Cepton, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPTN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Hull Xu: And the communication we have been getting from GM is really these few months of delay based on basically their release and there is no discussion on the further vehicle platforms one way or the other.

Matthew Galinko: Got it. Okay. I guess, two quick follow-ups. One being, I guess, past the automotive decision that you expect between now and the end of the year. Are there any other programs that you’re far along in that you expect to be decided in 2024? Or is that sort of the end of the decisioning process for the time being?

Mitch Hourtienne: Yes, this is Mitch. There’s 1 other major opportunity we’ve been working on major European trucking OEM. That’s for our short-range lidar called Nova. And we’re in the final phase of that RFQ and expect a decision before the end of the year.

Matthew Galinko: Okay. But for just automotive, the non-truck in 2024, that’s pretty much all you’re able to talk about today?

Mitch Hourtienne: Okay. You’re asking other automotive long-range lidar sourcing in 2024.

Matthew Galinko: Yes.

Mitch Hourtienne: Yes. There’s always OEMs in the pipeline. There’s some in the RFI phase right now. I don’t think there’s anything as immediate as the couple we talked about today but there will be additional sourcings next year, for sure.

Matthew Galinko: Got it. All right. And last question for me is just on the smart infrastructure opportunities. It sounds like you’re building off that base and expanding out with it. Can you give us a maybe preliminary sense of what you have in the pipeline, what that means at the maybe baseline looking out to 2024, just given delays on the automotive side. And I assume you’re not really in a place to talk about that side of the business at this point. But on the infrastructure side, can you give us kind of a preview of what we should expect for 2024.

Mitch Hourtienne: I think 1 comment I can make is we talked about our tolling customer that we landed earlier in 2023, a multimillion-dollar contract that we’ve been fulfilling this year. Today, we updated, we have another major customer in the tolling space. We see the airport — we’re offering more details on the airport installations. I’ll just say the size of the contracts are all in that multimillion dollar range and we expect to be fulfilling multiple contracts in 2024, whereas we just basically filled 1 major contract in 2023.

Operator: The next question comes from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum.

Richard Shannon: Jumped on the call late here, so during the Q&A. And I want to follow up on an answer that I don’t think I heard the question very clearly sorry if I’m repeating this but I think you talked about an award here and I think it’s referring to the 1 you listed on the front page of your press release here about final sourcing decisions for another major vehicle OEM award. Is that the 1 that you’re referring to when you said it’s perhaps a bigger size of initial start of ramp than your current one? And is that the 1 you expect to be decided before the end of this calendar year?

Mitch Hourtienne: Richard, this is Mitch. Yes, you’re exactly right. That’s the one we were talking about.

Richard Shannon: Okay. And are you aware of whether you are the only one at this stage or there’s still competition present?

Mitch Hourtienne: I can’t comment on if there are others, we know it’s down to the final stage. We’ve been in this process for 6 months now. So at this stage, there’s likely no more than 1 or 2 company.

Richard Shannon: Okay. Fair enough. And I want to follow up on the industry dynamic here in terms of software integration on the broader sensor suite, including lidar that seems to be presenting some issues across the industry. I’m wondering if you’re seeing any further signs of that and have those issues that have come up here, those generally been solved? And are you seeing any delays in sourcing decisions because of this dynamic?