RIDE - Lordstown Motors stock rides higher on Foxconn partnership production optimism

Lordstown Motors ( NASDAQ: RIDE ) stock drove higher on Tuesday despite a far-wider than expected quarterly loss.

A loss of $0.73 for the EV startup in the third quarter more than doubled the expectation of Wall Street, which had set the bar at a loss of just $0.28. An operating loss for the quarter of $154.8M accelerated well beyond the $61.4M expectation as well. Additionally, cash and short-term investments on hand fell by about $32M sequentially.

However, the company’s reaffirmed forecast for the start of deliveries of Endurance vehicles in the fourth quarter, the target of initial production of 500 units in the “first batch” produced, and the support of Foxconn easily overshadowed the bottom line miss. Also, CEO Edward Hightower offered optimistic comments on the pre-production of the automaker’s next vehicle to follow the Endurance, which is expected to benefit from the key Foxconn partnership that was further cemented on Monday evening by a $170M investment..

“Foxconn’s additional investment in LMC is a strong sign of confidence in our team’s product development and engineering capabilities and will help accelerate the EV ambitions of both companies. We continue to believe that deep collaboration with Foxconn, as its preferred North American vehicle development partner, and Foxconn’s EV ecosystem, including MIH, is key to our company’s long-term success,” Hightower commented. “While we have more work to do, our entire team cannot wait to get the vehicle in the hands of our customers. We are also extremely excited by the additional investment and expanding relationship with Foxconn and the opportunities it provides beyond our first vehicle.”

Shares of Lordstown Motors ( RIDE ) rose over 25% at one point in Tuesday’s premarket trading before moderating gains to a still-strong 15.68% rise as of 7:00AM ET. About 700K shares changed hands in the early session to that point.

Read more on the details of the results .

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