Expecting electrical truck manufacturer Lordstown Motors said Thursday it does not have any firm orders for its vehicles, only days after its president said the firm had sufficient to maintain production through 2022.
Questions have now been mounting about whether Lordstown Motors has enough cash to stay in business and about its own prior claims that it already had presold 100,000 of its Endurance pickup trucks.
Lordstown CEO Steve Burns and Chief Financial Officer Julio Rodriguez resigned on Monday, the same day the company confessed one possible buyer that committed to a large number of preorders doesn’t seem to have the funds to complete that transaction, and additional preorders seem overly vague or weak to be relied upon for buys.
A day later, firm President Rich Schmidt said during a meeting of the Automotive Press Association of Detroit which Lordstown was on track to start making the Endurance in the fall and’d enough binding orders to keep going through 2022.
However, the company on Thursday said the statements regarding the orders weren’t accurate.
“Though these vehicle purchase agreements supply us with a substantial index of demand for the Endurance, these agreements don’t represent binding purchase orders or other company purchase obligations,” the company said in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The cost for shares of the company, which were cut in half this year, slid at the opening bell Thursday before recovering.
In a quarterly regulatory filing, the business said the $587 million it had available as of March 31 was not enough to start full commercial production.
Angela Strand, the company’s new chairwoman, said on Tuesday the upheaval in the last week won’t disrupt the organization’s daily operations or its own plans to start producing the Endurance.
