MarketsAug 11, 2021
Arrival stock: The electric bus maker stands to benefit from Biden’s infrastructure bill
Clean Transportation
Kevin Roche
Discover
With the current bus infrastructure looking as durable as a cardboard box, it’s safe to say it’s in need of an overhaul.
Arrival, the UK-based commercial EV company developing electric buses, recently went public via SPAC. And the transportation industry is knocking at its door.
As more of the 10b public transportation trips made by Americans each year become electric, the $62b commercial EV market is expected to grow 17% annually – and Arrival plans to capitalize on that growth with its artificial-intelligence-packed “Microfactories”:
Biden’s incoming infrastructure bill proposes $39b to modernize public transit – including replacing bus fleets with zero-emissions models. For Arrival, which just partnered with the City of Anaheim to start production on California’s first fleet of electric buses, that’s electrifying news.
Riding high after raising ~$660m from its SPAC deal, Arrival plans to grow from 2 factories to over 30 by 2024. And Arrival’s financials tell a story of a pre-revenue company gearing up for a whole lot of orders.
The company has over $1.2b in orders lined up with some big names in transportation:
Arrival burned through $101m in 2020 and is expected to burn a whole lot more as it prepares to roll out its first vehicles later this year..
At this point, investors might be ready to write off EV companies – with its recent lackluster track record:
From the sheer number of orders to fill, Arrival looks like the real deal in a sea of frauds. But time will tell and with its first vehicles slated for production by the end of the year, investors will soon find out how legit Arrival really is.
