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Origins
The Endurance pickup of 2022 carried more symbolism than any truck could bear: built in GM's shuttered Lordstown, Ohio plant — purchased with presidential fanfare — by a SPAC-funded startup promising fleet-focused electric pickups with in-wheel hub motors, a production first at its scale. The technology choice was bold; the execution schedule fatal. Fewer than a hundred reached customers through recalls before 2023's bankruptcy, with Foxconn's factory purchase and partnership souring into litigation along the way. The Endurance closed a cautionary loop: the plant that symbolised manufacturing decline hosted the EV era's clearest lesson that trucks are hard, capital is impatient, and novel motor architecture is a risk best not taken first.
2022 Lordstown Endurance · The White House from Washington, DC · Public domain
