Xos, Inc.

Good afternoon, and welcome to EXOS' third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded, and we have allocated one hour for prepared remarks and Q&A. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Henry Kwan, Head of Investor Relations for EXOS. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Hosting the call today are EXOS' Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dakota Semler, co-founder and chief operating officer, Giordano Sordoni, and chief financial officer, Kingsley Atamiki. Ahead of this call, EXO has issued its third quarter 2021 earnings press release and presentation, which we will reference today. These can be found on the investor relations section of our website at investors.exostrucks.com. On this call, management will be making statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect because of factors discussed in today's earnings news release, during this conference call, or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents can be found on our website at investors.exostrucks.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures and performance metrics. You should refer to the information contained in the company's third quarter 2021 earnings press release for definitional information and reconciliation of historical non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures. With that, let me turn it over to Dakota.

Thanks, Henry, and thank you everyone for joining us. In today's presentation, we will refer to the slides that were posted to the investor relations section of our website earlier this afternoon. Before we proceed with our earnings call, I would like to remind everyone that today is Veterans Day. I want to take a moment on behalf of everyone at EXOS to honor and express gratitude to all veterans and those who serve our country. This is our first earnings call since the closing of the business combination with NextGen in August. I'd like to start by thanking our partners and employees for their contributions to Exos' ongoing success and to thank our shareholders for their continued support during this pivotal year. Listing as a public company was an important milestone, and we are excited about the new opportunities it creates for us. The year 2021 has been filled with milestones for Exos. but it has also presented challenges. The well-known disruptions in the global supply chain and new logistical complexities caused by the pandemic have had a negative impact on our business. Many of our efforts this year have been directed towards ameliorating and better forecasting the downstream impact of these challenges. We are confident in our path forward, but we must also acknowledge that aforementioned delays will impact our deliveries for the next few months as we continue to ramp up production and automation and solidify alternative suppliers and solutions. Turning to the next slide, my co-founder Gio and I founded Exos to address the unique problems faced by fleets. As former fleet operators, we know firsthand the challenges of managing a fleet while confronting rising maintenance costs, supply chain complexities, and rapidly changing emissions regulations. Exos was born out of the revelation that a customer-centric approach to last mile commercial vehicles is the best path to both address the challenges of fleet operators and to decarbonize commercial transportation, which makes up over a third of global CO2 emissions. Since our inception five years ago, Exos has grown from an original equipment manufacturer into a production and support ecosystem that enables the electrification and adoption of commercial vehicles. The heart of our business comes down to three primary offerings, fundamental to transitioning fleets to zero emissions fleets. We build electric commercial vehicles featuring our own proprietary battery systems. We build software and tools to optimize the use of those commercial electric vehicles. And finally, we provide charging infrastructure and financing tools to enable the rapid adoption of commercial electric vehicles. We focus on building medium and heavy duty regional haul trucks in Classes 5 through 8. 90% of vehicles in these segments operate on daily routes under 200 miles, known as last mile routes. These vehicles use fixed fleet depots as bases where they can plug into dedicated charging infrastructure. The predictable nature of the routes and return to base model makes such vehicles ideal for electrification. Years spent as fleet operators, combined with feedback that we've gathered from our customers and partners, have taught us that the two most important considerations in deciding to electrify a fleet are durability and a lower total cost of ownership. These considerations are what drive our design philosophy for vehicles. Turning to the next slide, three compelling reasons drive our excitement about Axos' long-term outlook despite the recent headwinds. First, our proprietary EV powertrain technology has been validated through actual on-the-road fleet usage and provides compelling TCO savings for fleet operators. Second, we've curated a world-class team of R&D and engineering leaders instrumental in building leading commercial and electric vehicle OEMs. And last but not least, the total addressable market size of the class five through eight medium and heavy duty regional truck market is an estimated $34 billion, over 90% of which is in the last mile routes and growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 35%. Now turning to the next slide, I'll now provide an overview of our business and vision with a focus on how we have evolved within the last year. Following that, GEO will provide a detailed operational update. Finally, Kingsley will provide a detailed review of our third quarter results and outlook for the rest of 2021. While Exos has been impacted over the quarter by the pandemic and supply chain related challenges faced by all manufacturing companies, Exos has still achieved key milestones. Notable achievements include important product launches, including the Exos Hub and our new line of batteries, the Lyra series. Headcount growth increased headcount by 42% with the addition of 75 full-time employees during the quarter, plus expansion of our two flex manufacturing facilities. Additional orders from Keystone customers including over 200 trucks from FedEx ISPs and growing our dealership and distribution networks. Turning to the next slide, I'd like to discuss our new battery system. The modularity of the X platform allows us to accommodate a wide range of last mile applications and enables us to offer clients industry-leading vehicle costs and total cost of ownership savings. This customer-driven approach, combined with our available financing and energy solutions, are fundamental to making an electric fleet a good business decision. We are incredibly proud to unveil our new Lyra battery series, which represents a significant improvement in our design. Exos focuses on battery designs that withstand the rigors of commercial use without sacrificing modularity and efficiency. The Lyra series is the second series of proprietary battery systems designed and manufactured by Exos and features a system level 52% improvement in gravimetric energy density and a 45% improvement in volumetric energy density, offering a lighter overall pack that is more compact with the same or more net payload capability. The batteries come in two sizes. 30 kilowatt hours and 60 kilowatt hours and a single pack provides an average of 25 and 50 miles of range respectively each battery system features individual recirculated air cooling and an independent battery management system providing fleet operators true modularity and improved reliability it is worth noting that the development process did not come without challenges We began production of the new battery pack design in Q3 and experienced issues with scaling production as well as delays in design validation and the delivery of battery automation equipment. These temporary setbacks led to output delays and as a result, we will not be able to meet our 116 unit delivery target for 2021. We're confident we've overcome the initial delays in production and are proud to announce resumed production of our next generation battery packs. Turning to the next slide, the global supply chain disruption has led to uncertainties on the availability of components at all levels, including semiconductors, raw materials for chassis and body components, and battery cells. With rising freight costs on both land and sea, trying to achieve our target margins for 2021 has been challenging. While we have not been immune to the added working capital and margin pressure faced by all of our competitors, I am extremely proud of our team's collective effort to continue building the foundation for our future growth as a leading solution provider. Our next generation battery pack system, the Lyra series, is a critical part of our product suite going forward and a direct product of dedicated and world-class personnel. Our team's efforts were aided immensely by the closing of our business combination with NextGen during the quarter. While we fell short of our initial capital raising goals, the closing of the combination provided us with capital to continue investing in product development, capacity growth, and key talent. Turning to the next slide, our increase in orders reflects continued robust demand for XS Zero Emissions solutions. Our contracted customers include a number of parcel delivery and e-commerce fleets. We also secured contracts with FedEx ground operators to deliver 120 zero emission electric trucks across 35 different FedEx ground operators in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Texas. Delivery of these vehicles is expected to occur in Q4 2021 and 2022. Exos' growth in order volume and continued production ramp is the direct result of our robust business development department group and key partnerships with distributors. In summary, while the quarter has not been without challenges, the fundamentals of strong market position remain strong. We continue to build great product with a great team in a thriving market. With that, I'll turn it over to Gio.

Thank you, Dakota. The third quarter saw us expand production capacity at our two flex manufacturing sites, commence production of the Lyra series battery system, complete key validation milestones such as durability testing, and expand our Exosphere fleet-as-a-service offering. Before I dive into each of these, I'd like to recap Exos' flex manufacturing strategy. Our flex manufacturing model leverages the existing facilities and labor pools of our strategic manufacturing partners, while EXOS manages other aspects of the manufacturing process, including supply chain logistics, quality control, battery assembly, and manufacturing engineering. We purpose-designed our EX platform so that the chassis could be built in a more nimble and flexible manufacturing setting, and to avoid capital-intensive processes like stamping and robotic welding. Our approach provides an advantage in speed cost savings, and strategic flexibility as we continue to scale production. We are happy to report that in the third quarter, we achieved a 2,000-unit combined annual production capacity for our two vehicle assembly facilities, Flex 1 and Flex 2. Flex 1 in eastern Tennessee is where we assemble the X platform in partnership with Fitzgerald Manufacturing Partners. We are actively producing vehicles in this facility, and also preparing for the addition of a fully automated battery manufacturing cell on the same site. We are also actively producing vehicles at Flex 2 in Monterrey, Mexico, in partnership with Metalsa, a leading Tier 1 provider of vehicle frame rails and chassis systems to the North American market. We are proud to count both Metalsa and Fitzgerald as long-term strategic partners and investors in Exos. In addition to our chassis assembly facilities, Exos has ramped production of our proprietary battery systems at our Los Angeles headquarters. While we experienced delays in ramping manufacturing of our next-generation Lyra battery series, I'm proud to report that our teams have resumed regular production. In Q3, we also announced the completion of a key validation milestone. Our medium-duty stepband concluded formal durability testing, which simulated a delivery vehicle's lifespan of 200,000 miles over a variety of unforgiving terrain. Durability testing is a critical prerequisite to our plan to ramp production capacity at our flex manufacturing sites. We are proud to reach this landmark achievement. We view the electrification of commercial fleets as an opportunity to provide to fleet operators a comprehensive tool to manage their vehicle and energy assets. As part of our bundled fleet-as-a-service package, we provide EXOS customers key components to transition traditional fleets to zero-emissions vehicles. including validated and customer-tested vehicles, vehicle service products, energy infrastructure and charging support, financing options, telematic software, and other related products. Our 360 approach to the customer experience eases the transition from internal combustion to electric by combining product and service offerings and lowering the economic costs and pain points at fleet to transition to zero-emissions vehicles. Exos Energy Solutions provides comprehensive infrastructure to fleets to facilitate and accelerate their EBE deployments. During the third quarter, we launched Exos Serve, an on-demand infrastructure-as-a-service platform that includes site evaluations, energy storage development, and energy management services. We are actively implementing charging installations for customers across the country. In Q3, we also unveiled Exos Hub, our standalone mobile charging station. This exciting new product enables EXOS customers to charge multiple vehicles at their fleet yards or remote locations without prolonged delays related to charging infrastructure installations. I will now pass it over to our CFO, Kingsley Afamiki.

Thanks, Gio, and good evening, everyone. Now, I will review our financials over the quarter with a focus on revenue and operating expenses. Then I will turn to our balance sheet, in particular cash use. Finally, I'll provide some guidance for the full fiscal year 2021. Our revenue over the quarter was $0.4 million, driven by a decrease in unit deliveries. For the quarter, we delivered three units compared to eight in the same period in the prior year. As Dakota mentioned, We have been developing and deploying our new battery design in our vehicles, and this delay which we experience impacts our delivery schedule over the quarter. The delay in battery automation equipment is symptomatic of the supply chain challenges that we, like all OEMs, are currently facing. We are taking steps such as increasing safety stock of critical components, swapping out suppliers by redesigning certain parts, and expediting logistics. You will see some of the effects of these steps in both gross margin and in working capital on the balance sheet. Ultimately, in a hardware technology company such as ours, the critical goal is to optimize operations by increasing scale and utilization, both of which will take place in the next 12 to 18 months. Turning to expenses, third quarter gap operating expenses were minus $14.3 million compared to minus $3.1 million during the same period in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was minus $14.1 million for the third quarter, compared to minus $3 million in the prior year period. Our GNA represents, at this stage in our development, our investment in future growth and headcount additions as we scale production. we see current levels of operating losses as reflecting our commitment to delivering industry-leading products and solutions to our customers. Over 60% of our headcount is in engineering and manufacturing divisions. R&D expenses came to $3.2 million in the third quarter. We are currently focused on developing our chassis cab and class H vehicles, as well as software needed for our Exosphere fleet management platform which would be a key component of our fleet-as-a-service offering, as Gio mentioned. Overall, despite this growth in investment, our operating expense remains well within our plans. And finally, operating loss for the quarter was $14.3 million, compared to $3.1 million in the same period in the prior year. It is important to note that there are certain warrants and derivatives that under U.S. GAAP we must record at fair value in our balance sheet, and record changes in our income statements. While these are important, these changes are not reflective of our underlying operations. Turning now to the balance sheet, the closing of our business combination allowed us to raise $216.7 million net for transaction costs through our merger with NextGen Acquisition Corp. And at the end of the third quarter, our cash and equivalents amounted to $207.4 million. Inventories grew to $20.8 million, partially reflecting the steps we have taken to ensure sufficient supply of key components. $9.4 million of the $17.8 million of prepaid expenses relates to production equipment and inventory, reflecting investment in manufacturing and scaling. As Gia mentioned, our flex manufacturing strategy mixes CapEx lighting comparison with other OEMs, so we see working capital and headcount additions as the two primary drivers of cash use over the next coming courses. Overall, free cash flow over the course was minus $35.6 million, and our interest-bearing liabilities remained low at $1 million. We believe our business combination with NextGen leads us positioned to execute in our growth strategies. Wrapping up with our business outlook, Over Q4, we expect to deliver 15 to 25 units, resulting in revenues of between $1.7 million and $3 million. That will result in overall deliveries for the full year 2021 of between 27 and 37 units, and revenue of between $3.5 million and $4.7 million. We expect non-GAAP operating loss of between $80 million and $22 million over the quarter. We will provide guidance on 2022 financial outlook in our 2021 four-year call. I will now pass you back on to Dakota. Thank you.

Thanks, Kingsley. Before we open it up for questions, I want to reiterate that we remain optimistic on our future based on market growth our technology platform, and the exceptional people we have here at Exos. Now, we will open up the line for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Ives with Wedbush. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, thanks. Hope everyone's well. So could you maybe just talk about how conversations would have changed with prospective customers over the last, call it, three, six months? I mean, does it really feel like there's an acceleration, especially in shift, more to EV, especially on the fleet side? Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Dan, for that question. There's absolutely been a shift, particularly with some of the recent announcements that have been made by the federal administration announcing funding for infrastructure and helping this entire industry along. We've seen that really come through in a variety of interests from some of our largest customers, like our FedEx ISPs, as well as a number of other types of fleets, food and beverage fleets, parcel delivery fleets, LPL, and other trucking fleets. That interest has only continued to grow in the last few months.

And to that point, I mean, well, given just chip issues, obviously across the industry, how are you sort of handling that going into 2022? in terms of just demand-supply dynamic, right? I mean, it feels like demand, underlying demand exceeding supply. How do you sort of navigate that, you know, just as a business?

It's an important question, and supply chain disruptions have been top of mind through the entire year, and they have had an impact on financials this quarter in both deliveries and in margins. Part of the challenge was we were launching our new Lyra battery system that was set to start manufacturing. And we had delays coming from not just the components that went into that battery system, but also the manufacturing automation equipment that built that battery system. That pushed back some of the production starts in Q3 and ultimately impacted us in being able to deliver the same number of vehicles for this year. But what we see those changes as really being transitory and issues that we've already overcome, but that doesn't mean we don't expect additional issues and additional delays into 2022. So as we look further out into the supply chain disruption for next year, we're really spending the next quarter or so understanding all of the risks that we face and really trying to understand if we can meet our original projections of 2,000 units and what might be disrupted throughout the supply chain.

Great.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Schleske with DA Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. I'd like to maybe start on the Lira system that you've put out here. Can you tell us, I know it's different from your prior system. It sounds like it's very much improved, which was already a great system. What can you tell us about how your system now compares against other EV companies or other battery makers and what they have to offer. And if it is a better system, do you feel like it's something you can maybe either license out or sell to other companies out there at this point?

Absolutely. Thanks for the question, Mike. So really, we start from the requirements of the commercial vehicle industry. And when we began development of this Lyra battery system, we really understood exactly what those customer requirements were from a durability and a longevity perspective. And that went into the engineering all the way from the cell level up to the complete pack system. We designed it to actually be modular so that it could be used in various configurations on our own vehicles, such as our step vans or strip chassis applications, as well as our chassis cab and tractor applications. But he made a really, really good point, which is that this system is modular, so it can be used in our powertrain business for other customers that are building other off-highway equipment or on-highway equipment. The core focus of what we've been doing is building an incredibly durable and reliable battery system. And so that really does carry over into other customer use cases.

Okay, great. And then can you maybe just talk about maybe the update on the Class 7a platform Where are you now in getting that developed and getting that launched? And is there any early customer interest in that product at this point?

Yeah, it's a great, great question. We are right now in that engineering validation phase on the heavier-duty platform. So what's really important about that heavy-duty platform is that we leveraged a lot of the learning and a lot of the engineering experience and expertise from our medium-duty platform and applied it to these heavier and larger vehicles. With that, we've taken input and customer feedback from some contracted customers already, as well as some very interested customers, and incorporated that into a product that we're going to be testing throughout 2022. And we'll plan to be releasing some test units to customers throughout the year in 2022, but ultimately plan to go into production with that vehicle into 2023. I'd say that the market for that vehicle is growing at as fast of a rate as our medium duty platform is today. And we're seeing a lot broader interest in different fleet profiles, not just the food and beverage types of fleets, but also in drayage, in medium haul, in middle mile haul, and a lot of other different tractor applications that customers are utilizing today.

And Mike, this is Geo. I would just add to that by saying that we're extremely proud of the team that we're building here at Exos and a lot of the headcount growth that we've seen over the quarter and in the last few months has been in the engineering org and folks that have experience at other EV companies or even other traditional OEMs in bringing products like our Class 7 and 8 vehicles to market. So that's another really exciting update for us is the headcount growth, especially in engineering and R&D. Got it.

And maybe one last one for me from the demand side, maybe comment on You know, if there were no supply chain issues, do you have the demand, not just for this quarter, but the 2,000 trucks next year? Is that still very much a possibility if and when the supply chain issues that we're all seeing here go away?

Absolutely. I mean, the supply chain disruptions in the world today are a reality. And they put downside risk on our ability to reach our original projection of 2,000 units next year. However, what we're seeing is the demand has not slowed down whatsoever. And you should still expect from us and our production team strong sequential improvement quarter over quarter throughout next year as we continue to deliver more vehicles. And if we're able to rectify some of those supply chain issues, we'll try and get as close to those goals as we can.

So the overall governor here, just to kind of confirm, the overall governor to the production is simply the supply chain. You've got the Orders are a very good line of sight to firm orders the full 2000 next year at this time. That is correct. All right. Thanks so much, guys. I'm going to pass it along. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Steven Fox with Fox Advisors. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good afternoon. A couple questions from me, if I could. First of all, I guess I'm curious about the timing of transitioning to the new battery system, given all the supply chain issues. Was that sort of designed into the existing customer wins, or was that re-specified into as the battery came out? And if so, given sort of what the customer applications are, why not just push that – that advancement out until you had a better line of sight on the equipment, et cetera. And then I had a couple of follow-ups.

Absolutely. It's an important question and a good one as well, Steve. Thanks for asking. When it came to the battery system, we're always focused on reducing the cost of that battery system so that we can create a more compelling TCO equation for our customers, but also improving the longevity and durability of our existing systems. So as we began engineering Lyra, We're focused on building something that was going to be better from a performance standpoint and from a cost standpoint. We have some customers that are still committed to buying our vehicles with the former battery system that we engineered several years ago and has gone through validation and testing. But a number of our newer customers and larger volume orders are coming through with the opportunity to basically utilize this new battery system, given the performance improvements, the energy density improvements, and ultimately the cost improvements, which translates into the price of the vehicle.

That's helpful.

I would add that the two systems share some similar components and the same cell technology and similar battery management and cooling technology as well. So it's not as much of a leap from a risk perspective, but it was a way for us to bake in a lot of the improvements that we wanted to get into this next series and next battery system.

Okay, that makes sense to me. And then secondly, just to understand where you are on production capacity, you said 2,000 units. Does that mean that you're 2,000 units on an equipment basis or equipment with the employees you need? Can you just sort of go into a little bit more detail, given that you have some delays on receiving certain equipment?

Yeah, mostly on the equipment and facilities perspective. And that 2,000 unit number relates to chassis assembly at our flex manufacturing plants, just to be abundantly clear. And this is something that we've spent some time talking about in the script and we talked about before of our flex manufacturing strategy where we have smaller, more nimble, more capital light plants with partners like Fitzgerald Manufacturing Partners and Metulsa in Mexico. So each of those plants have about a thousand units of total production capacity for the chassis that we build there.

Okay. So, um, maybe just to, um, sort of last question, just to sort of dial that out a little bit when, when we think about production constraints today, um, what, what is your ability to produce, um, specifically and how does that change maybe over the course of the quarters as whatever line of sight you have? I know it's difficult.

Yeah, so from a capacity perspective, we have the ability to produce 1,000 vehicles in both of those locations, but the roadblocks that we're facing are more on the supply chain side. So it's not really as much of a capacity issue as it is supply chain.

Got it. So you have the equipment delays are solved now just back to the supply chain.

That's correct.

Great. Understood. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dick Ryan with Collier Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, guys. It's Jacob Parsons on for Dick Ryan. My first question relates to the Lyra battery. It sounds like it provides some pretty good value to customers and will have some general cost improvements for them. But on the side for Exos, is there any significant cost differential margin profile between like the Lyra 30 versus the Lyra 60 for you guys?

It's a great question, Jacob, and something we've been focused on since starting this new program. For us, internally, there is significant cost improvements. So, as we look at the entire system architecture, not necessarily on the individual components that they share, but the complete battery system, we've seen significant cost reduction both in the cost of the components as well as in new automation processes that were introduced in building this battery system. So it has less labor content that goes into every pack that we build. And that just translates to our overall cost of goods and ultimately our margin profile for the vehicles that we're putting on the road with customers. All right, excellent.

And just one last question. I'm just kind of thinking about the cash burn rates and the closing of the SPAC with the $260 million in capital. Does the capital, remind me, is that going to last for the coming years given the current goals of the company and the given cash burn rates?

Hey, it's Kingsley here. Clearly we didn't raise as much cash as we hoped to in the SPAC process. What we did do is raise significant capital to fund R&D, as you can see with the Lyra battery system, ramp production, and build out the organization. Taking a step back, clearly we have a very CapEx-like approach, and you can see that on the balance sheets as well, and we've always been financially prudent throughout the development of this company. As I mentioned in the preferred remarks, The two things that really drive cash use is working capital and people growth, both of which we control and toggle. And we feel very confident as we scale production and scale deliveries and invest in working capital, we will get the capital required to take that next step in the company's development.

All right. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. This does conclude today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.