Hello, everyone, and welcome to Arrival's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. My name is Megan, and I will be your operator today. Before I hand the call over to the Arrival team, I'd like to go over just a few housekeeping notes for the program. As a reminder, this webinar is being recorded. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.
Thank you for your attendance today. I will now turn the call over to Mitesh Sony Investor Relations for Arrival.
Good morning,
and thank you all for joining us today to discuss Arrival's Q1 2021 update. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made on this call today are forward looking statements. These statements are subject to various risks And reflect our current expectations based on our beliefs, assumptions and the information currently available to us. Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statements to reflect changes that occur after this Descriptions of these factors and other risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward looking statements are discussed in more detail in our filings with the SEC. During the call, we also may refer to certain non IFRS financial measures.
This should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our IFRS results. For further information, please refer to our Investor Relations website at investors. Arrivo.com. With that in mind, I'll turn it over to Dennis.
Thank you, Mitjes, and thank you, everyone, for The main message today, our business plan remains unchanged, and we are making great progress towards key milestones. Just to remind, Arrival was founded in 2015 with a vision to revolutionize the electric vehicle space, accelerate the transition to 0 emission vehicles globally And bring clear air to our cities by using unique powerful technologies developed in France. So why Arrival is different to any other automotive company? First of all, we invented radical new methods to design and produce vehicles using micro factories. So we use no stamping, no welding, no paint shop, and this method is protected by patents.
The new method creates best in class EVs with attractive value proposition to fleet operators. Our 0 emission buses, vans and cars I can basically price the force of fuel vehicles and offer up to 50% lower cost of operations. The hardware and software are upgradable. Our composites are lighter and more durable than steel, decreasing maintenance costs and increasing the lifespan of the vehicles itself. Our micro factories are hyperlocal.
They're rapidly scalable with low topics. For example, our van factory is less than 50,000,000 or 10 ks vehicles a year. We are virtually integrated, developing tech and components in house with a very strong IT perspective. Arrival is a low CapEx and high margin business Enabled by hardware, software and NextGen Robotics. We have strong demand and $1,200,000,000 of orders.
We have unique culture And top team of more than 1900 people capable to execute this business plan. And we believe that the purpose of Arrival is to make radical impact. So let's focus on results of Q1. First of all, we successfully completed our merger and listed our shares on NASDAQ in Q1 as planned. Next very important part of our business are microfactories.
So we made good progress preparing our microfactories. To date, we announced We've started to equip Microfactories in Charlotte, North Carolina Brookfield, South Carolina Vistra in U. K. And We announced the 4th of our factory in Madrid in Spain. Mike will talk about this a bit later today.
In terms of products, we have 4 vehicle design expected Market by the end of 2023, the start of production of buses is scheduled for Q4 2021 as planned. The start of production of vans, both variants, Small and big is planned for second half of twenty twenty two, and the rental car is scheduled for the end of 2023. In terms of our clients, we have orders to date of approximately $1,200,000,000 The largest order is from our strategic partner, EPS, We have committed to purchase up to 10,000 vans with an option to purchase another 10,000 units. Epeit is our long term partner We know the commercial vehicle opportunity is huge with a total rest of the market for commercial vans and buses $430,000,000,000 And we see the commercial segment will move to EV much faster than retail orders. This migration is supported by local state and national government For example, EV infrastructure is a clear priority for the Biden administration, who just this past month announced SEK 174,000,000,000 plan to ignite the adoption of EV We have advanced our work on vehicles production and digital platforms to begin customer public rollout trials later this year.
This includes bus trial in this autumn with First Bus, one of the U. K. Largest transport operator, Who recently announced their commitment to purchase non diesel buses after 2022 and operate a fully zero emission fleet by 2031. And I'm pleased to announce our exciting partnership with Uber. We're designing an Arrival car for the ride getting together, Which we expect to take into production in the end of 2023.
Why is it important? Market today is 30,000,000 ride hailing vehicles worldwide.
Now, Uber has already committed to all of its drivers' cars in London being fully electric by 2025. Well, that's working with the British electric van maker Arrival to create
We have a strong team in place, including our newly established Board of Directors, This was an overview. Let me now turn the floor over to Avinash, our President,
Thanks, Dennis. In Q1, we continued to execute on our business plan and we are experiencing strong momentum. We are encouraged by our sales pipeline With non binding letters of intent increasing in Q1, both year over year and sequentially for both our bus and van platforms, And we have trials starting with these key customers later this year. Once those trials begin, we expect those letters of intent to fully executed contracts before the start of production. Over the course of Q1, we've increased conversations with global governments, cities and customers Across territories regarding both vehicles and microfactories, Arrival's localized microfactories and electric vehicle price point Provides us a strategic advantage through enabling simultaneous conversations with multiple cities globally, while covering both sales and production.
In Q1, we also signed multiple letters of intent with service network partners and made significant progress on our internal tools To support our vehicles once they go into service with our customers fleet. As Dennis mentioned, we expect to have 4 vehicle programs in market by the end of 2023 And I have made significant progress in the quarter towards that call. We have found that we can increase commonality even further between the van and large van and in order to drive these efficiencies, We have retargeted the large van production to Q4 2022. The Arrival bus program is currently building prototypes that will go into validation and testing in advance of certification before production begins in Q4. It is also producing vehicles in readiness for public road trials in the UK with the 1st bus This fall, sales conversations have gained momentum and further discussions regarding trials are in progress, with GOLs being a precursor to placing an order for this sector.
The Arrival van program is also in the process of building vehicles for testing and validation and also for trials beginning this summer, including vehicles for UPS and other key customers who have signed letters of intent. UPS recently experienced their first Vito vehicle for user testing in their London depot And are looking forward to deploying them into service at multiple locations later this year. This month, we were excited to announce our plans for the small vehicle platform that we previously announced. This is the Arrival car and is expected to go into production by the end of 2023. The Arrival car will be a purpose built vehicle for the ride hailing industry, which has over 30,000,000 global drivers Needing to transition to electric to adhere to increasing city regulations.
This is a crucial step for the ride hailing industry to reduce its environmental impact And for drivers as it reduces their total cost of ownership. This is an example of how Arrival's strategy is good for businesses, people and the planner. We are partnered with Uber and its drivers to ensure that it is designed to be the best possible vehicle for this specific use case. The strategic partnership with Uber We'll also evaluate how we can work together to help its transition to electric to meet its goals of being fully electric in the UK and North America by 2,030. We believe that we are perfectly placed to create a vehicle for this sector as so many attributes align with those of a commercial vehicle from affordability to durability to comfort And maximizing functionality.
And because we have already developed our components and materials for our van and bus, we are able to develop the Arrival car In parallel with our other vehicle platforms, we continue to attract top industry talent to Arrival and in Q1 brought on Adrian Neiman as our SVP of brands, Bringing strong experience from over 10 years at Nike and Mitesh Soni, our VP of Investor Relations, who joined us from JPMorgan. Our headcount increased by over 400 in the quarter and we now have over 1900 employees as we scale up our vehicle programs and move towards production. It's important to note that COVID has not had a significant impact on Q1 operations. And as we look forward, we don't anticipate it having a significant impact on our future operations But we are continuously monitoring the situation. Our CEO of Arrival Automotive, Mike Abelson, will now give us an update on our microfactory and supply Mike?
Thanks, Avnash. Arrival's microfactories are a unique approach to vehicle manufacturer and enable the production of best in class vehicles specific for the market at prices competitive with fossil fueled vehicles. Microfactories are low footprint, rapidly scalable and low CapEx as compared to traditional OEM automotive factories. As we continue to order equipment for our first two microfactories, we can confirm that we remain on track to spend less than $50,000,000 in CapEx per factory. Specifically for the Rock Hill Microfactory, we have over 70% of our production machinery delivered or on order.
And for our Vistra Microfactory, we have over We've started to install equipment in our bistro factory that we're using to confirm the results of the production process analyses we've already To this point, our actual results are exactly in line with what we expected. Using the production equipment, we've already completed assembly of the van chassis Structure and operation required fitting multiple parts and joining them together with both adhesives and a variety of mechanical fasteners. We've also begun producing composite panels at Bistr using production equipment and raw material from our production supplier. In addition to our 1st bus micro factory in Rock Hill, South Carolina, we've also recently announced our 1st U. S.
Van micro factory in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Charlotte Micro Factory will build vehicles on both our van and large van platforms as vehicles on both platforms are intended to be part of the UPS order. Similar to our Vistra U. K. Micro factory, the Charlotte micro factory will be capable of producing 10,000 vans per year when operating on 2 ships.
Finally, we're announcing today that we've acquired a location for our 1st European Van Microfactory in Madrid, Spain. We're still in the process Determining a starter production date for this facility. On supply chains, we continue to work with our suppliers to ensure the supply of components and raw materials as we approach As one example, we have worked with LG Energy Solution for a number of years to supply the battery cells we use to manufacture the Arrival battery modules. We've recently signed a 5 year agreement with LG Energy Solution to supply a quantity of cells more than sufficient for our initial micro factory ramp up. We've also been working with our suppliers to avoid the microchip supply concerns that have surfaced in some parts of the industry.
We've committed supply agreements in place for all the chips Used in our Arrival components through 2022. And because these are Arrival design components, we also have the ability to change the chips Used in a component, if we see that supply of a specific microchip becomes a concern. In summary, the Q1 saw us make good progress towards Our CFO, Tim Umhlbrau will now take you through the financials from Q1.
Thanks, Mike. The financial information we are providing today represents management's expectations of the underlying operational performance of the business During Q1 2021, we expect to provide our full financial results for Q1 when they are available. These Q1 results will include the accounting impact The merger with CIG that was completed on March 25, 2021. The merger raises a number of one off accounting matters, and whilst we're well progressed Finalizing them, they remain subject to completion of the ongoing audit by our external auditors. As such, in this Q1 report, we're presenting management's Expectations in relation to certain financial highlights prior to the inclusion of these merger related items.
For clarity, the items excluded from today's reports include, but are not limited to, The accounting for the CIIG merger itself and any resulting charges from differences between the fair value of Arrival shares and warrants issued and the net assets merged into the group, the accounting for other share exchanges performed in preparation for the merger, the accounting for warrants issued by Arrival at completion And the accounting for 1 off transaction costs borne by Arrival and 1 off executive transaction bonuses. Excluding these CIG merger related items, management Arrival's EBITDA loss for the Q1 of 2021 will be €28,000,000 By comparison, the EBITDA loss in Q1 2020 was €14,000,000 Taking into account the equity settled share option plan costs of €1,000,000 management expects the adjusted EBITDA loss prior to inclusion of merger transaction costs will be €27,000,000 The increase in operational expenditure reflects the increased activity within Arrival across its portfolio of research and development projects and the activity in our Automotive and Elements divisions as we prepare to enter production. This increase can be seen in our average headcount this quarter, which almost doubled year on year to 1714 at the end of Q1 2021. As Avinash mentioned, we now have over 1900 employees.
Administration expenses for Q1 2021, excluding costs directly attributable to the merger transaction, are expected to be €20,000,000 Research and development expenses in the period are expected to be €7,000,000 Although it's worth noting that costs directly attributable to product development will not be recorded in the profit and But rather capitalized as assets under construction. In Q1 2021, €27,000,000 will be capitalized in this way. Cash and Cash equivalents at the end of Q1 2021 were €416,000,000 an increase of €449,000,000 on the balance of December 31, 2020, of €67,000,000 Net cash inflow from the Spaknoyo transaction was €518,000,000 Excluding this funding inflow, Arrival's net cash outflow for Q1 2021 was €68,000,000 Looking forward to the rest of 2021, as Markus said, we're making good progress in the delivery of our first microfactories in the U. K. And U.
As we start equipping these factories ahead of production, we've been able to further validate our business plan assumptions on capital and operational expenditure and on vehicle production volumes. Indications are that all these assumptions are tracking in line with the expectations we set out in our initial business plan last year. And now I'm going to hand back to Avanesh, who will complete the
Thanks, Tim. In conclusion, our business plan remains unchanged, and Thank you all for joining us today. And now we'll go to Q and A.
Your first question comes from Jeff Osborne with Cowen. Jeff, your line is open.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for all the detail on the call. A couple of questions on my end. One, Mike, I think you alluded to it in the comments About the expectations for throughput for the facilities, but can you give us some comments on the robots In your preproduction facility in the UK and level of comfort with the throughput expectations that you originally laid out in the STACK merger deck 1,000 vans or 1,000 buses and 10,000 vans per se.
Happy to do that, Jeff. Thanks for the question. To your point, we designed the facility such that our van micro factories will deliver 10,000 vans when they're operating on 2 shifts and the bus Micro Factory will deliver 1,000 buses when operating on 2 ships. I want to be clear that some of the video that you Saw was production equipment that's now being installed in our actual micro factory in Vistra in the UK. So we have production equipment operating in the production environment.
So it's not just being done in R and D facilities at this point. To get specifically to your question on capacity and throughput, We've done extensive modeling of all of the processes and the systems in the micro factories. So we have very high confidence in that The work that we've done so far with the actual robotic cells in Vistar confirmed that analysis to this point.
It's great to hear. And then maybe a question for Avinash. In your segment, you had talked about letters of intent being up sequentially. A common question we get from investors is the bus market domestically in the U. S.
In particular, where prior to the You didn't have any sort of publicly announced bus backlog relative to the van market. So can you talk about What your level of comfort is of bus demand in North America for that South Carolina facility? I assume a portion of the LOIs are for that.
Yes, you're right. So We have actually seen LOIs come in for the bus as well. So it is for both bus and van. We've had a multiple increase on LOIs Year to date, as I mentioned. And it's actually quite evenly split between the U.
S. And EU. So we're actually seeing, I would say, a significant increase in demand In the bus segment in particular, just to remind everybody that the sales cycle for bus typically is going to be trials first before long form orders. And so we have announced the bus trial in the U. K.
With First Bus, and that's happening in the 4th of this year. But yes, to directly answer your question, we have seen Otherwise come in for our bus in the U. S. In particular, and we're quite comfortable with the demand and therefore the forecast that we've put out today.
Perfect. And 2 other quick ones. 1 on the Madrid side, great to hear. Is that going to be for bus or van or is it still TBD?
That will be for Van, Jeff. It will be our 1st Van micro factory on the continent.
Got it. And then last one back to the bus side and Van In South and North Carolina, where do we stand on sort of the timeframe for Altoona testing for buses and any other Certifications that are needed on the van side so that we can start selling roadworthy vehicles that have all the safety certifications.
So the alternative testing, as you know, is particular to sales to transit agencies in the U. S. That use federal money to purchase buses. And we will be putting One of our very early builds from Rock Hill onto the Altoona test, so that will run beginning very early next year. On the van side, the key certifications are meeting both FMBSS and EU certifications.
We're well along on meeting those, and I don't foresee any difficulties there. Now since you asked about Altoona testing, I also want to emphasize that our sales team in North America is Our sales team in North America is talking to people in Canada and Mexico Outside of the U. S, and obviously any sales there would not require the Altoona certification. So as Avinash said, we're feeling very comfortable about our bus demand in North
Got it. And then just very quickly, Tim, no changes to the modeling in terms of cash burn or CapEx Expectations, it sounds like everything is in track with what you previously disclosed, but I just wanted to confirm.
Yes, that's right. That's right, Jeff. We obviously, we recently announced our
Thanks,
Joe. Your next question comes from Rob at Wolfe. Rob, your line is open.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. In light of your comments, in light of, I guess, rising inflation, you talked about having Line of sight with supplier readiness through 2022, can you give us a sense if there's been any changes in your overarching
I would say, Rob, we have not seen an impact on any of our negotiated pricing with suppliers at this point. Obviously, we can't predict exactly what's going to happen with the inflation rate, but to this point, we haven't seen an impact.
That's helpful. And then just as we're getting closer to the service centers becoming production Can you give us a sense of the status of your suppliers with the components that you're outsourcing in terms of
So I didn't mention it explicitly in the remarks, but at the same time, obviously, we went out and looked at all The chip availability for our in house components, we also surveyed our Tier 1 suppliers as far as their readiness and their Availability and everything looks to be on schedule. Now, I want to mention, Rob, We're operating in much lower volumes than traditional OEMs. So the number of in the case of chips, number of chips we're trying to secure is relatively small, which I have to admit, it's probably one of the reasons we don't see the same difficulties that some of the larger OEMs are seeing.
Yes, that's very clear. And I guess in the early forecast that you had, your bus, which obviously is going to be the first product Coming to market, your pricing is kind of meaningfully below kind of what industry averages are today for the electric bus. Have you guys thought have you made any tweaks to kind of what your go to market strategy is from a BOS perspective, just given Underlying demand and industry pricing dynamics in North America?
We haven't seen anything as far as pricing dynamics in North America that would Our initial approach to pricing here, to your point, we as far as we can tell, we can still Comfortably priced below our competition, our EV competition here in North America.
I just wanted to add a very important point is that, obviously, it's not only our ability To make VAS pricing much better than other players in the market, so I think the major question is why, why is it like this? And the reason for this is because There are a few reasons. One is that we're using quite many components from the dam. So it means that we're taking high volume products and putting them in The buzz, the good example here is that biggest buzz producer today is like probably they're producing 15,000 units a year like a Chinese company. But still for the market when you buy 15,000 motors, it's very small volume, and that's why the prices for those components are very high.
In our case, because we were using components from the van, And as an example, we have 4 motors exactly same as WAN is using in our bus. So this is one of the reasons why our buses are And the other important part is that we're robotically assembling buses as well. So it means that There are not many companies in the world who are assembling buses using robotics, and this is another reason why like we can price our buses better than other
I think we're also very comfortable with the product position in our conversations with operators around the world. We're not comparing apples to apples. When we look at the Arrival bus and Dennis, it's the background there And the technology that's going inside that bus, when you compare it to what's available from many players who are taking Potentially diesel buses and turning those electric, it's just a very strong product proposition with a very attractive price point.
Your next question comes from Brian Johnson at Barclays. Brian, your line is open.
Thank you. A couple of things. First, when you talk about the build out of the first Plant site, Mike, you've mentioned that so far it's tracking the simulation model. So how much what Percent of the assembly line is actually finished. And then when do you think not so much job 1, but kind of the first And validation of the production process should be coming.
Mike, it's so much. I just I would like to Just one way to the important angle is that we need to remind you that like our method of assembly is not the conveyor lines, so it's not operations in sequence. So it means that we don't need to build old factory before we know all the operations. So we have a few cells installed already and commissioned, And those cells are capable to do majority of operations within the vehicle. So it means that, as we said, like our method allows us to
About end to end builds, we intend to be building some of our late stage prototypes of the vans through the Production process that Dennis talked about later this summer, and that will be at Vistra.
Okay. And 2nd question, while I recognize that the subsidies for buses and school buses in the U. S. Is still very much in draft legislation form. What's your thinking on to the extent it's going to be Buy American provisions there?
And then how the South Carolina's North Carolina factories will fit into the potential into that into those Whatever boundaries lawmakers may put on the subsidies.
Yes. So there are to be clear, there are already Buy America requirements in place For transit buses that are purchased using federal money, the requirement is already 70% as content And we will meet those requirements with the Rock Hill assembly plant or micro factory with buses. There is nothing established yet on the van side, but obviously, because we shared so many components between the bus and van as we've established the U. S. Bus supply chain, it gives us the ability to go to a very high level of U.
S. Content on the van side as well For the vehicles we're building in the Charlotte micro factory.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Joseph Spak with RBC Capital Markets. Joseph, your line is open.
I'm sorry. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes. Good.
Thanks. Just some questions on the Uber announcement. 1, I guess, is it exclusive with Uber? Are you allowed to work with other ride sharing companies? And 2, is the vehicle Design that you are working with, with the Burke, also exclusive to VERC, can elements of that design be for other applications?
So on that partnership, the answer to both of those is no. There's no exclusivity with us and Humberto. We are working together on The vehicle design that vehicle design is for a ride sharing vehicle and also we are already in discussions with several other Right now, on the Arrival car platform, so there is no exclusive agreement between us.
Thank you.
And just to add to this point is that you all know that companies like Uber and Uber explicitly announced their plans about electrification. There was a huge push on those type of companies to bring electric vehicles to the cities. And we know that there are not many options actually available For this market, that we already know that just taking the vehicle from like Traditional standard black vehicles were designed especially in the cars. It's not enough to create the right user experience for customers. And they were not designed to operate in these conditions as well.
And it's so far it happened that industry didn't use the vehicle for that market yet. That's the reason why I focus on this. So this is our focus because it's a company we between commercial vehicles and this is the good example where Our technologies and medical assembly using microfactories is enabling this type of scenarios.
Okay. On the micro factories, I know part of the strategy there is to be able to build locally, supply locally. I know you've mentioned a number of times that you can each have around 10 ks capacity on 2 ships. But I guess what I'm curious about is like is If the demand is eventually there, what's the what do you think of like the functional or economically viable area of a given micro
Again, to be clear, our strategy on microfactories is we're going to be expanding the number of microfactories very quickly. And so We'll move briskly, I would say, to add additional microfactories. To your question, The sizing of the microfactory capacity, one way to think about it is we think it's roughly sized so that it could supply a city of 1,000,000 inhabitants Okay. Thank
you. And then the final question is, I know you mentioned van trials this summer. How long are your Customers telling you that they need to really trial these vehicles in the fleet before they have confidence
So the trials encompass several different kinds of trials. There are obviously Trials with drivers that you saw we've already started in the Camden depot outside of London where we get driver feedback. Then there are operational trials where the vehicles will be going out on actual routes later in the year. And then typically, The large commercial fleet operators also have some sort of durability testing that they require, and that varies from company to But we're aware of those testing requirements, and we've got them built into our schedule.
I would also just add On the van, what we see is that that's really just an early part of the process given where we are. Obviously, once the van is in Production and all the certification is done. We expect very short, if not no trials before the batches of the vehicles. On the bus, As we approach new operators, there will consistently be a trial period. And on that, it can be a month, it can be Of course, that's what we're seeing, Safa.
And I think Avinash makes a very important point. As we think about moving to the small and medium enterprises, we think that the fact that We passed all this testing with the large commercial operators. We'll give them the small and medium fleets a lot of confidence to order the vehicles. So it's Just one of the several reasons we've decided to start with the large commercial fleet operators.
Yes, that's a fair point. Thank you very much.
Okay. So I think that was the last question. So We just would like to, before we leave, just reiterate the key points. I think there's a
Arnaud, and before you I think one comment is important is that we actually gave 2 very important numbers on this call today, so which is our Costs which we incurred in Q1 and like our cash use. And I think it's quite important guys to mention that we are like 1900 people organization. And if you just compare like our numbers with like other players in the market, you'll I'm sure that you will see that how efficient we are In the way how we use funds of actually preparing many factories in parallel, but also not one vehicle program, but 4 vehicle programs at the same time.
Which is enable us
to Which actually the secret sauce here is our new method actually, it's technologies The new method of making design and assembling vehicles. So this is actually the first fruits we're getting out of this method, which we Steve will make proof numbers.
Thanks, Dennis. So, Wes, if you can just show the slide. Thank you. So just to reiterate, our business plan remains on track. As Dennis mentioned, we have the 4 vehicles under development in market by We'll have a bus coming later this year and the 2 van variants, the large van and the small and the 4 ton van in second half 2022 and the car in Q3 of 'twenty three.
We have 4 micro factories being built, 2 in the U. S. And 1 in the U. K, and we announced Today in Madrid, we have strong demand with tailwinds. We have obviously the government policies, but also we have private companies' Commitments to transition to being electric.
We announced our Arrival car partnership with Uber and that is a very large market at 30,000,000 units. And we've secured our battery supply from LG Energy Solution. As Dennis also mentioned, we have over 1900 employees. We have the talent resources to execute. And really, this is enabled by our new method and is why we believe Arrival is unique with our micro factories, our vertical integration on hardware, software, Materials, next gen robotics, our unique assembly process and most importantly, our vehicle attributes and price.
So with that, thanks everyone for joining and we'll
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.