Lordstown engine, recently declared bankruptcyis a company built on a lot of promises, the first thing is that they’re going to make Endurance, an electric pickup truck that’s going to sell a lot of Endurance, and that’s going to bring in a lot of money for the Lordstown’s investors, including shareholders who bought into Lordstown after it goes public in 2020.
In the process of trying to do all that, Lordstown signed an agreement with Foxconnbest known as Apple’s iPhone maker, to help manufacture cars, which, more recently, also become the focus of a lawsuit. Lordstown had previously promised to build thousands of Endurance pickups at the Ohio plant that GM used to run, but so far, Only 65 pieces were made.
All of this was more of a sideshow than any pressing concern for anyone but Lordstown’s investors and their staff, who were presumably already looking for investments. and other jobs for many years now, if they haven’t already switched jobs.
Last year, however, Lordstown could almost reasonably argue that they still have a chance to make and sell all of those trucks, or at least be in the process of testing them. In this vein, Bloomberg fourth report about an episode last year about the CEO of Lordstown trying, in this case, to go to Taiwan and hang out for days and not get an important meeting he flew there to get to.
From Bloomberg:
Lordstown Motors Corp CEO Ed Hightower flew to Taiwan from Detroit last year to meet with leaders of Foxtron, a company affiliated with iPhone assembler Foxconn Technology Group, to negotiate without he thinks will kickstart the development of a new electric vehicle. The CEO ghosts him.
Hightower spent three days in quarantine due to Covid-19 protocols before being able to meet with Taiwanese executives. He met with Young Liu, the chairman of Foxconn, and some of his subordinates. But important work is done with Foxtron, which Foxconn largely owns. The idea is to co-produce a mid-size crossover SUV that will be built in Lordstown, Ohio, a plant formerly owned by General Motors Co.
Foxtron’s boss refused to meet, Hightower said in an interview. Hightower was unable to obtain the essential engineering drawings, data, and licensing agreements required to execute the project. Liu is president of both companies, but says he can’t force Foxtron to meet Hightower. After nearly two weeks, the American executive said he had given up and flew home.
Hightower, chairman of Lordstown at the time of the trip and now chief executive officer of the company, said: “I made the trip to Taiwan to break the deadlock. “A lot of times it’s about relationships,” says Hightower, but in this case, “I failed to achieve my goals.”
Now, in our modern society, it is still possible to miss a call, misunderstand the time and place, miss a business meeting because you forgot or you are bored or someone don’t feel like. it and begs to give up, because life is short and sometimes you’d rather eat a long lunch or instead, heaven forbid, do something fun. But, like the old days, such excuses only go so far, and when a guy travels halfway around the world to see you and wait almost two weeks, the message is clear: You got it. got his message about meeting and decided not to.
As for the Lordstown CEO, I hope he at least ate some good food during his time abroad. By the time this happens, you probably already know that the relationship is over.
