Automotive: Another EV company goes belly up

Electric Last Mile Solutions Inc. plans to liquidate its operations about a year after the electric-vehicle startup went public.

The Troy, Michigan-based company said in a statement late Sunday that its board and interim CEO, Shauna McIntyre, decided to liquidate through a Chapter 7 bankruptcy process. The decision comes after a review of Electric Last Mile’s products and plans turned up no better option for stockholders, creditors and other interested parties, it said.

Electric Last Mile’s stock plunged 56% to 22 cents a share at 9:49 a.m. in New York. It was down 93% so far this year, to 51 cents, as of the close of trading last week.

Founders James Taylor and Jason Luo had planned to import electric delivery vans from China and assemble them at a former General Motors Hummer factory in Mishawaka, Indiana. Both men resigned in early February after Electric Last Mile accused them of making improper stock purchases just before the company announced the SPAC merger in December 2020. The company listed on the Nasdaq in late June 2021 in a SPAC transaction that netted it about $379 million.

“I’m very disappointed by this outcome because our ELMS team demonstrated incredible determination to get our electric vans ready to meet the critical need for clean, connected vehicles that reduce carbon emissions from ground transportation,” McIntyre said in the statement. “Unfortunately, there were too many obstacles for us to overcome in the short amount of time available to us.”