LORDSTOWN, Ohio — Lordstown Motors and Camping world announced a partnership on Tuesday that would bring electric vehicle technology to the RV industry.
Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns and Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis made the announcement in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. At the outset of the partnership, Camping World will provide the service infrastructure for electric vehicles, and down the road the two companies will work together to eventually produce a fully electric motorhome.
Currently, according to Lemonis, Camping World's service infrastructure includes 170 locations across the United States. After receiving training from Lordstown Motors technicians, Lemonis says the plan is to, "be able to provide service in a mock environment by June," and hopefully prototypes by summer 2021. "I would hope that a 2022 model would have electrification in it," Lemonis said.
The production of the battery pack for towable units alone, according to Burns is bringing a total of 1,500 jobs at the plant by the end of 2021, in addition to production for the Endurance truck. "The end goal," Burns said, "is to have more people working in here than GM had in its heyday."
It is quite a lofty goal for the scrappy rookie in the electric vehicle industry. Lordstown Motors moved into the former GM assembly plant after it was shuttered in 2019, when the last Chevy Cruze rolled off of the assembly line. In 2017, GM employed as many as 4,500 autoworkers, a workforce that had dwindled to 1,400 when the plant closed last year.
You can watch the full press conference in the video below:
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