Thread by @jpr007

EV startup Lordstown Motors made its way from its home in Ohio to Baja California over the weekend to take place in the brutal 242.8-mile desert race known as the San Felipe 250 as a method of testing and data collection.
thedrive.com/news/40237/lor…

After completing the first 40-mile leg of the race, Matthew Blanchard, Lordstown Motors' director of security and the vehicle's driver, stopped to top off the Endurance's charge

The team also took this opportunity to review telematics data regarding the vehicle's off-road performance and soon determined that it wasn't aligned with what they had expected for the race

Lordstown Motors then announced that it would stop at this point and officially withdrew from the remaining 80% of the race

According to a statement from Lordstown, the truck's telematics data revealed that it had been using significantly more energy to complete the 40-mile stint than originally anticipated

Engineers had modeled an energy consumption factor of 3 times the usage of normal road driving; however, the actual data showed around 4 times the usage

Lordstown's race team believes that this was due to the larger tires and increased power needed to traverse the deep sand throughout the course

Given that the next portion of the race would be a 65-mile stage with 1,750 feet of net elevation, the team worried that the truck could come to a halt in the middle of mountainous terrain with no way to bring charging equipment to the vehicle

It became clear that it was time to withdraw from the San Felipe and take the lessons learned back home to Ohio

Despite the failure to finish, Lordstown says that it gained valuable insight into the harsh conditions that the truck and skateboard were subject to during the tough 40 miles, which was the goal all along

It says that the vehicle's in-wheel hub motors were able to provide superior traction throughout the course and that the battery pack and its thermal management system were able to work efficiently despite the actual power usage being higher than anticipated

The Baja trek is a tough test for any vehicle, and not all participants will complete the entire loop; established players like Ford have also had trouble racing there during the past two years

When introducing battery power into the mix, a number of additional concerns come into play, including charge capacity and the ability to replenish a depleted battery in a remote location

The electric automaker says it's not disappointed in the results and is ready to get back on the saddle again in 2022

The data obtained from the course will be brought back to their engineers and used to improve Lordstown's products ahead of launch