A former GM plant is changing hands again.
Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, the contract manufacturer known for building notable consumer favorites like the Nintendo Switch game console and the Apple iPhone, is letting go of a prominent U.S. facility. According to an Aug. 4 filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange cited by Automotive News, the aspiring electric vehicle hopeful is selling the former General Motors car factory in Lordstown, Ohio, in a series of transactions that would transfer the sprawling site’s buildings, land, equipment, and machinery to its new owner.
In separate transactions, Crescent Dune LLC has acquired a significant portion of the Lordstown site’s assets for a total of $375 million, which it claims will be channelled into “new business areas.” Per Taiwan stock exchange filings, the site itself, including the land and buildings, was sold for around $88 million, while manufacturing equipment from Foxconn’s EV subsidiaries fetched around $287 million.
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According to state records seen by TechCrunch, Crescent Dune is a Delaware-based LLC that is just two weeks old. In a statement, Foxconn spokesperson Matt Dewine told the tech outlet that the buyer of the Lordstown assets is an “existing business partner.”
In a statement to Automotive News, Foxconn said that the Lordstown site is an integral part of the company’s footprint in the United States”, adding that the decision to sell it “is part of the company’s plan to expand into new business areas.” At the same time, they also stated that they plan to continue operations at the Lordstown site and still value the automotive segment: “Foxconn will be involved in the manufacturing of products for customers at the Lordstown facility. The U.S. is a key automotive market, and we are committed to customers and suppliers in this market. Foxconn will be able to rapidly ramp up automotive production to meet customer demand when required.”
Lordstown was once a humming car factory.
Despite this, sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal said that the Taiwanese electronics company intends to repurpose the EV factory to build cloud computing hardware and server equipment for artificial intelligence (AI) at the site. Already, Foxconn has a manufacturing facility in Houston for AI servers and has partnered with electronics giants like Apple and Nvidia to establish AI-related facilities in the U.S.
The sprawling Lordstown facility was once one of GM’s key assets when it operated from 1966 to 2019. It made everything from Chevrolet’s full-size cars like the Caprice, Impala, Bel Air, and Biscayne to the first-generation Pontiac Firebird, Chevy and GMC vans, and many of Chevrolet’s compact offerings like the Vega, Monza, Cavalier, Cobalt, Cruze, and their badge-engineered variants.
However, its more recent history began in 2019 when Lordstown Motors purchased the facility to manufacture the Lordstown Endurance electric pickup. In 2022, Foxconn acquired the Lordstown facility after the company encountered financial difficulties. Foxconn managed to assemble a small number of electric pickups before Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy in June 2023.
Several other startups, including Fisker, considered partnering with Foxconn to manufacture electric vehicles at Lordstown; however, those plans ultimately fell through. Currently, Foxconn is using the Lordstown plant to assemble electric tractors for Monarch, a California-based startup.
Final Thoughts
Foxconn’s Lordstown factory is a crucial asset, as it serves as a domestic production site for automakers seeking to reduce tariffs by manufacturing a larger portion of their vehicles in the United States. In its GM days, it produced nearly 16 million vehicles between 1966 and 2019, peaking at 290,000 cars in 2014. Although the WSJ report indicates that this plant could be converted into a manufacturing facility that produces servers and other cloud computing hardware for AI solutions, a part of me thinks this was a wasted opportunity to possibly onshore a car company that exclusively manufactures overseas. Then again, Foxconn specializes in electronics manufacturing; specifically, the kind you use daily.