Fisker and Foxconn confirm compact EV will be built at Lordstown plant

Taiwan’s Foxconn, also known as Hon Tai Technology Group
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and Lordstown Motors Corp.
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+47.02%
late Wednesday announced that the sale of Lordstown Motors’s plant to the electronics contract maker had closed.

The companies also signed a contract manufacturing agreement and announced an EV joint venture. Foxconn is better known as the maker of Apple Inc.’s
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iPhone, in addition of several other marquee-name electronics, and its deal with Lordstown Motors gives it an entry into the EV market.

Shares of Lordstown Motors rallied more than 30% after the announcements, and are up another 35% on Thursday. The company had been dogged by concerns it could have run out of money if the sale had fallen through.

Fisker, whose business model is to bring in house design and consumer-facing components but leave the manufacturing to contractors, has inked deals with Foxconn as well as Magna International Inc.
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to build its EVs.

The Irvine, Calif., company described the Pear as “a revolutionary electric vehicle that won’t fit into any existing segment.”

It plans on using new lighting technology and “a wraparound front windscreen inspired by a glider plane glass canopy, enhancing frontal vision,” Fisker Chief Executive Henrik Fisker said in a statement. Fisker said he will visit the Lordstown factory with a team of engineers on Friday.

Fisker, which became public in 2020 through a merger with a blank-check company, hopes to start production of the Fisker Ocean, the luxury SUV that would be its first EV, in Austria in November.

Fisker said in March that reservations for the Ocean continued “at an elevated pace” and had totaled more than 45,000 preorders, including 1,600 fleet reservations.