The Endurance electric pickup truck is Lordstown Motors fancy new light duty electric whip that will be available for sale in 2021. “If you’re stuck in the mud next to a traditional pickup, we’ll come out first,” Burns said of the Endurance electric pickup.
With some big ambitions, Steve Burns, CEO of Lordstown Motors plans to dominate the all-electric pickup market segment for years even though he is taking on big guns Ford and GM. Both car companies plan to offer electric pickup trucks in the future and who currently sell the No. 1 and No. 2 best-selling pickups in the nation, respectively.
Breaking into the electric car business is no easy feat says Burns, just ask Sir James Dyson who put in over $500M into developing his own electric SUV but he decided to pull the plug. Lordstown Motors had planned to reveal the Endurance electric pickup truck at the Detroit Auto Show in June, but the show was canceled because of the pandemic. Instead, Lordstown Motors will do a “virtual” reveal instead, with anticipation of pre-orders for all 20,000 pickups the Lordstown will build in 2021.
Endurance electric pickup truck back
According to Kelley Blue Book (KBB) data, last year, there were 2.5 million full-size pickups sold in the US and it is said that the Endurance electric pickup truck will be first to the all-electric pickup market, thereby capturing a chunk of that gigantic segment. “You don’t create need; there is a demand for this,” Burns said. “We will be the first electric work truck and nobody will have that for years.”
Currently, Lordstown Motors is rushing to retool its facility near Youngstown, Ohio, to build 30 pre-production Endurance pickups by December and start building 20,000 production models in 2021. Burns insists the Endurance will match, even outperform, a traditional gasoline pickup in every way.
The Endurance is expected to be extremely rough and rugged, it can tow and it’s silent and fast. How fast? It can go from 0 to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds that party because it has a computer-controlled motor built into each wheel. That’s pretty fast for a truck; but that’s of course if you’re not hauling anything.
Endurance electric pickup truck side
The Endurance electric pickup truck will be built using components licensed from electric truck maker Workhorse and is said to be priced at $52,500 will be eligible for the $7,500 instant tax rebate. It is a lightweight, all-wheel-drive electric truck. If a front right in-wheel motor malfunctions, the front left wheel’s motor will turn off automatically, allowing the driver to get home using rear-wheel drive.
“So a typical gasoline drive-train has well over 1,000 parts. When you look at it that way, it’s very prehistoric, it’s essentially a Model T,” Burns said. “We have four moving parts. It looks like a pickup truck on the outside, but underneath it’s electric vehicle 2.0.” And with no engine in the front, pickup drivers finally have what Burns calls, “a frunk — a front trunk.”
“We’ve been testing the chassis and the range and the toughness of the vehicle,” Burns said. “The one thing you can’t get a feel for on paper is the handling. I’ve driven it and it drives like a sports car.”
For now, the company has been testing the early prototypes of the Endurance and Burns said it’s going better than they had thought.
Compared to the traditional gas powered pickup truck “After hundreds of years of refinement and countless hours of engineering, a pickup truck only gets about 17 mpg and it’s not going to get any better,” Burns said. “So it really needs a reset. We’re not coming out with a 10% better pickup truck, we’re coming out with a 500% better pickup truck and it’s safer, it’s quieter and it’s fun to drive and it costs less to own.”
“We’ll have our second model out within a year of the launch of the Endurance,” Burns said. “We’re already planning it.”
Steve Burns, CEO of Lordstown Motors is making some awesome claims and talking a big game. We hope his ideas and aspiration align with reality and the Endurance electric pickup truck delivers.