Lordstown Motors Will Sell Its Factory To The Company That Makes iPhones: Reports
Lordstown is in need of money, and Foxconn has an interest in carmaking.
Lordstown Motors, which is trying to bring an electric pickup truck to market but has been in dire straits as of late, is planning to sell its factory to Foxconn, the vast Taiwanese manufacturer that makes electronics like the iPhone, according to reports.
That's according to Reuters and also Bloomberg:
Lordstown Motors Corp., the electric-truck maker running low on cash, is near an agreement to sell its highly politicized Ohio factory to Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The companies are set to announce the pact as soon as Thursday, said the people, who asked not to be named as the plan isn't yet public. They didn't disclose the value of the transaction. Lordstown Motors struck a deal with General Motors in late 2019 to buy the plant the automaker opened in 1966.
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A Lordstown Motors spokesperson declined to comment. Foxconn representatives didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Lordstown Motors shares rose 9 percent to $8.03 in midday trading Thursday. The company has lost almost three-quarters of its market value over the last year.
One caveat here is that Foxconn was, at one point, going to spend billions to do a factory in Wisconsin before it didn't. Another caveat is that Lordstown, unlike Foxconn, is completely unproven as a company.
Still, this sounds like it could be a short-term cash boost for Lordstown, which needs all the money it can get. Long-term, it perhaps might be a site to make a Foxconn (Apple?) car, with the site likely attractive to Foxconn for the same reasons that it was attractive to Lordstown Motors. It isn't a turnkey EV assembly plant, but it isn't starting from scratch either, given that it was a GM assembly plant for decades. This might even have to do with Foxconn's deal with Fisker; the thing about mass-producing cars is that the proof is in the pudding.