After a bit of casual reading, the example has to be Mullen Automotive buying Bollinger and Electric Last Mile.
Have most start-ups intentionally positioned themselves to be acquired? Why else would Lordstown be making a fleet truck with fleet unfriendly (although interesting) 4 hub motors? Who would be candidates for being interested in the company?
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Originally Posted by Martinjlm
It’s sort of the natural order of things. My consulting team is tracking more than 90 companies that are trying to come to market with EVs. Clearly not all of them are going to make it. To be honest, Lordstown had a better chance than most. They had a good design. They had auto industry pros in key positions. They had a plant. They had big money behind them. They had vehicles in customers’ hands. The problem they didn’t count on was a very public disagreement with their key source of funding.
There’s another situation unfolding now where Company A was about to stake out a good position in the industry with a ready for market product. They had a plant, a product, customers lined up. Their leadership did something really stupid (spelled “illegal”) and had to resign, and shortly after the company crumbled. Company B swooped in and acquired all of Company A’s assets for pennies on the dollar, including the plant and an inventory of finished EV vans. Company B also acquired controlling interest in another EV maker, Company C. So now the new company, we’ll call it ABC since it has parts of all three, has a full vehicle portfolio and a plant to build them in. I can see the same thing happening with Lordstown. There are a number of other companies who have the resources to acquire Lordstown’s assets (and people) and push forward with a stronger company. This happened a lot from the 1920s through the 1950s. New brands popped up seemingly every other week and were either strangled by the competition, got acquired by stronger players, and in some cases survived and thrived. So, rinse repeat, but 100 years later.
Jeep is one of the strongest brand names on the planet. You have to go back to Nash Motors, Willy’s, and American Motors (all just memories) to get to where they are today.
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