The Lion Electric Company (NYSE:LEV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 5 of 14

Nicolas Brunet: Yes, I’d say, Chris, we continue to feel good about the unit level economics. Obviously, we’re investing in scaling up right now, and that leads to some drag on the gross margin. As we continue to scale up, we think we’re going to improve the gross margins and eventually — the EBITDA as well. But I won’t provide a specific timing or number at this time.

Christopher Souther: Okay, thanks.

Marc Bedard: Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from George Gianarikas with Canaccord Genuity. George, please go ahead.

George Gianarikas: Hi, good morning and thank you for taking my questions. I’d like to ask a little bit about this, the EPA program and obviously, we’re very close to orders being concrete manifesting themselves materially and potentially in your order book. Could you help guide us understand a little bit of what your market share expectations are in terms of conversion?

Marc Bedard: Well look, I mean, we’re going after all of the markets here. There’s a clear list of all the applicants, and it’s clear to us which ones are free agents. There are some areas where you see we’re having more success in certain regions. But the idea for us is to focus on the regions with critical mass and where we’re ready to deploy it. So unfortunately, I can’t point a specific targeted market share, but we’ve already started delivering some units. We’ve secured 190 purchase orders so far. And as I mentioned before, we think we have good momentum with the free agent. So we’re looking to get as much as we can.

George Gianarikas: Okay. And then switching to the commercial side. I’d like to ask a little bit about conversion there as well because the inflation reduction and incentives are out. I believe that many of your offerings are eligible. When do you expect momentum to turn there and to start manifesting itself in orders on your order book because I feel I understand the TCO argument is very compelling, the incentives are very compelling, but when do you think we’d start to see momentum in the P&L? Thank you.

Nicolas Brunet: Yes, as Marc mentioned we’re getting good traction in the discussions. And I’d say that’s both discussions with the — some fleet operators that are trying the units and are looking to eventually convert the full fleet as well as with some larger names that are thinking quite big. And there were a number of parties we were speaking with a few years ago that were very enthused. And in the last couple of years, the dialogues slowed down and we’re seeing that come back in the recent months. And so it’s quite promising. I think what’s interesting about the IRA $40,000 tax credit is that it applies really broadly. And so either on its own or in combination with other programs, it’s just something that helps scale quite a bit because of how broad the program is. And so we certainly expect to get momentum in the truck space this year. And what we want to announce there is the purchase orders and so obviously, stay tuned for that.

Marc Bedard: And George, yes, also this is on the U.S. side. And this $40,000 obviously in a way is helping us move the needle. But if you take a look also on the Canadian side, there are many programs out there like the and also the one that we have in Quebec. And those are making — well, those will make, in our opinion, we feel a big difference as well. So there are that type of money right now. But there’s also some other programs on the U.S. side as well like HVIP program. So there’s like local money in many places. And this is where we feel like that’s what we’re doing, like the Lion ecosystem with the Lion Grand, it’s really easy because it’s not easy to manage through all the money available right now. And this is one thing that we feel we’re doing well with our customers.

Page 5 of 14