Lordstown Motors was forced to abandon the SCORE San Felipe 250 desert race in Mexico over the weekend after only 40 miles.
The electric vehicle startup brought along a prototype of its forthcoming Endurance pickup truck to the event with hopes of showcasing its technology. The company wanted to have the first electric vehicle to ever finish the race and wanted to show off the claimed superiority of its in-hub motor technology.
However, Lordstown was forced to withdraw from the race after the first 40-mile leg because of how much energy the vehicle was using. Prior to the event, they expected the truck to use three times the energy across the course when compared to regular road use; as it turns out, it actually used four times the energy.
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In a newly-released video, the company said that while recharging the vehicle after the first leg of the race, they concluded that the Endurance could run out of charge in an area of the course where no recharging was possible during the second leg. The decision was then made to pull the pickup truck out of the event.
“We didn’t finish the race because the desert terrain really uses a lot of energy, more than we had anticipated,” Lordstown chief executive and founder Steve Burns said. “We decided [it was] best not to take that leg and possibly block the trail for somebody else.”
While it didn’t finish the race, Lordstown says that all of the Endudance’s systems, including the in-hub motors, drivetrain and battery pack, handled the harsh conditions without any issues.