EV Companies Went Public With Big Plans. They’re Quickly Hitting Snags.

Over the past year, the stock market has been deluged with newly public electric-vehicle startups that raised money by pitching plans for rapid growth.

Months into their lives on the public markets, a set of these companies are missing targets, adding costs and, in one case, upending major parts of a business model.

On Monday, aspiring electric car and truck maker Canoo Inc. told investors it was abandoning or scaling back numerous key aspects of the strategy laid out when it raised $630 million last year. On Tuesday, five-year-old electric-vehicle battery maker Romeo Power Inc. said it expected that revenue for the year would be no more than $40 million. That is far shy of the $140 million projected when it raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors last year.

Lordstown Motors Corp. disclosed in mid-March that its capital expenses through the end of 2022 would be more than double the amount projected last year when the electric-pickup-truck startup raised $780 million from investors.

A fourth, electric-vehicle company XL Fleet Corp. , said Wednesday it was facing problems because of the “ongoing impacts” of Covid-19 on the truck market and wouldn’t provide formal guidance about its 2021 revenue. The company previously told investors it expected 2021 revenue to more than triple to $75 million; its first-quarter revenue is expected to be $1 million, flat from the year before.