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Workhorse Group
FormerlyAMP Electric Vehicles (2007–2015)
Company type Public
Nasdaq:  WKHS
Industry Transportation, automotive, aerospace
Founded2007 (2007)
FounderStephen Burns
Headquarters Sharonville, Ohio,
United States
Number of locations
4
Area served
North America
Key people
Richard Dauch (CEO)
Number of employees
331
Website workhorse.com Edit this at Wikidata

Workhorse Group Incorporated, originally AMP Electric Vehicles, is an original equipment manufacturer and technology company headquartered in Sharonville, Ohio, U.S. [1] Workhorse makes electric delivery vans, drones, and telematics software designed for last-mile delivery. Their products include commercial electric vehicles, Horsefly delivery drones, and a Metron telematics software system.

History

AMP Electric Vehicles, was founded in 2007 by Steve Burns, former CEO of Lordstown Motors. AMP Electric Vehicles was founded on the idea of converting passenger vehicles – originally designed with an internal combustion engine, gas tank, and related components – to electric drive. The company's goal was to design an electric powertrain around a popular vehicle model, then convince the OEM that was already mass-producing that vehicle to sell it to AMP as a “glider” – a version without a drivetrain. Over the years, however, two problems became apparent. First, the major automakers were hesitant to cooperate. Second, the passenger EV market didn't materialize quite as fast as AMP, and other manufacturers, had hoped it would. [2]

In 2012, The commercial vehicle powerhouse Navistar decided to sell off its Workhorse subsidiary, a step van chassis manufacturer, including the Workhorse factory in Indiana. [3] In March 2013, AMP Electric Vehicles took over Workhorse Custom Chassis, LLC's assets and began offering a range of electric vehicles. [4] [5] [6]

On April 16, 2015, AMP Electric Vehicles changed its company name to Workhorse Group Incorporated. [7] On January 4, 2016, the company was approved by Nasdaq Capital Market and its common stock started being quoted on Nasdaq under the symbol “WKHS” (NASDAQ: WKHS). [8]

In February 2019, Steve Burns, co-founder of AMP Electric Vehicles and CEO of Workhorse resigned from the company. President and COO Duane Hughes became the new CEO of Workhorse. [9] [10]

In November 2021 it was reported that Workhorse faced a Department of Justice investigation as well as a SEC investigation that was first reported in a September 2021 report by shortselling research firm Fuzzy Panda who accused the company of fraud which was followed up by a Cincinnati Enquirer report which found that top Workhorse executives and board members sold off $60 million worth of stock and that part of the selling occurred following interactions with postal officials which signaled their USPS bid was in trouble. The report also stated that Workhorse was being sued by some shareholders in the company, which accuses them orchestrating its USPS as part of an insider trading scheme. [11] [12] [13] On November 9, 2021, Workhorse confirmed its SEC and Department of Justice investigations in a regulatory filling which stated that the investigations were related to the trade of securities in the company leading up to the award of the USPS contract to Oshkosh. [14]

In August 2021 Richard Dauch was appointed CEO, [15] with the mission of resolving difficult issues Workhorse was facing and to transition Workhorse from a start-up to a leading manufacturer. [16] By the end of 2022 all the legacy issues had been resolved, such as the securities class action lawsuit, [17] the SEC investigation, [18] and got Workhorse debt free. [19] To prevent the factory being idle while the W56 was being developed, Workhorse entered into a 3-year contract manufacturing agreement with Tropos Technologies [20] and a supply agreement with GreenPower Motor Company where Workhorse will complete the manufacturing process and sell those vehicles as W4 CC's and W750's. [21]

Lordstown Plant & Licensing Agreement

Main article: Lordstown Assembly

On May 8, 2019, General Motors confirmed that it was in talks to potentially sell Lordstown Assembly, its idle 6.2 million square foot manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio, to Workhorse Group. [22] [23] On November 7, 2019, the newly constituted Lordstown Motors, of which Workhorse Group had a 10% stake, purchased the shuttered Lordstown Assembly Plant from General Motors. Workhorse CEO Steve Burns assumed the role of co-founder and CEO of Lordstown Motors. [24] Later that day, Workhorse Group issued a press release detailing a licensing agreement with Lordstown Motors for their W-15 pickup truck. [25] [26] [27] Burns resigned as CEO of Lordstown Motors on June 14, 2021. [28]

Products

Vehicles

W4 CC

A class 4 cab chassis battery electric commercial vehicle. [29]

W750

A class 4 step van battery electric commercial vehicle, with 750 cubic feet of storage space intended for last mile delivery. [30]

W56

Main article: Workhorse W56

A class 5 and 6 battery electric commercial vehicle, with 1000 cubic feet of storage space intended for last mile delivery [31] but also available as a strip chassis and cab & chassis. [32] The beam axle is provided by Linamar's eAxle system, stated to have superior performance and efficiency. [33] The W56 was unveiled at the 2023 NTEA Work Truck Show. Production began in September 2023. [34]

Aerial vehicles

Octocopter

Main article: Workhorse SureFly

In December 2018, Workhorse announced that they would debut its SureFly, an electric vertical take off and landing octocopter at the 2019 North American International Auto Show. The SureFly would be built for air medical services, military organizations, agricultural customers, and for urban commuting. [35] In December 2019, aerospace company Moog Inc. bought the SureFly program for $5 million. Moog planned to use the SureFly as a demonstrator for autonomous delivery vehicles. [36]

HorseFly drone

Workhorse began the development of a truck-mounted drone called HorseFly in 2016. The HorseFly drone was developed in collaboration with defense contractor Moog (NYSE:MOG.A). [37] Unmanned medical delivery capabilities of the HorseFly was also developed in partnership with San Diego-based Unmanned Systems Operations Group Inc. [38]

Falcon drone

Workhorse modified their HorseFly design to make a lighter but more rugged drone intended for making deliveries in hazardous environments like a conflict zone, or inaccessible areas like in a natural disaster. [39]

Discontinued vehicles

W-15 (pickup truck)

Main article: Workhorse W-15

In November 2016, Workhorse announced that they were working on an electrically powered pickup truck, called the W-15. North Carolina's Duke Energy stated that it would buy 500 of the vehicles, and the city of Orlando also reported interested. [40] It was planned to have 460 horsepower and a battery range of 80 miles. A gasoline range extender was to supply further range. [41] [42] In March 2020, Workhorse confirmed that it had transferred the W-15 pickup truck project to Lordstown Motors through a licensing agreement. Lordstown Motors paid a licensing fee to Workhorse, and the truck will be produced in the future without the gasoline range extender. [43] The W-15 became the basis of the Lordstown Endurance pickup truck. [44]

C-Series (electric delivery van)

Main article: Workhorse C-Series

Workhorse was one of the finalists for the 10-year United States Postal Service contract for the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) to replace 165,000 [45] aging and outdated Grumman LLVs that had been used by USPS since 1987. [46] In February 2021, the contract was awarded to Oshkosh Defense. [47] [48] Workhorse announced what Bloomberg News described as a "long-shot bid" to overturn the loss of the award. [49] On June 16, 2021, Workhorse filed a formal complaint with the United States Court of Federal Claims protesting the award of the United States Postal Service Next Generation Delivery Vehicle ("USPS NGDV") contract to Oshkosh Defense. However this complaint was dropped in September 2021. [13] [50] [51] [52]

The prototype NGDV candidate chassis was modified and reused for both the W-15 pickup and the N-GEN delivery van for commercial fleets. [53] [54] In June 2019, Workhorse obtained US$25 million to continue the delivery van project, which had a temporary name of N-GEN. [55] By November 2019, Workhorse changed the name of the delivery van from N-GEN to C-Series. In November 2019, Workhorse chose battery supplier EnerDel to provide up to 5,200 battery packs for C-Series delivery vans. [56] The C-series was intended to be built at a former General Motors factory in Lordstown, Ohio. [57]

Workhorse developed a flagship electric van model C-1000 and started shipping it in the summer of 2021. However, after the initial sales, the company announced the truck would be redesigned to increase payload capacity. In September 2021 Workhorse suspended all deliveries of the vehicle and recalled 41 vans that were already delivered to customers with the company stating that it needed to provide "additional testing and modifications" to comply with US safety standards. [58] [59] In November 2021 CEO Rick Dauch admitted during a conference call that he believed the C-1000 was unreliable. [60]

Management

Current management

Current employees in management positions are as follows: [61]

  • Richard "Rick" Dauch - CEO
  • Robert “Bob” Ginnan - CFO
  • Josh Anderson - CTO
  • Jeff Mowry - CIO
  • Ryan Gaul - President, Commercial Vehicles
  • John Graber - President, Workhorse Aerospace
  • Jim Harrington - CAO, General Counsel, Secretary
  • Jim Peters - Vice President, Supply Chain and Procurement
  • Dave Bjerke - Vice President, Product Development
  • Kelly Kiger - Vice President, Sales and Marketing
  • Stan March - Vice President, Corporate Development and Communications
  • Kerry Roraff - CHRO
  • Ben Drake - Vice President, Government Affairs
  • Brad Hartzell - Vice President, Manufacturing
  • George Petropoulos - Vice President, Commercial Vehicle Government Sales
  • Mike Gerdes - Vice President, Aero Flight Operations and Engineering
  • Joe McCulloch - Vice President, Aero Production and Supply Chain
  • Randall Warnas - Vice President, Aero Sales and Marketing

Current board of directors

Current members of the board of directors are as follows: [62]

  • Raymond Chess (Chairman)
  • Richard Dauch
  • Jacqueline Dedo
  • Pamela Mader
  • Bill Quigley
  • Austin Scott Miller
  • Jean Botti (CEO of VoltAero) [63]
  • Brandon Torres Declet (CEO of Exyn Technologies [64])

References

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  3. ^ "Navistar Shutting Down Workhorse as Part of Cost-Cutting".
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  5. ^ Kiley, David. "GM In Talks To Sell Ohio Plant To EV Truck Venture Workhorse". Forbes. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
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  54. ^ Halvorson, Bengt (November 10, 2017). "Mail Forwarding: Workhorse Vies for USPS Contract, Readies Vans, Drones, Copters". Car and Driver. Retrieved November 10, 2022. The N-Gen and Workhorse's W-15 pickup will share quite a lot, including their composite body construction. Burns told Car and Driver that they'll use the same batteries: Panasonic 18650-format cells, a "commodity" format that is roughly AA size and essentially the same as is used in the Tesla Model S and Model X, among other vehicles. But what's different is the range extender. While the production version of the W-15 will use a 1.5-liter three-cylinder BMW range extender, the N-Gen is going to use the 647-cc two-cylinder Kymco-built engine from the BMW i3, Burns said.
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External links

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