Lordstown Motors, the start-up connected to Workhorse Group, continues to tease the Endurance electric pickup it plans to launch later in 2020.
The company released a new video showing a camouflaged prototype of the Endurance truck tackling a 15% incline on a wet course. In the footage, the test driver stops the pickup on the incline to showcase the hill start assist system.
“A 15% grade on a wet, sloppy course can result in spinning tires and loss of control even when approached with momentum. Stopping on the hill, then restarting, increases the degree of difficulty. Notice that the tires do not spin or slip in this test,” Lordstown Motors notes in the video description.
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“Our in-wheel drive system monitors each wheel – every millisecond – and provides precise control and power where and when it is needed,” the company adds. The video clearly shows that, but the truth is most trucks, electric or not, won’t have any difficulty in similar conditions.
Unlike upcoming electric pickups from Tesla, Rivian, Ford and GMC, the Lordstown Endurance will be marketed as a work truck. According to the company, it will boast high reliability, low maintenance, and low operating costs compared to traditional trucks with internal combustion engines.
Lordstown Endurance design sketch
In related news, Lordstown Motors reports it has received a letter of intent from Florida-based Innervations, which will broker 1,000 Endurance electric pickups to customers looking to convert company fleets to electric. In addition, the company says it has also received letters of intent from customers across the country.
Those include “government entities, fleet management organizations, construction companies, security companies, landscapers and grounds crews, and those working in the fields of steel, natural gas, oil and petroleum.” The company did not talk numbers, though.
The Endurance pickup is a continuation of the Workhorse W-15, a range-extended electric truck developed by Workhorse Group, which owns 10 percent of Lordstown Motors and will license its propulsion technology. It remains unclear if the thousands of pre-orders for the W-15 will transfer to the Endurance.