Changes are expected to come to the Lordstown Foxconn facility after plans for a $26 million investment was announced.

A TaiwanPlus news said the investment is for an Electric Vehicle subsidiary in Ohio, but did not specify the reason for the investment.

The news outlet said “Foxconn said it would also allocate over 26 million US dollars for its electric vehicle subsidiary based in the U.S. State of Ohio.”

The Lordstown plant is the only Foxconn location in the state.

This investment into the Ohio EV plant comes at a time where tariffs are creating uncertainty for oversea automakers.

“The long term stability of producing things in the U.S, and knowing that cost structures are not going to shift on you because of any kind of political or global geopolitical issues, that’s very helpful and really an advantage that a lot of companies are going to start looking for,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst for Iseecars.com.

Brauer told 21 News because of the uncertainty caused by tariffs, many automakers are looking at investing in the country.

“If you have a U.S. Based automotive production plant, it is more valuable today than it was 6 months or a year ago. And a company like Foxconn wants to make it clear, I think to the world at large that look, we got this plant, we're willing to invest in this plant. We are open for business,” said Brauer.

So, what could this bring to Lordstown? Because of the Foxconn footprint in other technology, Brauer said a shift to something like Artificial Intelligence is possible. 

“There is so much activity and investment going on in artificial intelligence right now, and they might use part of that plant for automotive production, but they can quickly switch it to some other form of technology like AI,” said Brauer.

Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of market Research at Telemetry, said while this is possible, it's more likely to be an expansion of their EV services.

“It's probably more along the lines of either working with one of their previous partners, which at this point would be Monarch, Monarch Tractor, or perhaps there's somebody else that wants them to produce some components in Lordstown,” said Abuelsamid. “If they were really ramping up to dramatically increase EV production in Lordstown, they would probably be spending significantly more than just $26 million.”

One valley leader showed optimism towards the investment.

21 News was sent the following statement by Guy Coviello, president & CEO, Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber

 “We certainly welcome any sort of additional investment from Foxconn, which has already invested a half billion dollars into the Lordstown facility since acquiring it in 2022 and we continue to have high expectations for Foxconn to return the plant to its automaking glory. The news report that the company plans to invest $26 million into electric vehicle operations in Ohio is a sign of good things to come.”

21 News reached out to Foxconn multiple times to ask about the investment, but did not get a response.