GreenPower Motor Company Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Green Power Motor Company third quarter earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Seifert, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. This is Michael Seifert, the Chief Financial Officer of Green Power Motor Company. I would like to welcome everyone to our call to discuss Green Power's financial results for the period ended December 31st, 2022. I'm here today with our Chief Executive Officer, Fraser Atkinson, and our President, Brendan Riley. During today's call, we may make comments or statements about future expectations, plans, and prospects, which may constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provision under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in our quarterly interim results and MD&A filed on CDAR and on EDGAR. In addition, these forward-looking statements relate to the date on which they're made. We anticipate that subsequent events and developments may cause the company's views to change. Green Power disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Also, during the course of today's call, we may refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures. Reconciliation of these non-IFRS measures can be found in our ND&A filed on CDAR and on EDGAR and is also located on our website at www.greenpowermotor.com. I'll now pass the call over to GreenPower CEO, Fraser Atkinson.

Thank you, Michael. This was a record-setting quarter for GreenPower. We generated record revenues of $12.8 million in the third quarter a year-over-year increase of 140% over the revenue of $5.3 million for the third quarter in the previous year. We delivered 101 green power vehicles in the third quarter. With our extensive inventory, the deliveries this quarter are on track to exceed the third quarter. We reported deferred revenue of $12.5 million at the end of the third quarter, an increase of more than 92% from the beginning of the fiscal year. The majority of this we expect to recognize over the next 12 months, further accelerating our revenue growth. One of Green Power's strengths and competitive advantage is that we have our own cabin chassis and we manage our supply chain. We refer to the EV Star cabin chassis or CC as our EV Star platform, which has allowed us to build a range of models for the passenger and cargo markets, as well as sell our CC to other manufacturers. Our commercial vehicle group have the EV Star Cargo, EV Star Cargo Plus, and CC. EV Star and EV Star Passengers are for the shuttle and transit sector. These represented the majority of the sales this quarter. Another model utilized in the EV Star platform is Green Power's Nano Beast Type A all-electric purpose-built school bus with an all-aluminum body that is stronger than any other body used for the Type A school buses on the market today. In September, Green Power's NanoBeast won the Innovation Award for Best Green Bus Technology from School of Transportation News. This market for all of the Type A school buses is $8,000 to $9,000 per annum. We are well positioned to help operators electrify their school bus fleets with our BEAST and NanoBEAST and are presently working on more than 30 school bus deals in eight states where our first deliveries will utilize our current inventory. During the quarter, the EPA announced the selectees for the school bus program with almost $1 billion of funding. Green Power worked with dealers and school districts across a number of states who were selected to acquire the Type D for $375,000 or Type A school bus for $285,000. These deliveries must be completed by October 31st, 2024. Green Power also has a significant number of opportunities for our all-electric school buses in California utilizing the standard HVIP vouchers which has $250 million of new funding this year, school bus set aside funding with $135 million, as well as the CEC Air Quality Management District and VW Trust funding for the purchase of all electric school buses. These school bus sales will help further accelerate our growth with deliveries commencing over the next couple of quarters. I'll now hand it over to Brendan Riley, Green Power's president, for discussion on our operations.

Thank you, Frazier, and good morning, everyone, on the call. At Green Power, we continue to demonstrate our winning strategy that focuses on our core business, purpose-built Class 4 EVs, leveraging our best-in-market EV star family of vehicles and our best-in-class school buses. We delivered 84 EV star cabin chassis to workforce during the third quarter as we continue to optimize the run rate of deliveries to them. We are currently in the process of delivering an additional tranche of EVStars CCs to Workhorse. Our dealer network has been growing nationally during the quarter for both commercial vehicles and school buses. This reflects the tireless work of our school bus VP, Michael Perez, and that we've added recently Klaus Tritt to head our commercial vehicle group product and sales efforts. Klaus has many years of experience in deploying proven sales strategies and building winning sales teams for the light and medium duty commercial vehicle sector. Klaus is also completing the full integration of selling the Lion truck body components and bodies nationally through our dealer and direct sales network. Our new refrigerated EV star cargo plus has been completed And this is the first of its kind vehicle to run the refrigeration system directly from the high voltage battery. This creates a more efficient vehicle, which saves cost and weight while improving reliability. This newest member of the GreenPower product line is also eligible for the $40,000 IRS tax credit as are all of GreenPower EV products. With this new deduction that is part of the Biden Administration Inflation Reduction Act, many of our zero emission vehicles can now be bought across the country at price parity with legacy polluting internal combustion vehicles. Our West Virginia facility in South Charleston, West Virginia is almost ready to produce our beast. That's our battery electric Type D school bus. Over the next months, we expect to manufacture the first built-in West Virginia buses, ready to bring children to school safely and without polluting the environment. In September, Green Power began a pilot project with the state of West Virginia to demonstrate our Type D school buses to districts across the state and test the buses in a wide range of conditions. West Virginia purchased three Beasts, those are the Type D school buses, in the second quarter. In November, the pilot project started the second round with a slate of new districts, along with a Nano Beast Type A school bus that was purchased in the third quarter. In January, we launched the third round, bringing the total coverage to 25% of all of the school districts in the state. We have demonstrated that our buses can work throughout the state in different regions, different temperatures. This pilot project has also given us valuable data on where we can improve our vehicles for a myriad of customers and applications. Now I'd like to turn it back over to Michael Seifert, GreenPower CFO, who will cover the quarterly financial highlights.

Thank you, Brendan. GreenPower achieved its highest ever quarterly revenue of $12.8 million, which is an increase of 140% over the revenue of $5.3 million for the third quarter of last year. Revenue was generated from the sale of one Nano Beast, 10 EV Star 22-foot cargo, 5 EV Stars, and 85 EV Star cabin chassis. It was also from recognition of revenue under finance and operating leases and from our truck body manufacturing business, Lion Truck Bodies. Cost of revenues in the quarter was $9.9 million, which generated a gross profit of $2.9 million, or 22.5% of revenue compared to a gross profit of $27.8 in the prior year. Gross profit for the quarter was lower than our historical range of 30%, primarily due to deliveries under a high volume contract and from sales of our EV star 22-foot cargo, which are both at lower margins. We expect that our gross profit margin will be at similar levels in the coming quarters, due to our expected sales mix. We've seen a continued improvement in our quarterly adjusted EBITDA since the beginning of this calendar year, driven by these higher sales. We saw an increase in our quarterly cash expenses to $4.8 million during the quarter, which was an increase of approximately $1.2 million compared to the prior quarter. Approximately 50% of this increase was attributable to higher transportation costs related to a significant United States during the quarter. In addition, we saw a step cost increase in our general administrative costs as we continue to expand our business in different regions and into new product lines through our acquisition of Lion Truck Body, as well as higher professional fees and product development as we expanded into new markets and develop new products. We finished the quarter with $25.6 million in working capital and approximately $0.6 million in available liquidity. Working capital included $7.9 million in AR, the majority of which was current at quarter end, and $46.2 million in inventory, which was comprised of over $34.6 million of finished goods inventory, primarily representing EV Star cabin chassis, EV Stars, EV Star cargo, and both Beast and Nano Beast school buses. Since the quarter end, we've collected a significant portion of the AR that was outstanding at the end of the year. and we've raised approximately $3.5 million in equity through our ATM program. We've used the proceeds from these sources to continue to invest in our business platform, in working capital investments for upcoming deliveries, and our current available liquidity remains well above the level that it was at quarter end after these investments. Finally, we finished the quarter with preferred revenue of $12.5 million, the majority of which we expect to recognize within the next 12 months. I'll now turn it back to Fraser for a final word before the Q&A.

yes thank you thank you michael to conclude we've generated a significant sales in our past quarter with our commercial vehicles and we expect that with our passenger as well as the school bus sales kicking in over the next several quarters to help further accelerate that along with the organic growth within the commercial vehicle group consequently we are expecting very solid growth over the next several quarters. With that, operator, please open up the call for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And our first question comes from Craig Irwin of Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. So, Frasier, one of the most exciting things going on right now in the macro is the opportunity for your customers to take vehicles at parity, at cost parity versus conventional vehicles with the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden's commitment to the electrification of medium duty trucks and heavy duty trucks. Can you maybe talk us through some of the mechanics of how customers would apply for those available grants and subsidies? And do you expect sales of any of your vehicles this year to qualify? And is there anything else you would share to help us understand the near and longer term impact?

Well, I think a lot of our activity that we were describing is based on programs that have been in place and are better known and better understood in terms of the whole process. whether it's on the commercial vehicle side with various incentive programs. So our plans don't count or expect that that will have a significant impact in the first couple of quarters for our business. And we're just being cautiously optimistic that it'll take a few quarters to really promulgate in the marketplace and have an impact in terms of the sales. But as far as the process goes, we've certainly seen a significant uptick in inquiries and interest now that the funding is available in the current year.

Understood. So shifting gears a little bit, the gross margins this quarter were, again, very healthy. You know, everybody expects that your large customer today is getting an attractive price given that they gave you a very healthy upfront payment and you have a strong collaboration there. But your margins are coming through slightly stronger than what we thought. Can you talk about the opportunity for leverage? Is this really part of what's coming through? Do we maybe see leverage, you know, over the next number of quarters as we see diversification in the buying groups? How should we think about sort of short and longer term implications for gross margins as revenue ramps?

Well, short term will be the greatest impact will be on product mix. Thank goodness for all of the rest of our product sales. The ones and the twos, we benefit from a higher gross profit margin, which helps offset the higher volume, lower margin type sales that you're referring to. Short term, it'll be product mix, getting our school bus sales dialed in to to the ongoing revenue stream, as well as a few of our passenger vehicles, increasing the sales of those. So that'll be the combination in the short term. Longer term is that what we are seeing in the marketplace is with some of our peer group members that have had or are being reporting gross profit losses, where the cost of goods sold actually exceeds the revenue. is that they're looking at price increases. And so we see that as the more likely scenario as opposed to trying to wring out additional cost savings through the supply chain. But in the long term, that's where certainly scale and repeatable contracts and repeatable invoices is going to benefit us from savings in that regard.

Okay, excellent. And then, you know, you mentioned the progress at your West Virginia facility for Producing the Beast. You know, congratulations there. I know there's been a tremendous amount of effort into getting that up and running. Can you help us understand sort of the approximate timeline for initial deliveries out of that facility?

you know what should we look for in the first weeks and months um and and what do you see as a theoretical uh or potential deliveries um number out of that facility if you could possibly share that well that the you know initially we were looking at doing our nanobeast type a school bus uh in terms of the the longer term production plan right now the longer term production plan as uh brendan said in his remarks was to focus on the Type D school bus. That is the product that we are most engaged with the market today and certainly can benefit from an East Coast presence with that product. So that takes a little longer to build than the Nano Beast. And so we're looking at the first of those being later in the year. in terms of production out of the West Virginia facility. As far as the numbers, as we've said in the past, this facility does give us capability of a run rate upwards of 50 to 60 per month, which would be a capacity that would likely exceed the short-term market requirements or the short-term market needs.

Okay, and then would you expect many or most of those vehicles to be supported by vouchers from the infrastructure bill, the billion dollars in funding that was handed out in vouchers several months back? Is this something that's tracking well for the BEAST and your sales expectations out of the West Virginia facilities?

Certainly a part of it over the next couple of years would be that would be a key driver, but not the only one. One of the wild cards that really the industry as a whole is dealing with is the state of New York contract that we had completed our process last summer is still working through final details before we're able to publish actively pursue transactions on this particular activity. So what we're looking at is really taking advantage of each of the opportunities on a state-by-state basis but not spreading ourselves too thin by trying to go after all 50 states. So what I mean by that is that there's a number of states that have state contracts that have almost like buying groups, whereas others like California, there's just a whole slate of different funding programs for school buses. If you're not able to get EPA funding, there's CEC or Air Quality Management District funding of a similar amount. And so we're able to pursue those programs as they become available and as new funding hits a particular year.

Excellent, excellent. Well, congratulations on a strong execution this quarter. And, you know, we're looking forward to an exciting growth trajectory. Thank you, Fraser.

Thank you, Craig.

The next question comes from Greg Lewis of BTIG. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hey, thank you, and good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking my question. You know, Fraser or Mike, I was hoping you could maybe give a little bit of color or guidance in how you're thinking about, you know, the realization of inventory. I know you kind of mentioned that, you know, you expect it, you know, to really be realized the next year, is there any way in terms of thinking about timing where maybe it could be a little bit more chunkier in any specific quarters?

Well, that is the, I won't say $64,000 question because it's a lot more than that, but that is one of the most impactful questions financially for Green Power because We have segments of our inventory fully paid for and accept and save for the final completion, PDI testing and delivery. We're ready to go and monetize. And a really good example is within the school bus space. This quarter was a single school bus sale, and yet we have this very substantial near-end sales pipeline. And so the early deliveries, those will all be out of inventory for our school buses. And not to set an excuse or anything, but in the school bus space, it's a little bit of a unique proposition that unlike the commercial, there are more parties that need to be engaged in terms of getting infrastructure in place, getting contracts completed and signed and approved. And so there's a multitude of decision-makers in the school bus space, whereas in the commercial, generally speaking, we're dealing with one or two decision-makers that are involved in the process from start to the delivery and so on. So we're dealing with a number of properties where they've decided the you know that they're going with our platform who the charging company they're going to utilize and the utility engagement is being completed in terms of the infrastructure but they're they still have other you know contractual arrangements to sort out with their board of trustees or their board as the case might be and and so it's it just takes a little longer to get those completed but The funding also has deadlines, which helps us in that these organizations have to get busy and get their deals completed so we can get our vehicles delivered to them. So that is a good example of a significant part of our inventory. It's ready to go. We have deals, in many cases, earmarked to specific orders. And as those kick in, the initial deliveries are going to be all out of our current inventory.

Yeah, and that's good to hear. Thanks. Thanks for the call, Fraser. And then just I did want to follow up on that, you know, as you have these, you know, as you're working with your customers to get these vehicles and you mentioned that, you know, it could be, you know, dotting the I's and crossing the T's at customer level. You know, is how much of that, how much of the potential, I don't know, slow down or the delaying of those deliveries, do you kind of get the sense for, is it infrastructure, i.e. lack of charging related, or is it more just really at the decision level to get the government entities approving, or is it really just infrastructure issue that you know is probably being worked on as we speak.

Well I think it's a combination but infrastructure is certainly one of in this you know it's less of an issue on the commercial side for in that you know it's a simpler approach in some cases compared to school buses where the infrastructure you know they're looking at everything and anything that We're well into the particular vehicle that is going to meet their duty cycle requirements and the combination of payload and what they want to achieve. But then when you start looking at the infrastructure, it's not practical to be charging between the morning and the afternoon run because they're on peak rates. So they're now looking in that instance at, okay, we need You know, we need load management, we need scheduling, we need this, this, and this, and that isn't all dialed in at the front end. You know, you don't want to be making changes on the fly. And that's, you know, a big part within school buses is managing all of that. And, you know, we're, you know, in the past year, we've become intimately involved with the charging. And we're not, you know, today we don't have a charger anymore. as a solution, but we need to be involved with that in order to reduce the amount of time that is spent on sorting out infrastructure issues. So that's number one, the biggest. And then the second is just getting the platform nailed down and committed to without know without uh scope creep where they decide oh let's let's let's have a look at v2g and you know that's that's something that you don't want to be adding on or making a decision at the back end uh in terms of integrating your vehicle on a v2g solution that needs to be part of the initial dialogue uh in scoping out the platform so you know that does enter into uh into the process with that particular sector and does cause some additional delays but i think you know the the key is that programs all have uh you know they they all have requirements you know the epa funding and the selectees that have been awarded uh funding under that program you know the way the rules are set is they need to have their vehicles delivered by October 31st, 2024. And that seems like it's out there, but a property that has up to the 25 max that some properties were awarded, you don't deliver 25 in a month. That's spread out over several quarters. So all of that means that we believe that the whole process will will be compressed over the next six to nine months in terms of what we have seen.

Wow, that's great to hear. Okay, hey, thank you very much for taking my questions, and have a great day. Thanks, Greg.

Next question comes from Chris Seltzer of B Reilly. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question here. Maybe on the Class D school bus side, it looked like just the one delivery of school buses was a nano. It sounded like the pipeline is certainly picking up on the school bus side, but I just wanted to see if you could give any color on how many wins you think you're going to have on the EPA program side. you know, firm orders yet through that program. Um, and then, um, just wanted to get a sense of like the, uh, inventory strategy for, uh, the school bus size, you know, flat with 35 and kind of finished goods. And, you know, we're planning this kind of ramp in West Virginia. I just wanted to get a sense of, you know, kind of the cadence over the next couple of quarters, if you could provide a little more color.

Well, that's, that's a great combination of questions. And, uh, Thanks for that. But starting off with our most recent quarter, the selectees for the EPA program were literally announced during our most recent quarter that we've just announced. So it was given that you have to get your contract signed and deliveries. I don't think anybody was in a position to be, that they delivered product by December 31st, 2022 under that EPA program. And it was an interesting anomaly in that people that had submitted or were eligible for other forms of funding, you know, in terms of VW Trust funding in a number of states or in California, all their various programs, were often waiting to see, well, can we do better? You know, we got $340,000 under this Air Quality Management District. but maybe we can get $375,000 under the EPA program plus $20,000 for our chargers. So we saw that a lot in the fall of last year. Now we're at a point where everybody has got their best shot and they do have their mandate. So we're now in a position where we're able to move forward on those. In terms of what our success rate is or what our expectations, we will be announcing the deals as we go. There's a number that we fully expect to get announced and be delivering over the next couple quarters, as I say, out of current inventory, both for the Type D as well as the Type A dental beast. which will certainly be incremental to the sales growth that we enjoy.

Okay. So are most of the pipeline customers you talked about, frankly, other programs that are now potentially kind of moving forward after they didn't get EPA, or how many kind of EPA customers are in that mix of pipeline customers you called out?

It's pretty, you know, the over 30 deals that we referenced, they're spread out. They're, you know, they're various, you know, California has a big chunk of those. EPA is significant as well as other state programs or other state contracts. So it's a pretty good cross, you know, we have a pretty good cross representation of deals and Certainly no one program is the dominant player within that pipeline.

Okay. Maybe just the cadence of the workhorse deliveries. It sounded like some of the logistic challenges are improving here, and their commentary is sort of suggesting they'll take as many as they can get. So I think your MD&As had 100 that were in process in delivery and another 100 that have been completed by a contract manufacturer in Asia. Should we think about quarterly run rate as approaching 100 and staying around there, or are you saying, hey, we might be able to do 200 a quarter over the next, if not March, kind of the next quarter after that?

Well, I think we'll be sticking to a quarter-by-quarter communication or and not getting ahead of ourselves, and that's in part because of supply chain and shipping and logistical issues and moving larger volumes. That's been on us, not Workhorse, in terms of getting the numbers up. Going from 10 to 100 is a whole different proposition as an organization, and so that's where we're you know, we're building our systems and our processes and our team in order to accommodate and to be able to do that and then repeat that on, you know, not just quarterly but monthly and in terms of the regular delivery. So, no, we're not in a position to be, you know, laying out on a quarter-by-quarter basis what those anticipated or expected deliveries are But I would agree with their commentary that, you know, this is on green power in terms of ramping that up to meet the demand.

Got it. Okay. That all makes sense. Maybe just my last one. You know, it's great seeing the revenue start to ramp here. I wanted to see if you could just talk a little bit about, you know, the margin front. You know, it makes sense. The kind of mix is going to be the key driver for gross margins. But, you know, can you give us any sense of what EBITDA breakeven looks like, you know, given it seems like you guys are, you know, beefing up some of the OpEx lines, you know, to kind of help with the growth here? You know, should we expect, you know, kind of flattish gross margins, you know, as Workhorse continues to be kind of a big chunk? And then, you know, where do we get kind of more leverage to hit positive EBITDA? kind of calendar year 2023?

Well, I'll start at a high level and then I'll turn it over to Michael for more granularity on your question. At a high level, it's important to note that the expenses that were reported in our December 31st, 2022 quarter, they include you know, some of the initial startup for our West Virginia facility, which, you know, we're not even, you know, in, into the manufacturing, let alone delivery and revenue recognition out of that. And we also have a, you know, with Michael Perez and his group with the school bus team, you know, that we've been incurring costs to get our dealer network in place to get our team out and engage with the extent of our sales pipeline, as well as the delivery team for the near-end sales that we're pushing at the front end of that sales pipeline. So all of that we've incurred without any of the requisite revenue that will flow from that activity. And likewise with Klaus stepping in with the commercial group or the commercial vehicle group is that he has undertaken a number of initiatives as well as building out a dealer network. And so some of those early expenses aren't represented by any sales now, but will be realized down the road. So at a high level, you know, we are you know, continuing to invest in the capacity and the capability of a company that is a whole lot bigger than 100 vehicles in a quarter. And so that's, you know, represented in what we most recently reported. But on that, I'll turn it over to Michael for any additional comments.

Thanks, Fraser. You know, I think Fraser described this very well is that, you know, we are investing in our business. We're building out a platform. And as we do that, you're going to have quarters like we've just experienced where, you know, you have an increase in those step costs and you don't yet have the, we'll call it operating leverage from the, you know, the gross profit margin sort of trickling down through those cash expenses. However, you know, that being said, we're certainly happy with the trajectory. I mean, this is our, our highest revenue quarter ever. You know, at this run rate, we're approaching, you know, on a quarterly basis, you know, annualized $50 million of revenue, which I think is a big step for us. And, you know, as we absorb some of these, you know, new investments and, you know, build out the business across the country, I think, you know, we're really, you know, potentially just getting started here. So we're optimistic about reaching those, you know, higher sales levels that will allow us to, to generate positive EBITDA, but at this point, we're not in a position to talk about when that may be, although we're certainly happy with how this is progressing.

Got it. Okay, maybe just the last follow-up here, and then I'll hop in the queue, is just the unabsorbed investments we're making today, how much more of that do you think we need over the next, call it, six-month year, you know, two years in order to, you know, be able to hit the growth, you know, plans that you guys are hoping would be kind of a way to think about?

Well, you know, the commercial sales, which represented the predominant growth uh, activity for our most recent quarter didn't have, you know, essentially didn't have any school bus sales. Uh, we also, uh, have, uh, opportunities in our, with our passenger vehicles, both the EV star, the star plus, um, and, and our EV 250. So, uh, those, those also would be incremental. So that's all of what I think in, in Michael's comments, uh, I was trying to get to the cost side.

I was trying to get to the cost side. You've made some of these additional investments. There's probably still some more ramp up in West Virginia. I just wanted to get a sense of you know, with the plans, like how much more OpEx do we think we need, you know, to invest, you know, on a quarterly basis, you know, to reach some of these plans? Are there, you know, expectations that there will be kind of additional kind of step function changes in OpEx was really what I was trying to get at.

Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, that's the December 31st quarter represents probably the bulk of that step up. So, Going forward, there'll be some tweaking. We have probably a couple positions that we'd like to fill, but otherwise the majority being 75%, 80% in our numbers and represented in our business model.

Perfect. I'll hop in the queue. Thanks so much for the call.

Thank you.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then 1. And our next question will come from Tate Sullivan of Maxim Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. I'm . You mentioned 30 school bus deals in eight states. Are those deals that you are currently in the process of bidding on or have been awarded or where are you in that process with those 30 deals?

They all represent deals that, you know, we can see a path to getting, you know, not just signed contract, but deliveries. And so, you know, the bulk of them are where we are the primary or sole platform in terms of the OEM provider. And, yeah, that sort of is the representation. And it's... As we said, it's more than the 30.

And then you mentioned some price points, or maybe I misheard. Is it the rebate through the EPA program, the $375,000 for the Type D bus, or is that roughly the sales price for average sales price for those vehicles?

Well, the... The EPA program provides for the type C or D. We, of course, just have the type D, but the type C or D all electric is $375,000. That is what they provide. To be priced at anything other than that, to be priced higher, you know, creates a very different dynamic in the marketplace. So it is somewhat level set the field on that product. on the Nano Beast Type A we're looking at EPA funding of $285,000 and that was higher than where we with our various dealers had been targeting where prior to the EPA program coming out it was more typically in the $260,000 to $270,000 type ballpark and $265,000 tended to be a number where some of the other Type AL electric school bus manufacturers had also priced their products. So that side, we've seen a bit of an uptick as a result of the funding from the EPA program.

And shifting gears to deferred revenue, and it was the first time it was flat on a quarter-to-quarter basis and three-quarters desist. And maybe, Michael, is this going to stay flat, or are there scheduled additional upfront deposits, or does this account for the near-term amount of deferred revenue, if you can address that?

Deferred revenue isn't a metric that we try to predict. I think the way we look at this, though, is that it's something that does represent future sales. And so I think what we communicated was that over $12 million of that represents current deferred revenue, which is effectively what we anticipate will be converted into, or sorry, over $11 million is what we anticipate will be converted into sales over the coming year. Now, that number will certainly be replenished throughout the year, but it's a difficult one for us to forecast.

Okay. But it's important to note that it's unlike some accounts payable or represent liabilities or obligations to pay and directly affect our cash flow. In the case of deferred revenue, it has obviously a different impact in terms of our liquidity. So it's worth highlighting in the context that if one tracks this separate and apart from our working capital, that one can see less of an impact on our cash requirements from the balance of our working capital requirements.

Thank you. And last, you mentioned, I believe, that you collected a bulk of accounts receivable already this quarter. I mean, does it bring it back down to the $3 or $4 million level, or can you comment on that?

Again, it's not something that we want to comment on mid-quarter. I mean, we're certainly, you know, anticipating, you know, a good solid sales number again this quarter. And so, of course, as you're collecting AR, you're creating more AR, which is not a bad thing. So we're, you know, we're comfortable with our current liquidity. I think that that's the key message that we've collected a number of those receivables that we're outstanding at quarter end. We're, you know, actively pursuing other business and generating sales. And so we have a healthy liquidity given, you know, what our current needs are.

Okay. Thank you all. Thank you.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Frank Atkinson, Frazier Atkinson, for any closing remarks.

Thank you. So thanks for everyone being on the call and for those that dial in for our pre-recorded version of our earnings call. We appreciate your support and appreciate your patience with our company as we build our business. We've been consistently reporting a gross profit in the 20s along with operating expenses that are a fraction of our peers. As Michael noted, since the end of the quarter, we've raised over $3.5 million off of our ATM on a very opportunistic basis. And as well as the finished goods inventory, where we are expecting to complete deliveries over the next several quarters, is going to help accelerate the growth and the record revenues that we reported in the most recent quarter as we dial in the school bus and expand our commercial vehicle group as well as opportunities with shuttle and passenger vehicles so with that we thank you for your support and look forward to chatting to you in the near future