Earnings Sentiment

Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.

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Sentiment Distribution

   

Earnings Call Transcript Word Cloud

     

Bullish Statements during Earnings call

Statement
On the chassis side, supply has improved materially and we have sufficient supply to meet our revenue guidance
While the sales ramp may take time, initial customer reaction is extremely positive, and over a wide range of real world use cases
So we are benefiting as you look forward and look at our guidance from significant improvements in volumes, which significantly improves how we allocate or allocation cost per vehicle of overhead and fixed assets
We ramped production of our ZEV4 platform vehicles in Q2 and I'm pleased to say that customer response has been very positive and customers are already responding with repeat orders
And just lastly, with the volumes, unit volumes picking up in the second half, should we expect to see gross margin inflect positively? David Agatston Wouldn't expect to get to positive gross margin this year, we think it'd be first half of next year, but we would certainly expect to see gross margin improve as we migrate more towards the ZEV4, which has higher ASPs and slightly a better gross margin than we have on our ZEV3s
The mobile fast charger is a one of a kind product with an attractive sales price
So we do continue to see and are very optimistic about the -- where we see the costs going and we can see it firsthand
First, Q2 was a strong quarter, with the second highest quarterly revenue in our company's history
And our commitment remains stronger than ever to continue that multi source strategy
Lightning's current ZEV3 passenger van is the only electric passenger van in the market in North America today for Class 2 or 3 and we expect our new ZEV3 eChassis will allow us to continue our leadership in the medium duty passenger van segment
With real products and customer success stories, we are positioned nicely in the marketplace where many of our competitors are still in their prototype development and testing phase years behind us on real world experience
With that behind us, I'm pleased with the solid order book we’ve built for our ZEV4 school bus and shuttle bus vehicles
We are pleased that despite extremely challenging market conditions we have options
We continued to see good demand on our ZEV3 product as well
As we make progress on our new platforms as the government incentives and mandates gain further traction and as customer adoption grows, I see a bright future for commercial electric vehicles and for Lightning eMotors
We will continue exploring new products and new vehicle partnerships that have strong growth potential in 2024 and beyond
So yes, there are margin improvement opportunities from us in cases where we do use CATL instead of Proterra
I'm pleased to report that we have delivered the first customer units in Q2
As Tim mentioned, we successfully ramped up ZEV4 production in Q2 and customer feedback has been positive so far
We're considering all structural and strategic options available to us to maximize liquidity and returns to stakeholders and hope to have a positive outcome from this process by year end
So that's one of the cases that the volume is improving
For the second quarter, we generated GAAP revenue of $7.9 million, our second highest revenue quarter ever, driven by the initial success of our recently launched ZEV4 school bus product and continued sales of our ZEV3 inventory
I remain optimistic about the outlook for Lightning eMotors as we continue to execute our strategic and operating plans
We expect to draw down on our inventory over the course of the next several quarters, which will help improve our cash flow
These are real products on the road with customers today and we continue to receive repeat orders from an expanding customer base
So that's going very well as well
They both will provide improved range and payload versus our current ZEV3 and ZEV4 vehicles
We've now deployed over 600 zero emission commercial vehicles, that have accumulated an impressive 4.9 million miles on the road, a number growing rapidly every week
The dynamics of the battery supplier landscape over the last few years led us to adopt a multi-source strategy and that will serve us well given the most recent news from Proterra
I would think the good news is, they're both higher than Q1 and Q2
       

Bearish Statements during earnings call

Statement
And so, since that really early on, we've maintained multiple battery sources for and frankly, we've had lots of challenges with those sources along the way with different battery suppliers struggling to deliver, struggling with quality, different battery suppliers struggling with availability, some going out of business
We have reduced the top end of our annual revenue guidance from $50 million to $45 million and also lowered the top end of the unit sale range accordingly
We also lowered the unit production range to reflect both the change to a build to order model and because we still have a material amount of finished goods inventory available to sell to meet our revenue guidance
While we will likely receive additional firm orders during the second half of this year, that could have allowed us to hit the original top end of guidance we may not be able to obtain the inventory needed to complete those builds in time to book revenue in 2023
We reduced the top end of the revenue and unit sales to reflect a change made to conserve cash
But inconsistently lead times and timing of deliveries can still impact quarterly revenue and result in temporary inventory spikes like we saw in Q2
I think it still remains challenging
You'll recall that our prior two quarters were constrained by issues related to the recall of Romeo batteries
The adjusted EBITDA loss for the first quarter was $17.1 million compared to a $13.9 million loss in the prior year period
Our team has managed through more challenges than I care to list over the past two years
And that mix -- but how that flows, I mean is a little unclear at this point
So we do -- we feel good about it, but certainly, we know we have to remain vigilant and we're going to have to continue to have multi source options to succeed
One of them is, are we selling through inventory that was made in the past, so it may not have taken advantage of some of those cost reductions
Timothy Reeser End motors, so we've got both, batteries and motors coming down in cost significantly too over the next couple of years
The change is primarily related to a larger gross loss on higher cost of revenues
And, so far it hasn't resulted in any canceled deals or lost orders
But I think because we will be able to come to the plate with another battery option available that can go into production right away, not in two years, I'm assuming the impact will be minimal for us versus another OEM where the only battery they had vetted was that specific battery where there's a bit of a risk now
And then as you point out, we've reduced, for example, labor cost per vehicle has gone down and continues to go down
We decided after lots of challenges, five years ago that we had to have a dual source plan
So we do, I think on the other side of multi-source, we've maintained a lot of inventory and obviously that's been a tough drain on cash, but it’s paying off at this point in the sense that we have inventory to build these next two quarters, and that's been huge as well
   

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