By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Startup Lordstown Motors Corp mentioned Wednesday it is in advanced talks with the U.S. Power Section searching for a governing administration financial loan from a program to assist pay back for the prices of retooling a manufacturing unit to make electric powered vans.
Lordstown chief govt Steve Burns in January 2020 explained to Reuters the company was pursuing a $200 million bank loan from the program for a previous Basic Motors factory in northeast Ohio it acquired in 2019.
Burns claimed the mortgage would help “us make additional (motor vehicles) at the time we begin” and “pull potential cars ahead a tiny bit.” The company’s generation strategy does not demand the federal government loan, but Burns mentioned the financial loan “puts factors on steroids.”
Burns declined to disclose the precise mortgage amount of money sought. “I consider you should really consider in terms of – this is the similar financial loan that Tesla got ” Burns stated.
In 2010, Tesla gained a $465 million loan from the Electrical power Department’s State-of-the-art Technologies Vehicles Producing software, which also awarded greater financial loans to Ford Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co to retool factories, but has not funded any new financial loans given that 2011.
Nissan and Tesla repaid their financial loans. Ford is scheduled to repay the remainder of its bank loan by June 2022.
The Electricity Department did not respond to a ask for for comment.
A spokesman for Lordstown said the company used in May possibly.
“This is quite late stage and they will not go into this amount of diligence except if we are a fantastic candidate,” Burns stated, declaring it would not get finalised prior to President-elect Joe Biden takes business office on Jan. 20.
Biden is a solid advocate of electrical motor vehicles.
Burns reiterated Lordstown is on monitor to start out constructing electric powered pickups in September.
Lordstown options to pit its Stamina EV pickup in opposition to rivals from other newcomers this kind of as Rivian and Nikola, as well as GM, Ford and Tesla.
Lordstown claimed Monday it has received extra than 100,000 non-binding generation reservations from commercial fleets for its EV truck.
(Reporting by David Shepardson. Modifying by Gerry Doyle)