LORDSTOWN, Ohio — When you step into the old General Motors Plant in Lordstown you’re surrounded by decades of memories and history. One company is hoping to spark new life into the plant and create a new vision for the town along the way.
"It’s rare to get a plant, it’s even rarer to get a plant that’s fully stocked,” said Steve Burns.
Steve Burns is the CEO of Lordstown Motors, and they have big plans for the former GM plant.
"Our goal is to make the first electric full-size pickup truck in the world, we want to come out about a year from now,” said Burns.
But that’s not where it ends, they want to make mid-size trucks, utility vehicles, really the sky’s the limit.
"Having a ready workforce here, hungry workforce that’s done this stuff before and had expertise in building cars, that’s why we’re here,” he said.
There are so many reasons the new owners say they picked this place. The built-in workforce, the wonderful community but it mostly because of the plant. They say with all of this infrastructure already in place, their first product could hit the streets up to a year early.
Their dreams don’t end with just this plant and the 5,000 workers they hope to bring on board.
"You’re going to see that it’s really going to grow the region because we’re going to put in a new battery line here, we’re going to put in a new HB motor line on top of building the vehicle,” said Rich Schmidt, chief operations officer of Lordstown Motors.
The Lordstown plant started with the production if the Chevrolet Impala in 1966.
The last Chevrolet Cruze rolled of the Lordstown lot in March.
2020 could be the beginning of a new era for the plant and the town, and it’s all in the new company’s name.
"We’ve named our company Lordstown Motors as an acknowledgment to the people,” said Burns. “The first truck is called the ‘Endurance’ and that is again a nod to the endurance of the Lordstown people.”
