Monarch Tractors won’t be built by Foxconn after Ohio factory sale

Monarch Tractor, a California-based electric tractor startup, will no longer have its vehicles manufactured by Foxconn following the Taiwanese company's sale of its Ohio factory to SoftBank. Monarch CEO Praveen Penmesta confirmed that the startup had collaborated with Foxconn to build sufficient inventory and spare parts to meet customer demand for the next 12 months. Penmesta also indicated that Monarch plans to announce new manufacturing partnerships soon to continue producing Monarch-enabled products. The Ohio factory, previously acquired by Foxconn from EV startup Lordstown Motors in 2022, was intended to become a major electric vehicle manufacturing and R&D hub in North America. However, Foxconn’s efforts to establish a contract manufacturing operation for electric vehicles at the plant largely failed. Monarch was one of four companies Foxconn promoted as customers, but only a few hundred tractors were produced before Monarch faced financial struggles and layoffs. The other three prospective customers—Lordstown Motors, Fisker Inc., and IndiEV—have all since gone bankrupt or