Electric light-duty truck maker Lordstown Motors reiterated today that its full-size, all-electric pickup truck Endurance will begin production in September 2021, with full production ramping up in 2022.

Lordstown CEO Steve Burns had announced in October the new production dates. In April, Lordstown announced that initial deliveries will be pushed back from December 2020 to January 2021.

Lordstown Motors has received approximately 50,000 non-binding production reservations from commercial fleets for its Lordstown Endurance all-electric pickup truck, with an average order size of approximately 500 vehicles per fleet.

In a press announcement, Lordstown pointed out that this figure does not capture interest the company has received from federal, state and municipal governments, and military fleets that are not in position to place pre-orders.

The company expects to produce 40 to 50 Beta prototype vehicles, which will be used for crash, engineering, and validation testing. The company also expects some of these vehicles may be sent to some initial customers for their feedback. The Lordstown Endurance has already achieved a 5-Star crash test rating via software crash simulation.

Lordstown Motors expects to increase its internal headcount to 500 workers by the end of 2020 and to 1,500 employees by the end of 2021. The company currently employs more than 250 in the areas of manufacturing, engineering, marketing, sales, facilities, human resources, IT, supply chain, accounting and finance.

This week, Lordstown will officially open a satellite research and development center in Farmington Hills, Mich. This facility will include space for vehicle inspection and benchmarking, as well as labs for testing, validation and prototyping. 

Later this month, Lordstown Motors will open a service center in Irvine, California, its first service center outside of Ohio. The facility, combined with the company’s mobile service, will enable Lordstown to service commercial users in the southern California region, which has a favorable regulatory backdrop to adopt EVs.

Construction has begun on a 700,000 sq.-ft. battery pack and hub motor production facility at Lordstown’s 6.2 million sq.-ft. Ohio headquarters. Completion of the first stage of this facility is expected in time for production start in 2021.

Among other promotions, the company also announced that Rich Schmidt has been promoted to president. Schmidt has more than 30 years of extensive automotive production experience, including at several major traditional automotive OEMs and at Tesla, where he was a senior production executive.

Lordstown Motors said it expects to report earnings on a normal schedule commencing with year-end results for 2020.