Equipment

Arrival snags more funding, targets late ’24 Charlotte production start

March 14, 2023

But the company's leaders still need to raise at least $100 million this year to keep their U.S. delivery van manufacturing plans on track.

Geert De Lombaerde

Executives with struggling electric vehicle manufacturer Arrival have secured an equity financing line they say will be “a backstop” as they look to raise $500 million to start production of a Class 4 delivery van for the U.S. market.

Word of Arrival’s share purchase agreement with New York-based investment firm Westwood Capital Group provides for the latter to periodically buy shares up to a total of $300 million, which is more than double Arrival’s current market value. But speaking to analysts and investors on March 13, CFO John Wozniak said the Arrival team is taking “a very conservative view” of how much it will lean on Westwood.

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On the production side, the Arrival team is focused on the company's L Van, which is being built at its England factory and is smaller than the one leaders hope to build in Charlotte starting late next year. That XL Van would focus on the U.S. last-mile market segment but will be similar to the L model in its design and construction process. The Arrival team plans to build and test 10 L vans this year as a platform to further develop the XL, which is expected to sell for more than $100,000.

Contingent on that development is more successful capital raising for Arrival, which has heavily pruned its ambitions in the past year, stopping work on its buses and slashing production and sales targets while turning over a portion of its C-suite. Of the $500 million total needed to launch production in Charlotte by the end of next year, Wozniak said about $200 million will be needed for prototyping, finishing the company’s plant, and investing in hard tooling. He added that Arrival needs to raise between $100 million and $150 million this year to keep the XL program on track.

For more on this story, visit FleetOwner affiliate IndustryWeek.

About the Author

Geert De Lombaerde | Senior Editor

A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of experience in business journalism. Since 2021, he has written about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications FleetOwner, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, Oil & Gas Journal, and T&D World.

With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector and many of its publicly traded companies.