Foxconn to acquire first US EV factory in deal with Lordstown Motors

AppleInsider

Foxconn has inked a deal to acquire an electric vehicle manufacturing factory in North America as part of a broader collaboration with U.S. EV startup Lordstown Motors.

Credit: Lordstown Motors

The Apple supplier announced that it purchase Lordstown's manufacturing plant in Ohio for $230 million, and would take a 4% take in Lordstown for about $50 million. As part of the agreement, Foxconn will produce the Lordstown Endurance electric pickup truck, Nikkei reported Friday.

The manufacturing plant is a 6.2-million-square-foot facility in Ohio that Lordstown had purchased from GM. It will represent Foxconn's first vehicle manufacturing plant in North America.

Along with the actual facility, the agreement will also include land, equipment, and an undisclosed number of Lordstown employees -- efforts to help jumpstart Foxconn's EV production.

Foxconn reportedly plans to start making the Endurance vehicle as early as April 2021. There are also plans to start producing a second EV vehicle for Fisker, another U.S.-based electric car startup. If Foxconn pulls off the projects, it'll cement the company's expertise and credentials in the EV market.

The Taiwan-based contract company, known for producing the iPhone and other Apple products, has been aggressively pursuing a foothold in the EV market. Back in August, the company purchased an EV component factory in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Apple, Foxconn's most important customer, is widely thought to be developing its own electric "Apple Car." The autonomous vehicle is said to be based on technology that Apple has been developing in secret for years under the banner of Project Titan.

Reportedly, Apple has been in talks with both Japanese and Korean automakers to potentially produce the vehicle. However, there is no consensus for when an announcement or debut could happen. Some industry watchers expect an announcement as soon as 2021, while others believe a launch in the late 2020s is more likely.

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wood1208

Foxcomm is establishing contract EV manufacturing in USA to prove to Apple that Foxcomm can do the same good job manufacturing Apple Car as they did for the rest of Apple products. I am sure Apple have global market vision for Apple Car.

Benderclb

Could an editor please clarify what is happening here? The dates make absolutely no sense. 

ravnorodom

It looks like Foxcomm is betting on Apple for manufacturing Apple Cars since Foxcomm already established good relationship with Apple. Fisker car looks sleek. Love the design. Apple better comes up with something real slick. Competiton for EV space is getting fierce.

rob53

So, here we go again. A non-American company is buying a Lordstown Motors manufacturing plant along with a 4% share. I'm sure Tesla has foreign investors (yes/no?) but I still call them an American company. I have to wonder whether anything coming out of Lordstown will qualify for any EV credits since it appears most of the manufacturing will be performed by a foreign company even though the plant is located in the US. 

waveparticle

rob53 said:

So, here we go again. A non-American company is buying a Lordstown Motors manufacturing plant along with a 4% share. I'm sure Tesla has foreign investors (yes/no?) but I still call them an American company. I have to wonder whether anything coming out of Lordstown will qualify for any EV credits since it appears most of the manufacturing will be performed by a foreign company even though the plant is located in the US. 

Decades of social movements in US has destroyed American's ability to operate manufacturing plant. The management are tied by human rights and spend way too much time on social issues of the workers. The people and the movement behind it are trying all they can to export this ideology to China and many other countries. But this is against capitalism which Taiwanese actually become better on execution. 

applguy

Looking forward to seeing an Endurance truck on the road in April 2021. 

mknelson

waveparticle said:
Decades of social movements in US has destroyed American's ability to operate manufacturing plant. The management are tied by human rights and spend way too much time on social issues of the workers. The people and the movement behind it are trying all they can to export this ideology to China and many other countries. But this is against capitalism which Taiwanese actually become better on execution. 

Yes, China is very good at "execution". 

Most people celebrate human rights and the social issues of workers. Workers aren't slaves! Treating them fairly and paying them properly generally results in better productivity and quality.

Mis-management is a different issue and impacts all cultures and industries.

tht

rob53 said:

So, here we go again. A non-American company is buying a Lordstown Motors manufacturing plant along with a 4% share. I'm sure Tesla has foreign investors (yes/no?) but I still call them an American company. I have to wonder whether anything coming out of Lordstown will qualify for any EV credits since it appears most of the manufacturing will be performed by a foreign company even though the plant is located in the US. 

I find this take rather horrible. 

Tesla is an American company through and through. It’s a public company with a rather large variety of stakeholders, with mostly this or that fund (like Vanguard, Blackrock) holding a lot of shares, but no more than 5% of so. E Musk is the largest shareholder. Other individual shareholders are way way down in percentage of shares, like less than 1 percent. 

Not only that, Tesla has multiple factories for manufacturing batteries and cars all over the USA. It’s a testament to American engineering and knowhow. Since Tesla has worldwide ambitions, it has manufacturing in other markets, but that doesn’t negate Tesla being an American company.  

The transition to EVs represents a realignment of the major players in the industry. There are a lot of American EV startups about to hit the market. Rivian looks to be the first EV truck to hit the market. They are an American company with American manufacturing. Lucid Motors is getting very close to shipping their sedans. An American company with American manufacturing. 

Then, there are lower tier startups that are trying to find markets, like Bollinger, Canoo and Lordstown. Hell, even Fisker. Lordstown is simply a failed startup. Their management couldn’t get any deals, and because of that, it made more rounds of funding impossible. The sale of their plant to Foxconn looks like trying to get money to make payroll. They are very likely done.

The EV space has really been a testament to American engineering and manufacturing considering all the new American players who have been buying old American plants and getting them running again. 

Of the incumbents, Ford, GM, VW, BMW, Hyundai, are trying to catchup to Tesla. Honda and Toyota, who arguably have cars that are more American made than Ford and GM, are currently filling the Nokia and RIM roles circa 2008 or so. For mostly likely institutional rot and political reasons, they have done basically zero in the EV space. They are running years behind. Their bet on hydrogen has been disastrous. I can see a future where they don’t make it, if they don’t change their direction right away. 

waveparticle

mknelson said:

waveparticle said:
Decades of social movements in US has destroyed American's ability to operate manufacturing plant. The management are tied by human rights and spend way too much time on social issues of the workers. The people and the movement behind it are trying all they can to export this ideology to China and many other countries. But this is against capitalism which Taiwanese actually become better on execution. 

Yes, China is very good at "execution". 

Most people celebrate human rights and the social issues of workers. Workers aren't slaves! Treating them fairly and paying them properly generally results in better productivity and quality.

Mis-management is a different issue and impacts all cultures and industries.

This is not the issue. In US, company are forced to hire based on quota not on merit. The result is the 'monday blue' of a new car. And the management cannot fix it. 

Alex_V

waveparticle said:

Decades of social movements in US has destroyed American's ability to operate manufacturing plant. The management are tied by human rights and spend way too much time on social issues of the workers. The people and the movement behind it are trying all they can to export this ideology to China and many other countries. But this is against capitalism which Taiwanese actually become better on execution. 

Meaningless tosh. Read the history of labour movements. Read also, what happened to US manufacturing since Reagan. The world is bigger than just the US and China; even if that is the full extent of your world. 

gatorguy

Please not another China trollfest. Perhaps stick to the topic

Kuyangkoh

applguy said:

Looking forward to seeing an Endurance truck on the road in April 2021. 

Hahahahha, must be sleeping on watch

dk49

wood1208 said:

Foxcomm is establishing contract EV manufacturing in USA to prove to Apple that Foxcomm can do the same good job manufacturing Apple Car as they did for the rest of Apple products. I am sure Apple have global market vision for Apple Car.

That certainly would be on their mind, but it can't be the only reason. What if Apple doesn't agree? They can't risk billions. And I wonder why Apple haven't already considered them, given that every other car manufacturer rejected them and that they are planning to do the manufacturing on their own as per the latest reports? 

And fyi, Foxconn already has signed an electric car deal with Xiaomi, so it's not just about Apple. They are just seeing this as an upcoming business. With so many non-car companies entering electric car production/design, those companies would need a manufacturing partner and as we have seen, existing car companies aren't much willing to do that. 

StrangeDays

waveparticle said:

rob53 said:

So, here we go again. A non-American company is buying a Lordstown Motors manufacturing plant along with a 4% share. I'm sure Tesla has foreign investors (yes/no?) but I still call them an American company. I have to wonder whether anything coming out of Lordstown will qualify for any EV credits since it appears most of the manufacturing will be performed by a foreign company even though the plant is located in the US. 

Decades of social movements in US has destroyed American's ability to operate manufacturing plant. The management are tied by human rights and spend way too much time on social issues of the workers. The people and the movement behind it are trying all they can to export this ideology to China and many other countries. But this is against capitalism which Taiwanese actually become better on execution. 

Heaven forbid workers not have to spend the majority of their lives working crap jobs, sleeping on-site and purchasing supplies from the company store. 🙄

StrangeDays

waveparticle said:

mknelson said:

waveparticle said:
Decades of social movements in US has destroyed American's ability to operate manufacturing plant. The management are tied by human rights and spend way too much time on social issues of the workers. The people and the movement behind it are trying all they can to export this ideology to China and many other countries. But this is against capitalism which Taiwanese actually become better on execution. 

Yes, China is very good at "execution". 

Most people celebrate human rights and the social issues of workers. Workers aren't slaves! Treating them fairly and paying them properly generally results in better productivity and quality.

Mis-management is a different issue and impacts all cultures and industries.

This is not the issue. In US, company are forced to hire based on quota not on merit. The result is the 'monday blue' of a new car. And the management cannot fix it. 

Can you provide a link backing up your claim, please?

StrangeDays

Alex_V said:

waveparticle said:

Decades of social movements in US has destroyed American's ability to operate manufacturing plant. The management are tied by human rights and spend way too much time on social issues of the workers. The people and the movement behind it are trying all they can to export this ideology to China and many other countries. But this is against capitalism which Taiwanese actually become better on execution. 

Meaningless tosh. Read the history of labour movements. Read also, what happened to US manufacturing since Reagan. The world is bigger than just the US and China; even if that is the full extent of your world. 

Agreed - I’m quite thankful for the 40-hour work week, weekends, child labor laws, etc etc…All introduced to the world as part of the labor movement, a check & balance against the extremely wealthy executive class that owned production and basically owned workers.

rob53

tht said:

rob53 said:

So, here we go again. A non-American company is buying a Lordstown Motors manufacturing plant along with a 4% share. I'm sure Tesla has foreign investors (yes/no?) but I still call them an American company. I have to wonder whether anything coming out of Lordstown will qualify for any EV credits since it appears most of the manufacturing will be performed by a foreign company even though the plant is located in the US. 

I find this take rather horrible. 

Tesla is an American company through and through. It’s a public company with a rather large variety of stakeholders, with mostly this or that fund (like Vanguard, Blackrock) holding a lot of shares, but no more than 5% of so. E Musk is the largest shareholder. Other individual shareholders are way way down in percentage of shares, like less than 1 percent. 

Not only that, Tesla has multiple factories for manufacturing batteries and cars all over the USA. It’s a testament to American engineering and knowhow. Since Tesla has worldwide ambitions, it has manufacturing in other markets, but that doesn’t negate Tesla being an American company.  

The transition to EVs represents a realignment of the major players in the industry. There are a lot of American EV startups about to hit the market. Rivian looks to be the first EV truck to hit the market. They are an American company with American manufacturing. Lucid Motors is getting very close to shipping their sedans. An American company with American manufacturing. 

Then, there are lower tier startups that are trying to find markets, like Bollinger, Canoo and Lordstown. Hell, even Fisker. Lordstown is simply a failed startup. Their management couldn’t get any deals, and because of that, it made more rounds of funding impossible. The sale of their plant to Foxconn looks like trying to get money to make payroll. They are very likely done.

The EV space has really been a testament to American engineering and manufacturing considering all the new American players who have been buying old American plants and getting them running again. 

Of the incumbents, Ford, GM, VW, BMW, Hyundai, are trying to catchup to Tesla. Honda and Toyota, who arguably have cars that are more American made than Ford and GM, are currently filling the Nokia and RIM roles circa 2008 or so. For mostly likely institutional rot and political reasons, they have done basically zero in the EV space. They are running years behind. Their bet on hydrogen has been disastrous. I can see a future where they don’t make it, if they don’t change their direction right away. 

Don't understand how my comments put Tesla in a bad light (you need to re-read what I said). I was talking about Lordstown already sucking up to foreign companies, not Tesla. As for all your comments, I already know this. I was only talking about what the article was discussing, Foxconn and Lordstown, not all the others.

dewme

tht said:

rob53 said:

So, here we go again. A non-American company is buying a Lordstown Motors manufacturing plant along with a 4% share. I'm sure Tesla has foreign investors (yes/no?) but I still call them an American company. I have to wonder whether anything coming out of Lordstown will qualify for any EV credits since it appears most of the manufacturing will be performed by a foreign company even though the plant is located in the US. 

I find this take rather horrible. 

Tesla is an American company through and through. It’s a public company with a rather large variety of stakeholders, with mostly this or that fund (like Vanguard, Blackrock) holding a lot of shares, but no more than 5% of so. E Musk is the largest shareholder. Other individual shareholders are way way down in percentage of shares, like less than 1 percent. 

Not only that, Tesla has multiple factories for manufacturing batteries and cars all over the USA. It’s a testament to American engineering and knowhow. Since Tesla has worldwide ambitions, it has manufacturing in other markets, but that doesn’t negate Tesla being an American company.  

The transition to EVs represents a realignment of the major players in the industry. There are a lot of American EV startups about to hit the market. Rivian looks to be the first EV truck to hit the market. They are an American company with American manufacturing. Lucid Motors is getting very close to shipping their sedans. An American company with American manufacturing. 

Then, there are lower tier startups that are trying to find markets, like Bollinger, Canoo and Lordstown. Hell, even Fisker. Lordstown is simply a failed startup. Their management couldn’t get any deals, and because of that, it made more rounds of funding impossible. The sale of their plant to Foxconn looks like trying to get money to make payroll. They are very likely done.

The EV space has really been a testament to American engineering and manufacturing considering all the new American players who have been buying old American plants and getting them running again. 

Of the incumbents, Ford, GM, VW, BMW, Hyundai, are trying to catchup to Tesla. Honda and Toyota, who arguably have cars that are more American made than Ford and GM, are currently filling the Nokia and RIM roles circa 2008 or so. For mostly likely institutional rot and political reasons, they have done basically zero in the EV space. They are running years behind. Their bet on hydrogen has been disastrous. I can see a future where they don’t make it, if they don’t change their direction right away. 

Thank you for your glass-half-full perspective.

As much as I recognize Foxconn being one of the key elements of Apple's manufacturing success, their forays into US based manufacturing seem to be a trail of empty promises and failed deliveries. For the sake of the Lordstown Motors workers and the Youngstown community, I really hope this Foxconn "investment" works out a lot better than it did in Wisconsin.

The one and only thing that matters to me with this announcement is whether Foxconn will actually deliver. I'm sick of seeing Foxconn proudly waving the "Apple supplier" flag while at the same totally failing other American companies and communities. If nothing else, Apple's leadership should be asking some tough questions of Foxconn's leadership about why they are failing these American communities. At some point the stink will rub off on Apple, at least in the eyes of struggling American communities, if Foxconn doesn't get its act together on Apple's home turf in front of the home crowd.

This is a great opportunity for Apple and Tim Cook, who we know excels at "thinking globally" can "act locally." A very big kick in the butt from Apple would be a good thing.

george kaplan

Lucid Motors is getting very close to shipping their sedans. An American company with American manufacturing.

Not at all certain what your point is here. Lucid famously took an investment of $1B from the Saudi government (not a VC), and when the company goes public the Saudis will own 2/3 of the company stock.

Not saying anything is wrong with, but referring to Lucid as American through and through is more than a stretch. 

tht

george kaplan said:

Lucid Motors is getting very close to shipping their sedans. An American company with American manufacturing.

Not at all certain what your point is here. Lucid famously took an investment of $1B from the Saudi government (not a VC), and when the company goes public the Saudis will own 2/3 of the company stock.

Not saying anything is wrong with, but referring to Lucid as American through and through is more than a stretch. 

Good catch there! Definitely wrong about Lucid's ownership. However, Lucid is a company that is HQed in the USA, its DDTE in the USA, has its plant in the USA and is staffed by Americans, no? My point is really to counter the continuing notion that the USA doesn't manufacture anything and doesn't have the skills to do so. This notions comes up every single time China comes up.

Maybe there should be more manufacturing of computers in the USA. If the USA wants it to happen, they already know what to do. They did it for the auto companies. They can do it for computers. Just mandate that some majority percentage of a computer or consumer electronic has to be USA sourced and made. That it hasn't been done yet should probably tell you that people are happy with what they are buying.

It's most certainly not a problem at an individual company level. Foxconn buying this plant from Lordstown is a net good. If they didn't, it would basically be closed down as Lordstown has some very long odds to even make it now that Ford and Tesla are only running behind Rivian by a year or so. GM is surely to follow now that Ford is in the game with an EV truck. Then, there are a lot of startups going for the truck startups.

If one of these USA EV startups want to contract manufacture their vehicle at this now Foxconn plant? That's a huge win. Railing against China this, China that is misplaced.