Montreal-based Lion Electric to lay off 300 more employees as bus company scales back production

Lion Electric Co. says it is laying off hundreds more workers as part of a plan to staunch its financial losses.

The electric bus company says some 300 employees will be let go in the coming days in a 30 per cent cut to its workforce. It expects most of the layoffs to be temporary.

Lion Electric previously laid off about 220 employees in a pair of announcements in February and April.

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The Montreal-based company says the layoffs are part of a plan to better align its costs with current demand. The plan also involves ramping down production of electric trucks, creating a new product line to sell its battery packs to third parties and potentially leasing out a big chunk of its plant in Joliet, Ill.

The announcement comes as the company reported net losses that ballooned 63 per cent to US$19.3 million in the second quarter and a 48 per cent drop in revenue to US$30.3 million compared with the year before.

In the three months ended June 30, Lion Electric says it delivered 101 vehicles — a drop of nearly 50 per cent year-over-year — and a diluted loss of nine cents per share versus a loss of five cents per share a year earlier, beating analysts expectations.