Hindenburg Research sets their sights on Lordstown Motors

After taking on Nikola Motor and Kandi, the short-seller Hindenburg Research is now taking aim at the startup Lordstown Motors. The claim is that Lordstown misled investors in the past.

Hindenburg Research claims that Lordstown Motors misled investors about both its demand and its production capacity, saying that the 100,000 pre-orders for the Endurance electric pickup are “largely fictitious”, and were mainly used to raise capital. The distinction that Hindenburg is using here, is that these are apparently not orders but rather non-binding letters of intent that require no reservation fee nor a commitment to actually buy the vehicle.

Lordstown claims that in January, it had received 100,000 reservations for the Endurance pickup, but Hindenberg goes on to allege that some of the orders come from companies with no experience in operating fleets.

The company’s chief executive Steve Burns already responded in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying that “the report contained half-truths and lies, and that the short seller has a motivation to hurt the stock.” While the motivation has been clear that the short-seller stands to financially gain from the losses of the corporations, the reports certainly damaged both Nikola and Kandi.
carscoops.com, insideevs.com, wsj.com