Startup plan takes hold at Ind. plant

As far as auto plant sites go, Mishawaka, Ind., has been a popular one over the years.

Not an entirely successful one so far, but a popular one.

Over the years, the Mishawaka site has attracted ventures to build Army trucks, Jeeps, the military-use Humvee, the consumer-market Hummer, the Mercedes-Benz R-Class and a wheelchair-compatible taxi. More recently, it was to make electric vehicles for one startup that subsequently withdrew and now for a different startup, Electric Last Mile Services Inc. of California.

Things are moving fast for the latest resident, known as ELMS.

ELMS plans to invest $300 million in the plant, on the outskirts of South Bend, to produce an electric "urban delivery vehicle" called the UD-1. The project is proposing a production volume of 100,000 vehicles a year. The company reports that it has preorders for 30,000 vans, worth about $1 billion in revenue.

A statement released late last year by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. said ELMS will start production in the third quarter of this year and will hire 960 workers by the end of 2024.

The state committed up to $10 million in conditional tax credits, up to $200,000 in conditional training grants based on the company's job creation plans and another $2.8 million in conditional tax credits based on the company's planned capital investment performance, the statement said.

The plant's future had been in limbo. General Motors had been the site's most promising benefactor of the past 20 years, as it developed what had once been Indiana vehicle maker AM General's Hummer into an entire GM brand with multiple products.

But ensuing Hummer models were manufactured at other GM locations, such as the Hummer H3 in Louisiana. In the maelstrom of bankruptcy, GM killed off the Hummer brand in 2010. Its new plan to revive the Hummer as an electric pickup will rely on a manufacturing site in Detroit.

ELMS snapped up the Mishawaka site after another would-be EV maker tried and retreated.

The earlier venture, SF Motors, was a subsidiary of the Chinese automaker Chongqing Sokon Industry Group. SF Motors acquired the Mishawaka plant in 2017 and committed $160 million to modernize it to manufacture a compact electric vehicle called the SF5.

In 2019, the company changed its name to Seres Automotive, but then it halted the Indiana project , a result of both a declining business outlook for its parent company and the added cost of tariffs on imported Chinese vehicle content.

The ELMS investment is being led by CEO James Taylor.

Taylor is familiar with Mishawaka not only because of his previous job — he also was CEO of Seres Automotive — but because of his job before that: He was CEO of GM's Hummer business.

But this time around, the Mishawaka venture has something new going for it: an independent source of capital. In December, ELMS announced that it was going public through a reverse merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, Forum Merger III Corp.

That move valued ELMS at $1.4 billion and provides the startup with $379 million in gross proceeds, with $155 million coming from two private investors — BNP Paribas Asset Management Energy Transition Fund and Jennison Associates.

"This industry promises rewards to first movers who can deliver value-driven solutions," Taylor said in a press release issued at the time of the merger. "ELMS is jumping the curve with proven technology and a production advantage, and this merger with Forum further accelerates our go-to-market plan."