By Ben Klayman and Joseph White
DETROIT (Reuters) -Lordstown Motors Corp has “firm” and “binding” orders for the first two years of production of its electric pickup truck, the startup’s president said on Tuesday, sending shares up 11.4% a week after saying it had no binding orders for the vehicle.
“Currently, we have enough orders for production for ’21 and ’22,” President Rich Schmidt said at an Automotive Press Association event in Detroit. “Those are firm orders we have for those two years.”
“I don’t know the exact facts of the legal aspect of that, but they are basically binding orders that are committed here in the last two weeks, reconfirmed orders,” he added, when asked if they were binding orders. “They’re pretty solid, and I think that’s on the light side or conservative side.”
In March, Lordstown’s shares slumped after investment research firm Hindenburg Research disclosed it had taken a short position on the stock, saying the company had misled consumers and investors about its pre-orders for the Endurance truck that Lordstown initially said were worth $1.4 billion.
The Ohio company subsequently said the orders were not binding and on June 8, when it warned it was running out of cash, disclosed in a regulatory filing it had no binding orders or commitments from customers.
On Monday, Lordstown announced that Chief Executive Steve Burns and its chief financial officer had resigned and acknowledged it overstated the quality of pre-orders in the trucks.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has asked the company for information related to the truck pre-orders. Schmidt declined to comment when asked for an update on the SEC inquiry on Tuesday.
Schmidt also said Lordstown will seek additional funds from General Motors Co and other early investors. GM owns a small stake in the startup.
A GM spokesman did not have an immediate comment.
Angela Strand, who took over as executive chairman on Monday after Burns’ resignation, said in an opening statement during the webcast that the company’s plan remains to start limited production of the truck in late September.
(Reporting by Ben Klayman and Joseph White in Detroit; Editing by Franklin Paul and Jonathan Oatis)
