Well, oh Lordstown, won’t you build me an Endurance?
Lordstown Motors has finally revealed its first model, the all-electric Endurance pickup truck. With the goal of becoming the world’s first production all-electric pickup, Lordstown Motors has moved aggressively since purchasing its namesake facility: General Motors’ retired Lordstown, Ohio, factory. Apparently, 14,000 $10 pre-orders have been secured for the Endurance, which will have a base MSRP of $52,500.
The pre-production truck shown is nearly identical to the previously-released rendering. Without a massive internal combustion engine to cool, the traditionally wide-open chrome grille is replaced by a fascia flanked in vertical cooling intakes for the various heat exchangers for the batteries and motors. (Sure, EVs don’t have engines, but they still require radiators.) With EVs being more thermodynamically efficient than a combustion engine (with less of their energy being wasted to heat and noise—a.k.a. the exhaust), their smaller heat radiators can be placed in more aerodynamically advantageous places.
Four hub motors replace the typical arrangement of an engine, transmission, driveshafts, axles, and brakes with torso-sized motor units at each suspension corner. Torque has yet to be listed, but the promised output of 600 hp leaves the potential there for four-digit figures of twist, and the top speed is limited to around 80 mph—enough to break the speed limit in every state but Texas.
Towing capacity will initially be rated for 7500 pounds, which keeps it in line with the absolute base-models offered by the Big Three, but is quickly out-tooled once you look at the more popular mid-spec pickups that buyers park in their driveways. That aside, the 250-mile range and 75 mpg-e equivalent economy are square in the ballpark of useful performance for daily use in larger service areas, even outside of the typical short-distance urban use cases people typically have for EV work vehicles.
Lordstown Motors is aiming the Endurance at those who live and breathe out of the cab of a pickup, tailoring the new electric truck towards work without the polarizing styling and massive size of the bonkers Tesla Cybertruck. If all goes as planned, the initial run of 20,000 trucks will be produced for consumption by the end of 2021.
