Back in May 2019, former President Donald Trump tweeted that Workhorse, an electric vehicle maker, would buy the shuttered GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, causing Workhorse’s stock to surge. Workhorse’s stock has been going up pretty much ever since, along with the presumption that it could make the next USPS mail truck. Friends, it won’t be.
The U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that instead Oshkosh Defense, a Wisconsin-based contractor will make it, cutting Workhorse’s stock price in half almost instantaneously. Wednesday, Workhorse released the following statement, which is identical to the statement I issued in high school after asking someone to prom and getting rejected:
On February 23, 2021 the USPS issued a press release announcing that it has made an award under the NGDV contract to a competing finalist, the details of which can be found here. After being informed of the USPS decision, the Company has requested, pursuant to the bid process rules, additional information from the USPS and is awaiting a response at this time. The Company intends to explore all avenues that are available to non-awarded finalists in a government bidding process. As further updates are provided, Workhorse intends to share that information through appropriate communications channels to the extent that the Company is permitted to do so.
According to The New York Times, Workhorse had less than $1 million in revenue in the first three quarters of 2020, while Oshkosh had $8.4 billion in revenue in 2019 alone. Workhorse also has only about 130 employees, while Oshkosh has over 14,000. The mail truck contract, meanwhile, calls for up to 165,000 new mail trucks over ten years, meaning it’s possible that Workhorse’s diminutive size might have doomed it alone.
All of which means this is a big, possibly fatal, miss for Workhorse, though it still has its other business lines, in addition to its ten percent investment in Lordstown Motors, the electric truckmaker that unveiled their Endurance at the Trump White House. That day, thanks to its investment in Lordstown, Workhorse saw its stock go up 16 percent. It’s a good thing Trump is still in the White House to give it a boost ... wait I’m hearing otherwise ... hmm.