Photo by MEGAN JELINGER / AFP
- Lordstown Motors stock dropped 10% after announcing a "modest delay" to production.
- Production of the Endurance electric pickup will now begin in the third quarter next year.
- The latest delay was a result of supply-chain issues, the CEO said.
Lordstown Motors stock slumped 10% early Friday after the EV maker delayed production of its Endurance pickup – again.
The company said it now expects commercial production of the pickup to begin in the third quarter of 2022, a "modest delay," said CEO Dan Ninivaggi in a press release about the company's third-quarter results. It was previously set to begin production in the second quarter of 2022.
"Component and material shortages, along with other supply chain challenges, remain an issue for Lordstown Motors just as they are for the industry at large," he said.
This marks the latest delay for the Endurance, which initially was supposed to begin production a year ago. More recently, the company had targeted this fall.
In September, the company announced plans to sell its Ohio plant, once owned by GM, to Apple iPhone-maker Foxconn, in a deal that would allow the two to work in conjunction on building the EVs. In light of the deal, Lordstown Motors had said at the time that it would provide a production update in its third-quarter earnings results.
The company, which went public in a blank-check merger last October, has faced a series of other hurdles, including a short-seller report from Hindenburg Research, an inquiry from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, executive turnover, and a cash shortage.
Lordstown Motors stock was a favorite among retail traders who have rallied around EV makers like Rivian and Tesla. But traders seem to have turned more bearish on the Lordstown, Ohio-based company.
Lordstown was a top-trending stock on Reddit investing threads Friday, but the most-mentioned word alongside it was "put," a tool that allows investors to make money as a company's stock price falls, according to data from HypeEquity. On top of that, sell mentions outnumbered buy mentions nearly 2:1, the data showed.