August 6, 2025 - Foxconn Gives Up on Building EVs in Ohio

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 6, 2025 and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.

For more than half a century, General Motors built cars at a factory in Lordstown Ohio. Following declining sales of the Chevrolet Cruze, GM opted to shut down the plant in 2019. Following political pressure from president Donald Trump, GM agreed to sell the factory to Lordstown Motors, a startup planning to build a full-size electric pickup for commercial customers. Lordstown Motors had a lot of its own issues and ultimately sold the plant to Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn and agree to lease floor space for production of its trucks until the startup went bankrupt.

Foxconn has been trying to break into the automotive space since the late 2010s and does produce components and systems for automakers in China. However, it's US endeavors have been more problematic. In addition to building cars with Lordstown, Foxconn agreed to partner with Fisker to develop and build the lower cost Pear EV. While Fisker lasted longer than Lordstown Motors, it too went out of business in mid-2024. Utlimately, the only customer Foxconn had for the Lordstown factory was electric tractor startup Monarch. 

Now Foxconn has sold the building, land and equipment to a company called Crescent Dune LLC that was created just two weeks ago. It's unknown who or what entity is behind Crescent Dune. In a filing, Foxconn acknownedged the weakness of the current EV industry in North America. Apparently Foxconn will lease back the space and use it to manufacture AI servers and possibly locate data center facilities. At 6 million square feet, the Lordstown factory is six times the size of another server factory Foxconn is building in Houston. Foxconn hasn't completely ruled out its automotive ambitions and says it is ready to support customers when the demand develops.

Thanks for listening.