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The story
Founded in 2007 by former Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns, it was originally known as AMP Electric Vehicles.
The company was formed the idea of converting passenger vehicles – originally designed with an internal combustion engine, gas tank, and related components – to electric drive. Its 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.
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. In March 2013, AMP Electric Vehicles took over Workhorse Custom Chassis, LLC's assets and began offering a range of electric vehicles.
On April 16, 2015, AMP Electric Vehicles changed its company name to Workhorse Group Incorporated. 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).
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.
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. 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.
In August 2021 Richard Dauch was appointed CEO, with the mission of resolving difficult issues Workhorse was facing and to transition Workhorse from a start-up to a leading manufacturer. By the end of 2022 all the legacy issues had been resolved, such as the securities class action lawsuit, the SEC investigation, and got Workhorse debt free. To prevent the factory being idle while the W56 was being developed, Workhorse entered into a 3-year contract manufacturing agreement with Tropos Technologies 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.
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Lordstown Plant & Licensing Agreement
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. 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. Later that day, Workhorse Group issued a press release detailing a licensing agreement with Lordstown Motors for their W-15 pickup truck. Burns resigned as CEO of Lordstown Motors on June 14, 2021.
Aero Division
On June 12, 2024, Workhorse announced the divestiture of the Aero division. Workhorse had developed and patented various drone technologies, focused on autonomous last mile delivery.
From Wikipedia’s article on Workhorse Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7