The past month has been a rough one for some of the electric vehicle startups that went public by merging with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Lordstown Motors, Canoo and Electric Last Mile Solutions all have seen key personnel leave, and all three are under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Lordstown lost Chuan Vo, a former Tesla engineer who was head of propulsion. That’s a pretty big job for an EV company. He was the one overseeing development of the electric drive system for the Endurance pickup that is supposed to go into production in the third quarter of this year.
EV startups are notoriously volatile, but at least in Lordstown’s case, the company is firming up a management team under Chief Executive Officer Dan Ninivaggi, a former Carl Icahn associate who joined in August after playing a role in the Chapter 11 restructuring of Hertz. Ninivaggi told me the turnover is part of a series of steps he’s taking as the company abandons founder Steve Burns’ vision of making EVs largely on its own.
