Ann Arbor – Electric trucks these days are aspiring supercars. Go from 0 to 100 km/h in the GMC Hummer EV in 3 seconds!The Rivian R1T has an impressive torque!The Ford Lightning is faster at one hundred km/h than a Ford Raptor!Etc.
The Lordstown Endurance pickup truck is different.
“How fast is the Endurance from 0 to 60 mph?”I asked Chief Engineer Darren Post who was operating a shotgun as he stepped on the Endurance accelerator on West Huron River Drive, northwest of Ann Arbor.
“About 6. 3 seconds, but our consumers are asking us to slow down,” Post smiles. “They’re worried about their drivers doing an endurance race. “
Unlike the Hummer, Rivian, Lightning and Tesla Cybertruck (0-60 mph in 3. 0 seconds!), Lordstown Endurance is especially aimed at fleets of advertising trucks, not the engines of the M1 Concourse racetrack. This means that Endurance is obsessed with efficiency. Not so much.
It also means that Lordstown is synonymous with a new electrified term for our automotive lexicon. If Lightning pioneered mega-frunk, Rivian of the Hummer Crab Gear Tunnel, and Crab Walking, then Endurance needs you to know about hub motors.
“Fleet consumers are interested in the ownership charge,” Post said. “If they can adopt technologies that particularly decrease the charge of operating and maintaining a vehicle, then it becomes a significant advantage. They are aware of the complexity of a classic EV powertrain that requires speed relief (transmission), lubrication, universal axles and seals that need maintenance.
“So while we were talking about hub motors in the corners without this extra hardware, they found it very horny. “
Look beneath the Endurance and it looks like no other vehicle on the market.
Tesla simplified the interior of the car; Lordstown simplified the broadcast. No more transmissions, drive shafts and universal seals discovered on cars, adding electric vehicles.
The Endurance is driven through electric motors in the hub, the drive shaft area is replaced via massive cables that wear out at the corners.
The arrangement is key to introducing Lordstown to business customers. Fewer parts, less maintenance. In fact, even when I tested the Endurance, Truck of the Year semifinalist in my role as North American Auto, Truck and Utility of the Year judge, the Endurance is the only nominated vehicle to be sold to retail customers.
As reflected in its customers’ 0 to one hundred km/h considerations, Endurance is not a vehicle designed for functionality, unlike its electric pickup truck counterparts like Rivian R1T and Ford F-150 Lightning. Endurance is a vehicle to drive efficiently, in the ranks, without exceeding the limits of speed (the Lightning will make a crazy race of 4. 0 to 60 seconds) or off-road functionality (wow, Rivian can go into the national parks of the USA). USA with the 34-inch Pirelli Scorpion All). Terrain Plus off-road tires).
When asked if Rivian had tested the hub engines, Rivian engineer Kenneth Tsang replied in an unbiased tone: “I can see where it fits with Lordstown’s business model, but we are a logo aimed at off-road enthusiasts. “
My time in the Endurance was spent in its natural habitat: the city of Ann Arbor, walking the city streets and back roads. The same routes as, say, an app service truck, would make daily trips of less than two hundred miles, which happens to be the $65,000 staying power range, well below the 314 miles claimed through Rivian at $75,000.
The Endurance, however, is not unpleasant to drive. Far from it. With its smooth, instantaneous torque, it resembled other electric cars I’ve driven from Tesla to Hummer.
I whipped him harder, I’m sure, than any public service worker will. Lordstown fills its trucks with knowledge monitors so owners can track their trucks, and they’re provided with all-season tires to discourage off-road incursions. This is not the Tesla Cybertruck.
It’s the F-150 Lightning either.
Lordstown and Ford products are the first production vans to be marketed on the advertising market. The start-up is opposed to the former king of pickup trucks. David against Goliath.
Lordstown is part of a wave of EV startups in the U. S. market. The U. S. government has put hope in Tesla’s good fortune versus David versus Goliath. The Silicon Valley automaker has reinvented the car with electrification and, just a decade after the advent of its first customer product, the Model S, is the leader in luxury sales in the United States, surpassing giants BMW, Mercedes and Lexus.
“As a startup, we can make decisions faster,” said Post, who came to Lordstown in 2019 after a 30-year career at GM, as well as stints with two other startups. “We can adopt new technologies without being hindered by standardized processes. “. And being a startup provides an opportunity to take a whole new look at visitors’ desires and adopt technologies that can do things that the rest of the industry can do. “
The road to Lordstown will have the dominance of the Detroit Three in the advertising truck market (F series, Chevy Silverado/GMC Sierra, Ram), and because the 3 automakers have their own electric pickups in the pipeline.
Ford’s offering, the Lightning Pro, is reasonable at $55,000, as EV curtain prices inflated its $40,000 tag just 4 months ago. But the Endurance label is still higher than $65,000.
For this price, consumers not only get extensive knowledge of tracking and bucket motors, but also a deep “frunk” (front trunk) so that staff can carry it without worrying about it being soaked in water on the 5’8″ platform. The 4WD truck will tow 8,000 pounds.
The Post team has yet to release a diversity figure to tow, a task that has proven to be a challenge for electric vehicles. A recent report from TFL Truck, for example, found that Lightning traveled 93 miles on a load when it towed 6,000 pounds.
“There will be trailer degradation,” Post said, but says consumers will use the vehicle in low-mileage directions. “They obligatorily leave a warehouse, work in several places and then return to the warehouse. And he found that the average direction is less than a hundred miles, but it can go up to 150. “
Inside, the Endurance offers modern tools and virtual infotainment screens. The interior fabrics are undeniable (cloth seats, plastic dashboard), as the van assumes that interiors will possibly not be driven through country club valets like retail-focused brands, but will instead be used daily. Office for service and structure workers.
At 6’5″ and 235 pounds, my giant frame fits seamlessly into the interior and access to the 5’8″ composite case is perfect with the bumper steps at the corners of Chevy Silverado.
Lordstown’s access to the market is not so easy. The pickup truck maker bought GM’s former production plant in Lordstown, but ran into currency turmoil that led to the resignation of its chief executive, Steve Burns, and then the sale of the plant to Foxconn, Taiwan. electronics manufacturer that is itself a novice in the production of vehicles.
The Endurance is Foxconn’s first vehicle project. In fact, it will be the first contract meeting plant in North America, to reflect the good fortune of Magna Steyr in Austria, which assembles European models such as the Mercedes G-Class and the Jaguar iPace.
“We’re working hard with (Foxconn) as any company launching a new vehicle would,” Post said. have a very smart date with the Foxconn team.
According to its artistic engineering and manufacturing, the design of Endurance is also Array. Impossible to miss along the way with its ambitious horizontal lines that trace the frame as engraved on a published circuit board. Also for any electric vehicle (except the Nissan Leaf sedan), the charging Endurance port is located right in the middle of the front fascia.
The Endurance leaves the rendezvous line, in 6. 5 seconds from 0 to 60 mph, by the end of 2022.
Vehicle type: five-passenger four-wheel drive and battery-powered van
Price: $65,000
Powertrain: 109kWh lithium-ion battery driving 4-wheel hub motors
Power: 440 horsepower
Transmission: NA
Performance: 0-60 mph, 6. 3 seconds (mftr. ); payload, 1050 pounds; trailer, 8,000 pounds; Top speed, mph
Weight: 6,450 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 65 MPGe; range, two hundred miles
School Report
High: simplicity of the hub engine; Unique design
Bottom: Top decal, smaller than Ford F-150 Lightning Pro
Totals: Stars
Henry Payne is a critic for The Detroit News. Find it on hpayne@detroitnews. com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.