 the future what's up money geeks mr v here welcome to another video guys so into this video we are going to take it on the road guys we are going to go out and talk to the actor people that are behind this wonderful company i've been talking about here on the channel so i'm super excited to kind of bring them on and you guys know i started profiling this company here on the channel before any of the body are here on youtube or even in the media so i again super excited to have somebody to come here and really take us in depth into their technology and so the company i'm talking about here again guys is Arriver and if you guys know this is our UK based electric car manufacturer like i say electric car manufacturer but there's so much to eat which we're going to learn about today we have the president mr avanage robert borough on the channel to talk about Arriver so i'm super excited hey mr avanage welcome to the channel thanks it's a pleasure to be here so for all the viewers i saw the video um close friend of mine sent it to me and it was um it was amazing i think you really understood what we were actually doing and um and yeah i'm really happy to be on and just take you through some of the story and background about what we do at Arrival that's awesome all right so just before we get started for people that don't quite understand Arriver can you just talk a little bit about the story of Arriver sure so we were founded in 2015 actually and we've actually been in stealth mode for the last four odd years we sort of came out of stealth mode in at the end of 2019 with an investment hindi and kia invested a hundred million in Arrival but we've got over 1300 people uh predominantly engineering so 90% engineering of that half is software the other half of i would say automotive robotics um and what we've really created is a new method of designing and producing vehicles so right we started from the ground up we were trying to answer the question how do you make electric vehicles the same price as diesel and fossil fuel equivalents because once you do that then you're really able to basically change the whole market over to being electric there's no reason why you shouldn't go electric right if it's a smaller price and it's cheaper to run and it's a better product and then we focus on the commercial vehicle segment first because that's that's really rapidly growing the corporations have esg goals you know the governments really want to move um a lot of the car park as they say into being electric so we thought that was the first area to start and we've announced a bus and a van we've got also got a small vehicle platform coming out as well okay but a lot of this is pioneered on on these micro factories which at ease you know instead of taking these huge really expensive um production lines we are creating these small 20 000 square meter micro factories that produce the vehicles in our lineup and to do that we had to really develop a whole lot of technology and a lot of IP within the company there you go you touch on some key things there number one is that you guys at some point you're going to go from commercial to regular vehicles for people is that is that breaking news here on the channel well what I would say is that the the initial focus is on the commercial vehicle segment and it's large enough and there's still multiple segments for us to really enter okay um you know there is but then there's also things that we're doing around mobility so you know think about the different types of mobility modes of transportation right a lot of what we're doing when you combine the vehicles and we call them devices on wheels so they're essentially all connected um and when you combine that with with the software layers that we have right you're really able to use a lot of that data to create sort of new modalities of transportation okay you know I mean stay tuned on that but for now you know it's very important to stay focused we have the commercial vehicle segment to go after awesome and the second point that you talked about was these micro factories can you kind of take us in depth as to how that is so different from the current um OEM model and why it's very important so you know I spent um about two decades in the traditional automotive world in and out and you know what what tends to happen whether it's a startup or a traditional player whenever there's a new vehicle platform being designed and developed there's almost this sort of assumption that you manufacture it through the process that Henry Ford started you know decades ago right and of course it works but the issue with it is you have to make hundreds of thousands of vehicles for it to be profitable and that area hasn't really been tackled the rest of the things have you know gone through a lot of I would say there's been innovation but that hasn't had a step change in in a generation right so we looked at okay how do you fundamentally produce these electric vehicles at the right price point but do that in a way that you can be profitable at any volume then you unlock something special there you go and to do that though you have to start really at a blank sheet you have to ask the question well you know like well most most most happen uh most uh startups for example if they're going to go do production they you know we'll get a contract manufacturer or um they will go on buy a plant but right uh once you buy a plant you're kind of stuck down that path you know you spend a couple of billion and it's the same problem the OEMs have they have to amortize that plant you can't just you know you spend a couple of billion on it you better make a lot of product out of it so we saw that that was a barrier to what we wanted to do uh which is democratize the electrification how do we bring that anywhere right it doesn't matter if I'm in you know I'm in Minnesota in the U.S. or if I'm in London or if I'm in Mumbai or if I'm in Johannesburg I should be able to produce these vehicles locally and serve the local mobility requirements because every city in every area is different that's right but to do that it took five years of really deep engineering right so you know we've got things like the composite materials the composite materials that we have um basically it starts as a fabric and we've got unique IP that um creates panels from it these panels are lighter more durable than steel by doing that um we don't need the metal stamping plant so we starting to really reduce the the capex in the space required for a factory right but also we're able to color the fabric so that we can have uh the not no need for paints wow because the panels themselves come out in the color so you take the paint shop out so you know innovations that's leading to reducing the factory then we design and develop all of our own components oh well we've developed the ones that are I would say smart and connected and plug and play the ones that can be swapped in and out so the batteries uh high voltage low voltage components like the humer machine interface the compute module um DC DC all of these can be uh swapped in and out of the vehicle so you can upgrade the vehicle over time right but we design them to be assembled in the micro factories compare that to the sort of traditional approach where you're getting you know a bunch of different parts at all different dimensions and you're spending a couple years trying to package it into a vehicle and then you figure out how to manufacture it ours is a harmonious loop every component the skateboard the composites are all designed to be manufactured within these micro factories right so once we have developed that technology then we we actually considered a micro factory as a product in and of itself and what it unlocks is amazing it means that you know our micro factory can produce 10 000 vans uh 1000 buses we use a cell-based approach instead of a line yeah these we basically have these robotic cells inside the factory and we have autonomous mobile robots that move the the parts from cell to cell okay to do specific operations okay no it's fine yeah so we end up being able to do multiple vehicle types by simply reorganizing how the the component the parts move from cell to cell whereas a line the typical line runs at one speed and you have to do all of the different developments uh sorry the different assembly on that line and then if you time you have a new vehicle you have to add another line whereas for us you simply change the the operational order i mean it's it's it's really groundbreaking so that would you describe that as component-based uh development yeah i'd call it like a modular-based modular-based okay got it cells act like a module the components are like a module the the materials are like a module the skateboard itself is like a module and they all fit together and can be assembled in a micro factory okay and these are so great no i was just gonna say based on that would you describe ariver as more of a technology company or yeah absolutely absolutely we are building uh technology and systems that build vehicles and the vehicles that come out uh you know best in class real strong focus on user experience right i know you've seen some of the the video and photos of the bus and the van i mean they're incredible um but they're also lighter because of the materials and approach we use so you leave better range efficiency so they're best in class vehicles coming out better payload uh lower weight better cargo volume but it's done through a you know a harmonious ecosystem that can produce these these products and that is very heavy tech focus so definitely uh it's a technology company producing electric commercial electric vehicles there you go there you go okay so um as we all know one of the key components of electric vehicles is the battery technology and so we've had these different uh you know companies coming out and telling us no groundbreaking so uh can you talk a little bit about the technology that you guys are using for your baddie i mean just what you expect us to know not in depth and how that compares to what we currently have in the market today yeah so we use batteries from lg camp for cells yeah we do the modules so we've got some you in really unique technology in terms of how um we we do the cooling and how we assembled actual uh module so right we don't do a battery pack what we've got is a battery module okay and those battery modules can be um sized according to the commercial uh operators needs and got it actually this is this is pretty important so if you have a typical battery pack that you're seeing you know works in the retail segment you're trying to keep as much range as you can in batches the most expensive part of the of the vehicles right in the commercial segment if you look at commercial fleets some vehicles are doing you know 50 miles some are doing 300 miles but if you're running a vehicle that's doing 50 miles but paying for 300 miles of range you know you're really you've got an inefficient system there so with the arrival uh battery modules what you're able to do just think of like plug-and-play like a laptop you're able to just size the battery capacity as you need you just add more modules or take them away depending on uh what the actual commercial requirement is so you know there's a lot of uh you know unique technology within how we design and assemble that that battery module let's jump into like the big one so right now you guys have about 1.2 billion dollars in pre-orders um what's the what's the goal here to try to go to market and have or start doing some delivery when should people start expecting to see some of this stuff out there so we've actually been prototyping um so our components have been in testing for the last two years okay we've got prototype buses we've got prototype vans uh the the buses and the vans will be going to to customers for trials in the in the new year okay and then we're looking to produce the the bus actually uh towards the end of next year and the van will be out in you know in the wild middle of the year after so we're really um on that direct path to uh you know start a production and because the technology and the prototypes are mature enough so you know we're in a we're in a position now where actually what we're looking at is how do we now start to scale the business given that the products are coming and so you know something special for your viewers we just announced about an hour ago so that we've announced our US headquarters in Charlotte we'll be looking to the employee 150 of people there that goes along with our first micro factory in the US which is in Rock Hill in South Carolina okay so you know we're starting the rollout of the micro factories and different um engineering centers we got breaking news here right from the president himself so I really do I really do appreciate it so um you for the on the commissioner's side are you guys do you guys have any contracts yet with like city buses or how is that going to work yeah so um the way the the sales work on the buses are slightly different to the van so on the van as you mentioned you know we've already got 1.2 billion in in orders we have UPS we've ordered 10 000 with the option to order an additional 10 000 we have we're in late-stage sales just in the UK for 5000 per annum so you know that the numbers that the interest in the in the product is really really picking up and and I don't see any reason why if you can buy a better product at the right price and lower operating cost why you're not going to shift to electric I mean that that's the key and arrival enables that in terms of the bus the buses typically you know the segment sort of split up into private operators and public operators a lot of government-owned bus fleets as well right and in that it's more of a case of running the buses in the trials and then moving to direct sales of the actual product so we've got LOIs for the bus and in next in the over the next you know six to 12 months they'll be in trials and we'll be expecting those buses to generate the initial revenue for the company what's what's important about our bus I mentioned the 8 tonne unlaid away with an 8 tonne payload right you know we have they're fully connected so on the side for example we've got screens that can do advertising geolocation screens inside to provide any geolocated information route information we can monitor the operators can monitor the fleet and do predictive maintenance I mean this is really incredible technology and you know fully flat floor so they can serve maintenance maintain it really quickly so we're we're thinking about it from the user experience of the operator but also the driver and then the user all three really need and and actually service and maintenance all more need to be considered you know with myopic view on how do they do this day to day and a lot of that five years we've been talking about where we're in stealth we've been chatting to operators we've been working with them both on the bus and the van on how do you actually create the ideal product for this commercial segment it's really it's critically important right that's awesome so one key thing that I see to me logically you go from you know fossil fuel to electric vehicle the next logical step to me is autonomous vehicles so what are you guys doing from that at angle because I know you guys are thinking far beyond just electric vehicles so we are a little bit about the plan you guys offer so what I let me think about what I what I can what I can say so I've got quite a deep background in autonomous vehicles from my previous history and I don't know if you've seen rubber race yep hey now that was going to be my next question so rubber race is for for your viewers an autonomous racing series arrival it's arrival tech arrival has a racing team in it and it's really about getting universities and partners to try out like the craziest algorithms to get the autonomous vehicles to go as fast and all the sorts of movements that you couldn't do on the railroad road but as you can imagine that is a great way for the team to understand what are the systems whether they be hardware or software that's going to be needed for our vehicle platforms to be enabled to be autonomous so I would say there's sort of two things that we're actively doing now that that I can speak about one is that's your vehicle platform itself the skateboard plus the modular components right those components can swap in and out and what's important about that is when autonomous is ready road going autonomy is ready we're able to just swap in and out the hardware that's required for autonomy so the same asset is autonomous ready today and can be converted for full road going so that's important because if you're buying a vehicle now you don't especially in the commercial segment you don't want in three or four or five years or whenever full road going autonomous is there you don't have to buy another vehicle right you want to be able to upgrade the one you've got but the second thing we're doing is we are actually going to be well we're in active development of depot autonomous operation so that is actually things that an area that existing technology for autonomy can actually handle so depot is a controlled environment right and you're not going to have any sort of wild edge case use cases it's controlled you can get from the charging station to the cleaning station to the docking station in full autonomy you can rearrange I don't know if you've ever been for example to a bus depot in the night and you're trying to see them organize all the buses it's crazy yeah those sorts of things that you know the team's working on you know using autonomy for because it's really good and efficient use case for today's capability of autonomous vehicles but we'll be ready for when we do go full road going okay so one key thing I want to see here is we talked about technology and that's huge for you guys and so do you guys see at some point a rival being maybe a supplier to all their companies because of the technology you guys have built I think you know when you think about the fact that arrivals creating the systems that are creating vehicles and not just the vehicles themselves right deep integration there's a there's a range of possibilities open to us okay what I will say is for example Hyundai Kia and arrival we have our partnership where we are jointly developing vehicles together so you can imagine there's not much I can really disclose about it except to say you you can imagine that there is technologies from both sides that are that are coming together and they've got the global scale so watch this space but again I think what's really important is we've achieved what we've achieved to date and there's still a lot to do but we've achieved that through focus okay and so right now the focus has to be on you know we've got these factories coming up we've got the initial production run we've still got a large commercial vehicle segment to go after so that's our primary focus but the upside potential of the company you know includes things like you know autonomy that we discussed right but you know what what we are able to do with our components and our materials the software stack you know there's significant I would say future potential opportunities for arrival but it's very important to get to stay focused and get the first vehicles in customers hands and driving over the next 12 to 18 months all right it's awesome and so one key thing I wanted to bring up here too is uh recently in the news uh Gene Krimmer uh you know mentioned the fact that a rival is the son or the daughter of Tesla and I was like oh okay I was I was hoping that he'll probably be brothers or you know it could be step brothers but he says son or daughter what do you see about that well what I'd say is I think you recognize the potential of a rival even earlier so you know congrats to you but I think uh I think that that uh Kramer you know I think that just means he really understood the growth potential and the fact that you know similar to Tesla there's a heavy tech focus here but what Tesla was able to do and I think it's similar in terms of what a rival is able to do is really shift the mindset like if you think about what people were thinking about electric vehicles before Tesla really came out and showed everybody just how amazing they can be yeah I mean that's that's us in the commercial vehicle segment to begin with right yeah that is taking you know cutting-edge technology applying it to an underserved market and really going out there but we are we are different too so you know I don't know if we're a son or daughter of Tesla maybe a right step brother or you know close friend or whatever it is exactly we're using the we're using these micro factories and you know I just want to touch on that a little bit because that means that we can bring these micro factories to any city around the world and that is a very different proposition than putting large factories you know typically out in the middle of nowhere yeah we can help work with cities and governments and local communities you know hire local talent pay local taxes build local product for the mobility well for the city and the mobility needs of that of that and that is um I think something that has just never been seen before in the industry that's awesome so uh would you say that uh one of the biggest thing that's fueling a rival is it using technology to make money or using technology to change the world oh it's absolutely changed well I mean we started with that mission of how do you sort of break this these barriers of entry for uh folks to build electric vehicles and how do you how do you make best in class products so anybody can get into it anyone you know what's really important about us doing the bus is that it's for everybody you know it's not a you know two three hundred thousand dollar sports cars as cool as they are yeah it's something that anyone in any city anywhere can actually interact with out with our products and use them and you know commercial vehicle segments growing and it's it is an important market and yes of course we are looking to be our leaders in in our segment and generate revenue but underlying all of that is how do you you know really decentralize and democratize the production and design of of electric vehicles so that it can go everywhere because you know the worst situation here would be that the price premium for electrification remains and therefore only a select few ever really get the gift over all right that's awesome you mentioned earlier about when you were talking about a rival just giving a little bit of the background you talked about how your majority of your workforce is actually engineers what can you say about a rival that has made that mindset shift from the traditional way to now we're using more so engineers to come up with all these different technologies that's a great question so I think you know if I if I just to clarify the workforce so you know over thirteen hundred people ninety percent are engineers of that okay software yeah yeah so it's ninety percent fifty percent of software the other fifty percent is about robotics and automotive and in other technical fields and composite materials that we're developing I think what's really important is blending different industry backgrounds so you can take what works and what what experience you've seen and bringing that together and engineers have a phenomenal way of solving problems I yeah I've actually done engineering background and he's done engineering background and we sort of think a little bit you know see our problems like how do we go around and solve it so our job's really to go and focus on which problems are critical solve which are the priority ones to go after and then let people get as creative as they can but when you mix a software focus we have a robotics mechanical electronics engineering that's when you start to get things like a micro factory because it's a blend of you know different disciplines to solve the problem so I don't see how a rival would have been able to get to where it was if it wasn't so strong in its engineering culture and team of talent so to me yeah it's critical and that shift well to us it wasn't really a shift the company was designed that way from the beginning and software was always a critical part rather than trying to sort of add it on afterwards everything is for the software layer even now we design our own internal tools to validate the micro factory I mean that's you know that's really thinking about what do we need to be able to do what we do yeah right so at this point what do you guys have in the pipeline that it's not public yet I would say I mean I can't just unfortunately I can't say much come on I want some breaking news you got some on the on the on the headquarters yes I will say you know watch this space when you think about the way these technologies essentially can be repackaged multiple times and built using a micro factory I think you'll see some really exciting products coming out of rival you know we're we're making the bus cool so I think we can we can do a lot and you'll see a lot now make sure that I come on and give you some breaking news and there we go we're always here ready for you so now let's let's switch over to you know the investor side is that's what a lot of people are going to be looking like hey should I buy or not buy so what was the decision behind you guys going with CIIG too for for the marriage so what was interesting about us is we stayed in stealth we got an investment from Hyundai Kia first they invested 100 million euros in us UPS also invested and bought the made the did the vehicle order and then we also had an investment from from black rock so we while we were still private we had really good backers really strong backers and what we found in CIIG was a partner you know we're very heavy engineering focus the background of CIIG is really about building brands and scaling companies in particular running public companies in the US so we saw a really good synergy and they just believed in the exact same mission that we've got right and so for example you know Peter Cunha who's part of CIIG to see he's actually going to be part of our board going forward so we are you know really staying close together this isn't you know this isn't just a financial transaction this is a strategic alignment of two parties and for us what was really important is you know we want to we want to just focus on developing the product what are the key things here the talent the culture the technology right and the production operations right that's where our focus needs to be so this was the best strategy for us to raise the capital we need so you know we we're looking approximately 660 million in total proceeds but we've got a capex light you know factory model right so that really goes well in terms of what we need to do to start scaling the business and we expect to be you know cash flow positive by 2023 so this was a partnership I would say that you know we just felt really aligned on what we were doing we were evaluating multiple different you know avenues but when we met the CIIG team we just really really aligned really well and so you know we announced the merger with them and you know closing should happen hopefully sometime that's awesome so yeah I know you got to go lightning round last question biggest competitor in the space so I would say I mean look there are a lot of entrants coming in for the commercial vehicle segment but there's there isn't anyone I think taking the approach that arrival is taking so you know when you can produce the vehicles the the way we can you know I'd never say we don't have any competitors of course we do but I would say that our method and approaches is is fundamentally different to anything that's been done before so I would say that puts us in a pretty unique category and it also enables us to compete in multiple segments that you know another EV company won't be able to attack as quickly as as arrival could go after so I think we're in a we're in a we're in a good place there you go so basically the answer is with number one there's no competition I like that I like that so I appreciate you coming on and I would definitely love to bring you back again and just continue to talk about the amazing work that you guys are doing out there at the River so yeah so whenever feel free now to reach out and you know if there's anything that you think that you know all the investors out there need to know about River we're here to get that conversation going yeah absolutely and look again before I sign off here what what impressed me was you know you really understood not the going public part but you understood what we were actually doing quite well so I wanted to come on and have the chat with you so I appreciate the time and keep doing good work and to all the viewers this guy knows his stuff so pay attention appreciate it all right so guys you guys got it that was Mr. Avinash president of a River here on the channel and so if you do have any questions you know about a River as a company just leave those in the comment section definitely make sure that his team gets this question back to him and we'll get some answers for you and also you can check out they are on social media you can definitely reach out and ask any questions or go to the website there's a ton of information there even the investor presentation I'm gonna put that in the description below the link there so you guys can definitely go to me again this company is not just a traditional company this is a technology company that is changing the way we do EV car manufacturing so definitely go check them out and as always guys don't be greedy savage and stay motivated