Following the news of the Arrival Bus achieving EWVTA certification in last week’s News – with Van certification expected to follow in the next quarter – the electric vehicle manufacturer has published its financial results for the first quarter of 2022.
“Our ambition is to create better electric vehicles people love to use and our vision is becoming a reality with the Arrival zero-emission Bus being our first product to achieve certification, a critical milestone for our Bus to be driven on public roads with passengers,” said Denis Sverdlov, Arrival founder and CEO.
“This is a significant achievement for our company. As our technologies and components are shared it contributes to all future vehicle programs which is one of the many benefits of our vertically integrated approach. I am also very pleased to announce we have already passed over 70% of our Van certification tests and made strong progress on our microfactories with our cabin, hoop and skateboard all assembled using our advanced robotics platform. Customers want our products and our Letters of Interest continue to grow. With the great progress on certification we are pushing forward towards Start of Production in Q3.”
Private road trials of the new bus with First Bus drivers in progress, and public road trials are planned to start in Q3 of this year. The final prototype Van build is also complete with vehicle testing commencing on public roads; production is expected to start in Bicester in the autumn, and towards the end of the year at the firm’s USA plant in Charlotte.
From the first quarter of 2022 the company has changed its reporting currency from Euros to US dollars. It reported a loss for the period of $10.4 million, compared to a loss for the period of $1,151.0 million in the first quarter of 2021 (including a $1.2 billion non-cash charge associated with the merger of Arrival and CIIG). Administrative expenses were stated as $54.2 million and non-capitalised R&D expenses $27.7 million, compared to administrative expenses of $43.4 million and non-capitalised R&D expenses of $11.5 million in the first quarter of last year.
Capital expenditure for the period, including tangible and intangible purchases, of $99.1 million, compared to $49.8 million in the first quarter of 2021, whilst the company held cash and cash equivalents of $735 million as of 31 March.
Arrival said it continues to expect a full year loss of $185-225 million, assuming the start of production in Bicester in Q3 and in Charlotte in Q4 as planned, and total production of 400-600 vans plus low volume production of buses in the UK starting in the second half of the year. The company said it expects to end the year with between $150 million and $250 million of cash.
