Huge order for Lion Electric trucks from Amazon
Amazon plans to procure up to 2,500 all-electric Lion 6 and Lion 8 trucks from Canadian manufacturer Lion Electric by 2025. The framework agreement already concluded with Amazon in July 2020 was revealed hidden in a long stock exchange notice.
The so-called SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) notice is ostensibly about Lion Electric’s merger with Northern Genesis Acquisition for the IPO. The document also mentions that a framework agreement with Amazon has been in place since the summer of 2020, which provides for the reservation of production capacities at Lion Electric for up to 500 e-trucks per year between 2021 and 2025. The contract also stipulates that Lion will keep production capacities free for Amazon between 2026 and 2030. This names ten per cent of the capacities, which also stipulates an amount of at least 500 electric trucks. This means that there is an option to sell at least another 2,500 electric trucks in the second half of the decade. Today, Amazon has placed a firm order for ten Lion6 e-trucks from Lion Electric, two of which have been delivered to date.
The framework agreement also regulates further obligations. Lion Electric will also provide maintenance and training for Amazon. More importantly, however, Amazon will be given the option to purchase Lion Electric common stock and warrants for additional shares to such an extent that Amazon may own up to 20 per cent of Lion Electric in the future under certain conditions.
Lion Electric said it had 300 orders for up to 6,000 vehicles at the merger announcement time. For 2021, the manufacturer projects revenue of $204 million on 650 units sold, and for 2023, the revenue of $1.67 billion on 7,580 units sold.
Lion Electric – previously best known for its electric school buses – unveiled the Lion8 in spring 2018. It is a US Class 8 e-truck, which is equivalent to local trucks over 15 tons. The 350 kW Lion8 offers up to 480 kWh of battery capacity for up to 400 km of range, using NMC cells from LG Chem. The Lion6 is analogous to a US Class 6 vehicle over 8.84 tons. Not much is known about this vehicle yet.
In light of the deal with Amazon, which has been in place since the summer, hindsight now explains the large order Lion Electric placed with Romeo Power in November 2020. The Canadian company ordered battery modules and packs for Class 6 to 8 vehicles worth $234 million for a five-year period starting 2021. The deal with Amazon may also explain the confidence with which the Canadian company is pursuing an IPO, as announced in December just passed.
For the Quebéc-based Lion Electric, the revealed deal with Amazon, which is clearly running on a much larger scale than previously revealed, follows their largest (publically announced) order for e-trucks to date when Canada’s rail service requested 50 battery-electric trucks in September 2020. Another large order over 31 electric school buses came in from Canada through Transdev in June. It is an even busier time for Lion Electric than the already promising growth made public until now.
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