The leaders of electric vehicle manufacturer Arrival said March 2 they expect to sell between 400 and 600 vans this year–deliveries that will mark the company’s first product revenues–and announced that their order backlog more than doubled in the fourth quarter to 134,000.
While previewing their preliminary fourth-quarter results, Arrival’s executives also said they now plan to build their initial set of buses only in the United Kingdom, where transportation company First Bus has submitted government funding requests that would bring nearly 200 buses into its fleet. The company’s vans will still be made both in the U.K., starting in the third quarter, as well as in Charlotte, North Carolina, where production is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter.
“We are confident we will launch production utilizing our unique proprietary production process, software, hardware and robotics to meet demand and capture a significant share of [the] total addressable market,” Arrival’s founder and CEO Denis Sverdlov said in a statement. “2022 is an important year in this journey as we begin production of our bus and van and delivery of these vehicles to our customers.”
At the end of 2021’s third quarter, Arrival had secured about 64,000 non-binding orders and letters of intent. Of the 134,000 vehicles that are now in their backlog, 92% are for vans and 64% are from customers in the Americas.
Mike Ableson, Arrival’s CEO of automotive division, said the company has run into some delays securing some parts and equipment but added that those haven’t yet materially affected production timelines. On a conference call with analysts and investors, Sverdlov said the company’s microfactories approach is helping it adjust to supply chain kinks and be more flexible than its peers.
The Arrival team will announce the company’s full results next month but said it expects to post a fourth-quarter loss of $42 million to $52 million. Adjusted EBITDA losses are forecast to have been $56 million to $66 million in Q4 and about $180 million for the full year. The company spent about $320 million on capital projects in 2021 and its leaders are forecasting capex will grow to between $380 million and $420 million this year.
Shares of Arrival (Ticker: ARVL) were up 6% in afternoon trading on March 2. Over the past six months, they have lost about 70% of their value, trimming the company’s market capitalization to about $2 billion.
