Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics giant, has announced the sale of its Lordstown, Ohio factory to a newly formed company named Crescent Dune LLC. Foxconn recently encountered major failures in its grand designs to manufacture electric vehicles (EVs) at the facility. Before this announcement, this site had been widely touted as a possible new center for North American EV production.
In 2021, Foxconn bought the closed General Motors plant for $230 million. Their goal was to bring a huge new manufacturing cluster there, enough to feed three electric vehicle manufacturers. However, all three companies ultimately declared bankruptcy. At first, Foxconn’s main task was to manufacture a limited run of electric vehicles for Lordstown Motors. In the process, they built several hundred electric tractors themselves for Monarch Tractor.
Foxconn’s dreams for the Lordstown plant have now obviously and dramatically evaporated. The company took a risk on the small EV startup IndiEV, claiming it would build IndiEV’s electric SUV at the facility. Sadly, IndiEV filed for bankruptcy in October 2023, behind a capitalized Foxconn by less than $3 million.
The decision to sell also serves as a sober reminder of Foxconn’s larger struggles in the U.S. manufacturing landscape. Yet this marks the company’s second significant blow. Their dogged attempts to steer American manufacturing and supply-chaining into the EV wave met new headwinds. Foxconn’s arrival was greeted with great fanfare. It has faced serious troubles with IndiEV and has missed its targets for production.
A Foxconn spokesperson, Matt Dewine, said the sale is true. When pressed, he refused to share any other information about Crescent Dune LLC, which had been registered in Delaware only 12 days before the purchase.
“We are committed to customers and suppliers involved in the manufacturing of products for customers at the Lordstown facility,” – A Foxconn representative
Chairman Young Liu previously emphasized the importance of the Lordstown factory, stating it was intended to become “the most important electric vehicle manufacturing and R&D hub in North America.” With the sale completed, those dreams seem more distant than ever.
Whether the Lordstown facility will prosper under its new ownership, even as Foxconn continues to lead through this stormy period, is anybody’s guess. Recent news indicates that the picture is not so rosy for Foxconn. They show just how jumpy the electric vehicle market is in the U.S. right now.