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Motor Trend recently posted, "Just Wait Until You See How Bad the Lordstown Endurance’s EPA Numbers Are" at https://www.motortrend.com/news/lordstown-endurance-epa-range-efficiency-estimates-official/ [motortrend.com] and other car-buff sites are running similar stories.

For a little background on Lordstown, we look to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordstown_Endurance [wikipedia.org] and see that the company has been going for a handful of years, with Foxconn as a recent investor. They have taken over the former GM Lordstown OH factory (similar to Tesla, which took over the former GM/Toyota NUMMI plant). Their initial product is a slick looking pickup truck.

However, as production has started, the EPA has done their official testing and:

The most notable number is the total estimated range: 174 miles. That puts it way at the bottom of the range scale, with more in common with the baffling Mazda MX-30 (rated at 100 miles) than the least-legged versions of EV pickup trucks, like the F-150 Lightning, that can manage 230 miles per the EPA.

And it's not a problem of overall battery capacity, either. The Endurance has a full 109 kWh of juice onboard. So the issue likely comes down to the Endurance's lackluster efficiency. Indeed, the mpge numbers tell the tale: 48 mpg combined, 49 city, and 46 highway. Whatever criticism you want to level at the EPA's testing regimen, comparing EPA numbers to numbers at least gives a sense of the relative efficiency of a vehicle (if not real-world figures). And by this measure, the EPA's least efficient pickup (the standard battery F-150 Lightning) manages 68 combined, 76 city, and 61 highway mpge—a significant difference.

It seems that designing an efficient BEV takes more system engineering than just some fancy styling.

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