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

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But many of those programs, I mean, just started to apply. So — well, we spoke about the EPA obviously on the SCUBA side, been waiting for a couple of years, and now we’ll see the result of that. But we feel the same thing on the truck side as well. So there are some subsidies that just came available to the customers. So some of that, let’s say, new money is something new for the operators, but we’re very up-to-date on all of that and we’re helping them. But we feel that’s obviously going to help because the upfront cost is always a challenge. I mean, when you’re selling electric vehicles, I mean, that’s part of the challenge, and that’s one of the reason we have this agreement with Mitsubishi and NGS as well because we feel that they can — they need to finance their product.

And this Lion Capital Solutions we feel will really help us move the needle as well.

George Gianarikas: So it sounds to me like you’re saying that some of the bottlenecks are really Red Tape as opposed to anything else at this point in time just because the programs are new and people are still working through the math and the paperwork, so to speak.

Marc Bedard: Well, there’s — yes, there’s a little bit of that, but there’s also — I mean that’s a change. I mean, we’ve always said it, and we can see the difference between the truck business and the bus business right now. We started selling the buses in 2016 and now when we’re selling buses, I mean, question back then is that is this reliable, is it possible to make a living I mean, with those products, with those vehicles. And now, I mean that question, I mean, doesn’t exist anymore. And the people, in most of the regions now, they’re going full electric. We feel the same thing will happen on the truck side, but that will not happen like just tomorrow. I mean those truck operators, they’re making the calculation with us.

They’re training the product, and we feel that they will be purchasing a, let’s say, modest number of units to start with, a little bit like we saw on the school bus side. And after that, I mean, they will go with big orders but this is what we’re doing now with the truck operators. And obviously, this money that we can use to lower the upfront cost is really going to help. I mean it’s helping the TCO, it’s helping them with everything, it’s helping them making those decisions, yes.

George Gianarikas: Thank you.

Marc Bedard: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Kevin Chiang with CIBC. Please go ahead, Kevin.

Kevin Chiang: Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe you could speak to how you’re ramping up labor here. You’ve provided great color on where Joliet is going to be and where the factor is going to be in terms of production capabilities. I guess how is your ability to find headcount here in order to match your production targets, I guess, over the next couple of years here? And maybe if you could also comment on what turnover looks like today maybe versus a couple of years ago within your current facilities?

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