Lion Electric suspends Illinois plant production, lays off hundreds
Quebec-based Lion Electric (LEV) has temporarily laid off 400 employees – more than half of its remaining workforce – at its Joliet, Illinois electric school bus factory and its Canadian headquarters, leaving around 300 employees to manage the company’s overall operations, specifically manufacturing, sales, deliveries, and customer service.
Lion also manufacturers zero-emission Class 6 and 8 commercial trucks, but their production status remains unknown at this time.
[Related: Lion Electric brings Class 8 truck to market]
This latest announcement was quietly made this past Sunday, December 1, after Lion was unable to secure a business partner in order to continue receiving public funding from the Coalition Avenir Quebec government. At the same time, the company confirmed it has extended the repayment period by two weeks (until Dec. 16) for several of its loans that were due last weekend. Lion shares are traded on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchange.
As it currently stands, manufacturing at Joliet has come to a complete halt and Lion has not indicated when (or if) it will re-start. The company previously laid off 520 employees across all departments earlier this year.
“As a result of this downsizing, Lion will have approximately 300 employees who will focus on bus manufacturing, sales and delivery operations, and continue to help customers maintain the vehicles that are on the road,” the company said in a statement Sunday.
Joliet Mayor Terry D’Arcy has confirmed Lion’s Illinois operations are suspended as the company continues to “evaluate its options, including a potential sale of the business, which could lead to the reopening of the Joliet production site.”
The 900,000 square-foot Joliet factory was opened in July 2023, and is the largest all-electric U.S.-based plant dedicated to medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicle manufacturing. At full scale production capacity, the plant is capable of building around 20,000 vehicles annually.
Illinois Gov J.B. Pritzker was present for the facility’s opening ceremony, stating at the time that it was going to “put Illinois at the forefront of a national movement to transition to zero-emission vehicle use, advancing our own goals of putting one million of these cars on the road by 2030.”
The Quebec government has invested some $177 million CAD into Lion, and Ottawa has pumped in some $30 million CAD of the $50 million CAD it previously promised.
Jay Traugott has covered the automotive and transportation sector for over a decade and now serves as Senior Editor for Clean Trucking. He holds a drifting license and has driven on some of the world’s best race tracks, including the Nurburgring and Spa. He lives near Boulder, Colorado, and spends his free time snowboarding, climbing, and hiking. He can be reached at [email protected].