Vicinity Motor Corp.

or corporate update conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before we begin the formal presentation, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made on today's call and webcast, including those regarding future financial results and industry prospects, are forward-looking. It may be subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described on the call. Please refer to the company's regulatory filings for a list of associated risks, and we would also like to refer you to the company's website for more supporting industry information. I would now like to hand the call over to William Treanor, founder and chief executive officer of Vicinity Motor Corp. William, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to welcome you to today's first quarter 2024 Corporate Update Conference Call. The first quarter of 2024 continued our focus on our build-out of our distribution network across North America and a robust cadence of our deliveries of our VMC 1200 electric trucks and our vicinity classic clean diesel buses, against our significant backlog. During the quarter, we made successful deliveries of 44 of our VMC 1200 trucks and 22 vicinity classic transit buses to our eager customer base. Our performance helped us drive a 400% increase in revenue and positive cash flow from operations, reflecting the VMC 1200 demand from our growing network of dealers across Canada and momentum from our market leadership position with our transit buses. With that, I'd like now to hand it over to Brent Phillips, who we were recently privileged with promoting to the newly created role of president to lead us in our next phase of growth. Brent joined Vicinity in November of 2021, bringing over 30 years of experience in the commercial transportation field, including numerous leadership roles in distribution and manufacturing, including operation, sales, and marketing. Brent will lead us through this quarter's highlights and outline new strategic and operation initiatives that he will spearhead. Brent?

Thank you, Will. It's an honor to be asked to help lead the next phase of profitable growth at Vicinity. I'll start with our VMC 1200. We recently announced four new dealership partners to meet growing demand, including VMC Laval in Laval, Peninsula VMC Truck Center in South Toronto, Shift EV Trucks in West Toronto, Jack Carter VMC Trucks in Southern Alberta, and most recently, R. James Vicinity Truck in Kamloops in Kelowna, British Columbia. These new EV-specific dealerships expand the VMC 1200 sales and service coverage in strategic markets across Canada, leveraging the expertise and built-in base that each partner has in their respective regions. Each partner has exceptional experience and expertise in the automotive market and fleet services, making them well-suited to help fleet operators seamlessly transition to an all-electric future. For a vicinity, the VMC 1200 carries a healthy margin profile and year-round purchasing habits of the differentiated customer base. And that helps us to smooth the traditional revenue lumpiness of our established transit bus business. VMC 1200 provides an ideal entry point into the developing commercial EV market for dealerships and customers that are attracted by our competitive price point, inclusive of incentives and operational savings. In addition to delivering operating cost savings immediately, in contributing to carbon emissions reductions, VMC 1200 further benefits through Canadian federal and provincial rebates. Perhaps most notable, it qualifies for a Canadian federal rebate nationwide of $40,000 Canadian from Transport Canada with additional provincial incentive programs available up to $92,000 in certain provinces. In the transit bus business during the first quarter, we saw strong demand and deliveries for our vicinity classic transit bus line as it helps grow our backlog and serve as a foundational building block of our revenue mix. Orders during the quarter included follow-on purchase order from Autobus Quebecois for delivery of 12 vicinity classic buses to service cities throughout the province of Quebec. These follow-on orders, in addition to the eight bus order received in December, validates our reputation for excellence built through the sale and delivery of nearly 1,000 vicinity transit buses since inception. Our reputation creates a level of trust that allows for a significant competitive advantage to offer both our legacy and next generation electric buses in a variety of classes and configurations to an incredibly wide variety of customers. Our U.S. manufacturing campus in Ferndale, Washington, continued to ramp production during the quarter to tackle the fulfillment of our growing backlog, which, as of March 31st, exceeded $125 million U.S. The facility is designed to meet our current and future production needs with annual capacities of 850 buses and several thousand electric VMC 1200 trucks. Operationally, I was appointed to the newly created role of president to lead our next phase of growth. To that end, we are focused on driving strategic and operational initiatives to streamline production and increase vehicle sales through our Vicinity Classic and Lightning bus lines as well as the VMC 1200 truck. Our initial strategic plan is focused on milestones related to the onshoring of production for the Vicinity Lightning bus in Ferndale, Washington, augmenting the Canadian dealer network for the VMC 1200 truck, as we've covered today, and the formal launch of the VMC 1200 into the U.S. market. As we stand today, we are aggressively building out our VMC 1200 dealer network continent-wide and ramping up production in our Ferndale facility. We're actively working to monetize our backlog, including an immediate-term focus on converting our $28 million of inventory to cash. The first quarter's strong revenue, positive cash flow from operations, and robust backlog are positioning us for a high level of operational execution in the quarters ahead. With that, I will now turn it over to Dan to review the financial results for the quarter ended March 31st, 2024. Dan? Thank you, Brent.