The Workhorse Group, the small company that lost a contract last week to build electric delivery trucks for the United States Post Office, said on Monday that it will meet with postal workers on Wednesday to discuss the decision.
Workhorse’s stock plummeted after the postal service chose a competitor, Oshkosh Defense, to replace its aging fleet of 229,000 right-hand trucks used to deliver letters and parcels.
“This is not the result we expected or expected,” said Workhorse Chief Executive Duane Hughes in a conference call on Monday to discuss the company’s fourth quarter results. “We intend to explore all the paths that are available to us.”
Hughes added that the company is talking to “different parties and groups”, but declined to comment on what Workhorse can do to make postal workers reconsider their decision, which has also been criticized by some lawmakers and environmental groups because most trucks under Oshkosh’s bidding, it will run on gasoline.
Workhorse’s chances of getting a second chance at the Post Office business may depend on whether President Biden will be able to expel Louis DeJoy, the postmaster who was installed last year by board members appointed by former President Donald J. Trump . DeJoy reduced overtime and took other measures in the name of efficiency that, critics said, resulted in significant delays in the delivery of letters and packages.
Mr. DeJoy oversaw the decision to award a $ 482 million 10-year contract to Oshkosh, which offered to make gasoline-powered trucks that could be converted later to run on battery. The decision goes against Biden’s recent executive order to replace the 645,000 vehicles in the federal fleets with electric vehicles.
After the contract decision was announced, Mr. Biden appointed three new members to the post office, which has the power to fire the postmaster.
“I think what you’re seeing is an acceleration of what President Biden is doing to bring the board of governors together to support his plan in the future,” said Hughes.
Workhorse saw its stock price rise from less than $ 2 a year ago to more than $ 40 in early February, in the expectation that it would win at least part of the postal service contract. The shares lost more than half their value after the Post Office announced that it had chosen Oshkosh for the contract.
Workhorse said it made $ 69.8 million in profit in 2020, but only because it raised $ 323 million related to its 10 percent stake in Lordstown Motors, an electric pickup startup that was founded by the former CEO of Workhorse . Workhorse was trading at around $ 16.60 a share on Monday afternoon, up about 3%.
Workhorse has orders for about 8,000 electric delivery vans, but is struggling to increase production. It made only seven trucks in the fourth quarter, when its operations were temporarily halted because about a third of its workers tested positive for Covid-19.
The company said it expects to increase production to three trucks a day by the end of this month and to 10 trucks a day by the end of June.