranges and pricing. There will be lots of eyes on the Endurance pickup to see where it lands price- and performance-wise in a growing electric pickup segment.
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Tesla is being forced to remove 64 Superchargers at stations along the New Jersey Turnpike as the local authorities have decided to go with another provider.
Elon Musk claimed corruption without any evidence.
The New Jersey Turnpike is a system of controlled-access toll roads that consists of a 100-mile section of important New Jersey highways.
In 2020, Tesla signed an agreement with the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA)and built 64 Supercharger stalls at 8 stations along the turnpike.
The agreement has now expired, and instead of renewing it, the authority decided to give an exclusive agreement to Applegreen, which already operates in all service areas on the turnpike.
Tesla issued a statement saying that it is disappointed with the situation, but that it has prepared for this by building new stations off the turnpike for the last few years:
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned. We have been preparing for 3 years for this potential outcome by building 116 stalls off the New Jersey Turnpike, ensuring no interruption for our customers. The map below outlines the existing replacement Superchargers, and Trip Planner will adjust automatically.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk went a step further and called it “corruption” without any evidence.
The automaker’s agreement with NJTA expired, and they decided to go with a sole provider. Applegreen will reportedly deploy chargers at all 21 turnpike service stops.
Here are Tesla’s replacement Superchargers off the turnpike:
Electrek’s Take
I don’t like the decision from the Turnpike authorities. More chargers are better than fewer chargers. However, I also don’t like Musk calling everything he doesn’t like fraud or corruption.
While I agree with Tesla that it is unreasonable to force them to remove the stations, it appears to be an oversight on Tesla’s part not to have included stipulations in their agreement to prevent such a scenario from happening in the first place.
Who signs a deal to deploy millions of dollars worth of charging equipment with only the right to operate them there for 5 years?
It looks like Tesla knew this was coming since it specifically built several new Supercharger stations off the turnpike to prepare for this.
On the other hand, I don’t like the Turnpike Authority using the term “universal charger” as if this is a positive for Applegreen. They are going to use CCS, and everyone is moving to NACS in North America.
Yes, for a while, only Tesla owners will have to use adapters, but that will soon change and the current NACS Supercharger will be even more useful.
At the end of the day, the stations are already there. Let them operate them.
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![E-quipment highlight: ZQUIP heavy equipment battery swap demo [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/06/case_zquip_MAIN.png?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
ZQUIP is working hard to bring more smart, efficient, modular power solutions to commercial job sites everywhere – and at the core of their vision for the future is battery-swap technology. You can see just how easy it is make that happen here.
MOOG Construction’s energy skunkworks ZQUIP made headlines last year by bringing the cordless power tool battery model to the world of industrial-grade heavy equipment.
“The 700V ZQUIP Energy Modules are at the core of this innovation, said Chris LaFleur, managing director for QUIP. “ZQUIP modules are interchangeable across any machine we convert regardless of size, type, or manufacturer, and will enable a level of serviceability, runtime, and value that is far greater than current battery solutions.”
At this year’s bauma equipment show in Munich, Germany, however, ZQUIP followed up that headline by making it even easier for job sites to make every kilowatt count by enabling them to switch from diesel power, to electric, and back again, on the same machine, on the job site.
Why you want that
Most machines on most sites sit idle most of the time, but converting all those machines to battery electric power means that megawatts of battery capacity are being wasted. By utilizing swappable batteries, job sites can do what technicians and contractors have been doing for years with power tools: quickly get the energy they need to the tool they need when they need it, without the need to have a dedicated battery for every tool.
If you need to be able to run the machine non-stop and don’t have a reliable way to recharge your batteries quickly enough, a 140 kW diesel generator is built into a package the same size and shape as the batteries. In fact, if you look closely at the CASE excavator below (on the right), the “battery” on the right is, in fact, a diesel Energy Module.
The demo video, below, shows a pair of CASE-based electric excavators – one wheeled, one tracked – operating on ZQUIP’s Energy Modules. It takes less than two minutes to remove one battery, and presumably about the same time to swap another one in, for a 5 (ish) minute swap.
Even if you call it ten, by eliminating the need to get the entire machine up and out for charging (or for service, if there’s an issue with the battery/controllers), the ZQUIP battery swap construction equipment solution seems like a good one.
ZQUIP HDEV battery swap
SOURCE | IMAGES: ZQUIP.
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Environment
Trump administration is convinced massive Alaska energy project will find investors despite steep cost
The Trump administration is confident that a massive liquified natural gas project in Alaska will find investors despite its enormous cost.
President Donald Trump has pushed Alaska LNG as a national priority since taking office. Alaska has already spent years trying to build an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope above the Arctic Circle south to the Cook Inlet, where the gas would be cooled and shipped to U.S. allies in Asia.
But Alaska LNG has never gotten off the ground due to a stratospheric price tag of more than $40 billion. Trump has pushed Japan and South Korea in particular to invest in the project, threatening them with higher tariffs if they don’t offer trade deals that suit him.
“If you get the commercial offtakers for the gas, financing is pretty straightforward,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. “There [are] countries around the world looking to shrink their trade deficit with the United States, and of course, a very easy way to do that is to buy more American energy,” Wright said.
Energy analysts, however, are skeptical of the project. Alaska LNG “doesn’t have a clear cut commercial logic,” Alex Munton, director of global gas and LNG research at Rapidan Energy, told CNBC in April.
“If it did, it would have had a lot more support than it has thus far, and this project has been on the planning board for literally decades,” Munton said.
Defense Department support
Wright said the project would be built in stages and initially serve domestic demand in Alaska, which faces declining natural gas supplies in the Cook Inlet. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Department of Defense is ready to support the project with its resources.
“They’re ready to sign on to take an offtake agreement from this pipeline to get gas to our super strategic, important bases across Alaska,” Burgum said of the Pentagon in a CNBC interview at Prudhoe Bay.
Alaska LNG, if completed, would deliver U.S. natural gas to Japan in about eight days, compared to about 24 days for U.S. Gulf Coast exports that pass through the congested Panama Canal, Burgum said. It would also avoid contested waters in the South China Sea that LNG exports from the Middle East pass through, the interior secretary said.
Wright said potential Asian investors have questions about the timeline and logistics of Alaska LNG. The pipeline could start delivering LNG to southern Alaska in 2028 or 2029, with exports to Asia beginning sometime in the early 2030s, Wright said.
Glenfarne Group, the project’s lead developer, told CNBC in April that a final investment decision is expected in the next six to 12 months on the leg of a proposed pipeline that runs from the North Slope to Anchorage. Glenfarne is a privately-held developer, owner and operator of energy infrastructure based in New York City and Houston.
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