GM sells Ohio-based Lordstown Assembly plant to electric truck start-up

Jamie L. LaReau | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Production to end at Ohio General Motors plant General Motors will end production this week at the first of five North American plants it wants to close by early next year as part of a companywide restructuring. Production at the Lordstown, Ohio plant ends on Wednesday. (March 5)

DETROIT – General Motors said it has sold its Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio after idling the plant March 8.

GM sold the 6.2 million-square-foot facility to an investment group called Lordstown Motors, which is backed by electric truck maker Workhorse Group.

The amount of the sale is not being disclosed nor is a start-up date for production.

Lordstown Motors said it will build the Endurance electric pickup using components licensed from Workhorse. The Endurance is designed for fleet sales, the company said, and is a lightweight, all-wheel drive vehicle with a low center of gravity.

The Endurance is the latest electric pickup in the works. Tesla will debut its electric pickup dubbed "Cybertruck" Nov. 21. Rivian is building an electric truck due near year-end. GM has said it will invest $3 billion in Detroit-Hamtramck to build an electric pickup and other electric trucks, possibly reviving the Hummer brand there.

Lordstown Motors said it is committed to the people of Lordstown.

“We will locate our headquarters in the Lordstown plant, and we plan to build the Endurance pickup truck utilizing experienced workers who helped produce millions of vehicles in this very same plant,” Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns said.

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In a statement, GM said it is "committed to the future investment and job growth in Ohio and we believe LMC's plan to launch the Endurance electric pickup has the potential to create a significant number of jobs and help the Lordstown area grow into a manufacturing hub for electrification."

Workhorse also put out a press release late Thursday that outlined details of the intellectual property licensing agreement it has with Lordstown Motors.

Neither company indicated Thursday the number of jobs and when hiring or production would begin. But GM has said the business would create about 450 jobs.

Workhorse CEO Duane Hughes said it appreciated "GM's acceptance of our combined proposal and believe it represents the best opportunity to keep production in Lordstown. We look forward to working together in the future as we finalize this transaction and explore additional production possibilities at the plant."

Workhorse Group, based in Cincinnati, is one of five finalists to win a lucrative U.S. Postal Service contract worth $6.3 billion to build 180,000 next-generation mail delivery trucks.

GM is still looking to build a battery cell plant in the Lordstown area that will create about 1,000 jobs, it said.

“Nothing’s ever going to replace the 5,000 jobs in the GM plant and all the spinoff jobs," said Tim O'Hara, UAW Local 1112 president. "For the Mahoning Valley, any job is a good job, but we don’t know what the jobs will pay and how many will be offered. If these turn out to be union jobs, it’ll be good for the valley from that aspect.”

End of GM at Lordstown

GM had built the Chevrolet Cruze compact car at Lordstown. In November 2018, GM said it would idle the plant along with three other plants in the United States: Detroit-Hamtramck, Warren Transmission and Baltimore Transmission.

The UAW had hoped during negotiations to get new products for the transmission plants and Lordstown to build. But GM only agreed to invest in Detroit-Hamtramck to build electric vehicles. The others remained closed.

Reaction to the news is mixed among former Lordstown workers.

"Needless to say we are heartbroken," said Mike Yakim, who worked in Lordstown until transferring to GM's Lansing Delta Township a few months ago. "It's the last nail in the coffin for Lordstown and the Mahoning Valley."

But former UAW Local 1112 President Dave Green said, “I feel bad for the people who are left behind and my hope moving forward is that it can grow because it’s a significant cry from 4,500 jobs out of the community. I’m glad something will be in there and it is not sitting empty.”

Since building the last Cruze in March, about 1,400 Lordstown workers transferred to other GM plants around the country. But nearly 400 of them declined transfers and remain in the Lordstown area, O'Hara said.

Earlier Thursday, GM management met with "several hundred" of the former Lordstown workers still in the area, said O'Hara.

O'Hara said neither GM nor Lordstown Motors has met with the union and details remain sketchy as to when Lordstown Motors will begin tooling the plant, hiring and starting production. It's also unknown if the jobs will be unionized.

"If they’re going to be union represented, we’d like Local 1112 to be their bargaining agent when that time comes," said O'Hara. "We don’t want the local to go away and that was a fear of ours after the contract ended."

Follow Jamie L. LaReau on Twitter: @jlareauan