Electric Last Mile Solutions Inc (ELMSQ)

[value1008]

An update article from Detroit Free Press-- here's the final section:

"[ELMS spokesperson Austin] Stowe said the company is continuing to run "business as usual." Its small Urban Delivery electric van started production in September at the former Hummer plant in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Stowe said ELMS has completed testing of the van and is finalizing calibration and quality checks before those hit public roads shortly."


https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2022/02/09/former-gm-executive-resigns-ev-startup-amid-investigation/6706728001/

Former GM executive resigns from EV startup amid investigation
Jamie L. LaReau
Detroit Free Press

A former General Motors executive is out and a onetime Ford Motor Co. leader is in — after a management shakeup at a Troy-based electric vehicle startup.


The ELMS cargo van is the first Class 1 commercial EV in the United States and is being built at the old Hummer H2 plant in Mishawaka, Indiana.

Electric Last Mile Solution (ELMS), which makes battery-powered delivery vehicles, said its top two executives resigned Feb. 1 after an investigation into their share purchases.

Jim Taylor, 65, resigned as CEO of ELMS, and Jason Luo resigned as chairman.

Jim Taylor, the CEO and President of Electric Last Mile Solutions (ELMS) in Troy rolling off the production line of an electric vehicle cargo van being built at the old Hummer H2 plant in Mishawaka, Indiana. Taylor is the former head of Cadillac and former CEO of Hummer who left General Motors in the mid-2000s to launch various start-ups. The ELMS cargo van is the first Class 1 commercial EV in the United States.
Taylor, an entrepreneur who has a colorful history with EV startups, was the subject of a Free Press profile in November about how he started ELMS.

Taylor spent the bulk of his career at GM. He started there in 1980 in Canada, and eventually made it to vehicle line executive for Cadillac in 1995. In 2005, he was promoted to president of Cadillac, then named CEO of Hummer in 2008. He stayed until Hummer was shuttered in 2010 amid GM's bankruptcy restructuring.

Luo was the former CEO of Ford Great China in 2017-18 before going into private equity. Luo declined to comment.

In a Securities and Exchange filing, ELMS said a special committee of the board conducted an investigation that found, shortly before it announced an agreement to go public in December 2020, that some executives, including Taylor and Luo, bought equity at "substantial discounts to market value" without obtaining an independent valuation, meaning there was no third-party appraisal of the equity's market value.

Taylor declined a request for an interview saying he could not speak to the news media.

Both Taylor and Luo remain as consultants to ELMS. The filing listed Taylor will receive $300,000 in the role as consultant; it did not list Luo's salary.

ELMS said former Ford alum Shauna McIntyre, 50, has been named interim CEO of ELMS. McIntyre, who was on ELMS board, is a former chief of staff at Google's consumer electronics division.

She worked at Ford for five years, starting in 1995. There, she "instituted lean manufacturing principles in factories overseas, and later led final assembly production of the Ford Ranger" stateside, said ELMS spokesman Austin Stowe.

Former Intel chief Brian Krzanich was named ELMS non-executive chairman.

"Brian, the full Board and I want to assure all of our stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, investors and employees, of our continued focus and dedication to the company’s ongoing business and mission," McIntyre said in a statement.

In the filing, ELMS also said it will have to restate its financial statements as of Dec. 31, 2020, and the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2021, as part of the investigation.

Shauna McIntyre has been named interim CEO of Electric Last Mile Solution
But Stowe said the company is continuing to run "business as usual." Its small Urban Delivery electric van started production in September at the former Hummer plant in Mishawaka, Indiana.

Stowe said ELMS has completed testing of the van and is finalizing calibration and quality checks before those hit public roads shortly.

ELMS has plans for a larger Urban Utility electric delivery truck, which is on track to launch later this year, Stowe said.