Foxconn Is Selling The Lordstown Factory That Was Supposed To Make EVs

• Foxconn, which is known around the world for making iPhones, is selling the former GM car factory in Lordstown, Ohio.
• The mystery buyer, named “Crescent Dune LLC,” was established less than two weeks ago in Delaware.
• The Taiwanese contract manufacturer is currently building electric tractors at the Lordstown facility.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer best known for making Apple iPhones, is selling the former General Motors car factory in Lordstown, Ohio. The mystery buyer, called Crescent Dune LLC, will pay a total of $375 million to acquire the site’s buildings, land, equipment and machinery, according to documents submitted to Taiwan’s stock exchange quoted by Automotive News.

Foxconn says the buyer is ”an existing business partner,” but the company was created less than two weeks ago in Delaware, according to records filed with the state examined by TechCrunch. 

Foxconn’s vehicle assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio

The factory and land will be sold by Foxconn, officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., for roughly $88 million. Meanwhile, one batch of machinery and equipment will be sold under a different $257 million transaction on behalf of Foxconn’s EV Asset Management subsidiary. A second batch will be sold by EV System LLC, another subsidiary of the Taiwanese company, for $30 million.

Despite the transaction, a Foxconn representative said that the company will still be “involved in the manufacturing of products for customers at the Lordstown facility” and that it is “committed to customers and suppliers” in the automotive industry. “Foxconn will be able to rapidly ramp up automotive production to meet customer demand when required,” the company said.

Still, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Taiwanese company intends to build artificial intelligence (AI) servers at the site.

The former GM assembly complex in Lordstown, Ohio, was built in the 1960s and has the capacity to build hundreds of thousands of cars when fully tooled. Workhorse Group, the maker of the ill-fated Lordstown Endurance electric pickup, bought the facility in 2019. In 2022, Foxconn acquired the complex for $230 with the intention of transforming it into an electric vehicle contract manufacturing hub. 

The Lordstown Endurance electric pickup was assembled in Ohio.

The Taiwanese entity assembled a handful of electric pickups before Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy in June 2023. A few other startups, including Fisker, were in talks with Foxconn to manufacture their EVs in Ohio, but they all folded. Currently, the Lordstown facility assembles electric tractors for Monarch, a California startup.

The iPhone maker is said to have been involved in discussions with Nissan regarding its reorganization plan, but nothing official surfaced. Separately, Foxconn has been developing its own electric cars in Asia as part of a joint venture with Yulon, with the idea being to offer a ready-made car that can be rebranded for any carmaker. The Model C, an electric crossover, went on sale last year in Taiwan as the Luxgen n7 and was expected to arrive in the U.S. this year. Next year, Foxconn will make Mitsubishi-branded EVs meant for the Australian and New Zealand markets.