Electric Last Mile Solutions (Detailed)
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Electric Last Mile Solutions (ELMS) was a Troy, Michigan commercial electric vehicle company founded in 2020 by James Taylor (former head of the Hummer brand) and Jason Luo (former CEO of Ford China). It designed, engineered, and manufactured electric delivery and utility vehicles — the Class 1 Urban Delivery van and the Class 3 Urban Utility vehicle — aiming to be the first provider of Class 1 electric vehicles in the US market. It operated a 675,000-square-foot production facility in a former GM plant in Mishawaka, Indiana, employed over 200 people, and went public on Nasdaq in June 2021 via a SPAC merger with Forum Merger III Corp., netting about $379 million.
02 / Electric Last Mile Solutions (Detailed) FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
ELMS collapsed under a compound crisis of governance, financial-reporting, and funding failures. In February 2022, founders James Taylor and Jason Luo resigned after a board investigation found they had purchased heavily discounted company shares just before the SPAC merger announcement; a week later auditor BDO quit, leaving the company unable to file its 2021 annual report or 2022 quarterly reports and non-compliant with Nasdaq listing rules. The SEC opened an investigation in March 2022. The company cut 24% of its workforce, its shares fell 93% in early 2022, and supply-chain issues delayed vehicle production. As ELMS itself stated, the compound effect of these events made it extremely challenging to secure a new auditor and attract additional funding — leaving Chapter 7 liquidation as the only option.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Liquidation
Electric Last Mile Solutions filed for bankruptcy liquidation in June 2022; substantially all assets were subsequently sold to Mullen Automotive.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
On June 12, 2022, ELMS announced it would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after a review of its products and commercialization plans found no better option for stockholders and creditors; it filed on June 14, 2022.
- 02
Interim CEO Shauna McIntyre said the compound effect of the founder resignations, auditor loss, and SEC investigation made it impossible to secure a new auditor or additional funding.
- 03
In November 2022, substantially all of ELMS's assets were sold to Mullen Automotive for more than $100 million through a Section 363 sale in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.