Expecting electric truck manufacturer Lordstown Motors said Thursday it will not have any firm orders for its own vehicles, only days after its president said the company had enough to maintain production through 2022.
Questions have been mounting about if Lordstown Motors has enough money to remain in business and about its own previous claims that it already had presold 100,000 of its Endurance pickup trucks.
Lordstown CEO Steve Burns and Chief Financial Officer Julio Rodriguez resigned on Mondaythe same day the firm acknowledged one potential buyer that committed to a high number of preorders doesn’t appear to have the resources to complete that transaction, and other preorders seem overly vague or weak to be relied upon for buys.
A day later, company President Rich Schmidt said during a meeting of the Automotive Press Association of Detroit that Lordstown was on track to start making the Endurance from the fall and had enough binding orders to continue through 2022.
But the firm on Thursday said the statements about the orders weren’t accurate.
“Although these automobile purchase agreements provide us with a significant indicator of demand for the Endurance, these arrangements do not represent binding purchase orders or other firm purchase commitments,” the company said in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The price for shares of the company, which have been cut in half this year, slipped in the opening bell Thursday before recovering.
In a quarterly regulatory filing, the company said the $587 million it had available as of March 31 was not enough to start full commercial production.
Angela Strand, the company’s new chairwoman, said on Tuesday that the upheaval from the past week will not disrupt the company’s daily operations or its plans to begin producing the Endurance.