This is the 2022 Lordstown Motors Electric Pickup

This is the 2022 Lordstown Motors Electric Pickup


Photo credit: Lordstown Motors

From Road and Track

Welcome GridR&T’s quick auto industry news and sports news you need to know this morning.

Lordstown Motors Launches Electric Truck

After General Motors’ political decision to pull out of its Lordstown, Ohio plant, the company stepped in and said it would take over the plant. The company, Lordstown Motors, plans to re-energize the factory town with a simple electric truck aimed at fleet customers. Yesterday, we finally looked at it.

At a launch event presided over by Vice President Mike Pence, Lordstown Motors took the wraps off the Endurance, which features a crew cab and four hub-mounted electric motors that power torque vectoring. But the technical details stopped there, with Lordstown leaving the range, power, weight, towing dimensions, performance figures and many other unknowns. We did get a price, though, as the company announced that the Endurance would start at $52,500. Tesla, for the record, claims it as his Cybertruck it will start at $39,900. Rivian expects its electric truck, the R1T, to drop to $69,000.

Volvo and Waymo teams

Waymo, an autonomous company owned by Google parent Alphabet, found another automaker partnership. Volvo – which sees the development of self-driving cars as key to its mission to reduce and eliminate traffic deaths – is teaming up with Waymo, which is considered to be the most advanced company in the development of autonomous vehicles, the company announced in press release Thursday.

The deal means Waymo will be the exclusive partner of Volvo, Polestar, and Lynk & Co. for the development of independent vehicles. Volvo and its sister brands will build the cars, while Waymo will focus on the sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) software that enables autonomy. For those keeping track at home, Waymo has now inked partnerships with Jaguar Land Rover, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, Fiat Chrysler, and Volvo.

Aston Is Offering Shares To Cover Cash Crunch

The coronavirus has not been kind to Aston Martin’s finances. The company was already in dire financial straits before the pandemic hit global car sales and forced the company to temporarily shut down production. And despite angel investor Lawrence Stroll providing the necessary early capital, the company still needs more money to succeed.

For that to happen, Aston is issuing new shares worth 19.99 percent of its existing share capitalaccording to Motor vehicle. Stroll’s company will buy about a quarter of these new shares. The company has also cut jobs, replaced its CEO, and received £20m ($24,744,800 at current exchange rates) from the UK Government’s Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme for the coronavirus. Along with all that and the stock, though, Aston expects to borrow more than $60 million to get things going.

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