Taiwanese electronics giant Hon Hai Technology Group, or Foxconn, has inked an agreement with Ohio-based electric vehicle start-up Lordstown Motors to buy and then jointly operate the company’s Lordstown, Ohio, facility, Kallanish reports.

Foxconn has agreed to purchase about $50 million in Lordstown stock and will buy the Lordstown production facility for a further $230m. Lordstown will retain its “hub motor assembly line, battery module and packing line assets, certain intellectual property rights and other excluded assets,” the company says. 

The facility will be operated on a contractual basis.

“We have high expectations through this partnership that we will be able to successfully integrate our resources with Lordstown Motors,” says Foxconn chairman Young Liu. “In addition to achieving the goal of moving ahead our timeline to establish electric vehicle production capacity in North America, it also reflects Foxconn’s flexibility in providing design and production services for different EV customers.”

He adds that Lordstown’s “innovative design of the Endurance pickup truck, with its unique hub motors, delivers an advantageous user experience and has manufacturing efficiencies. It will undoubtedly thrive under our partnership and business model.”

Lordstown ceo Daniel Ninivaggi says the partnership will “take advantage of Foxconn’s extensive manufacturing expertise and cost-efficient supply chain, while freeing up Lordstown Motors to focus on bringing the Endurance to market, developing service offerings for our fleet customers and designing and developing innovative new vehicle models.”

In a related production and financial update, Lordstown says it will build “a limited number of vehicles” in 2021 and early 2022, with a full production update slated for its mid-November third-quarter earnings call. 

Lordstown experienced a series of difficulties this year. The ceo and chief financial officer both stepped down following the company’s apparent admission that it had inflated its number of pre-orders.

“Lordstown Motors made periodic disclosures regarding pre-orders which were, in certain respects, inaccurate,” the company’s board said in June. It found the pre-orders were from fleet management companies and “so-called ‘influencers’ or other potential strategic partners that committed to attempt to secure pre-orders from other entities, but did not intend to purchase Endurance trucks directly.”