When I was in school, we predicted the 2000s would be a world of flying transport, with autonomous vehicles at your beck and call transforming our clean, quiet, beautiful, organised cities. But in 2015, I found myself walking through London, faced with the same busy, noisy streets and diesel smell that has been a part of our lives since I can remember. There was a smartphone with fast internet in my hand, online cinema on my TV, but I couldn’t identify a mass breakthrough for the automotive industry. We use cars, buses, and vans every day, but somehow we had let this industry lag severely on innovation.
In the auto industry, companies make a million incremental changes to modify processes and products, trying to optimize, cut costs and redesign cars, but it’s within the same tight parameters as always. Drivers, riders and citizens deserve more!
Looking at the auto industry in 2015, I knew the old method of designing, producing, selling and owning vehicles was incompatible with our world today, it needed a fresh disruptive approach. Revolutionizing both the products and the process.
Founding Principles
If you do things exactly the same way as everybody else, it’s strange to expect better results.
Arrival was founded with the belief that we could take a radically different approach to transportation, building vehicles that have a huge impact by accelerating the transition to zero-emissions. We are a company creating the systems, which create the vehicles.
Everything we do at Arrival is different to other electric vehicle companies, both legacy OEMs and new startups. By reimagining the entire process of making EVs, as well as the vehicles themselves, we have developed a new method of designing, producing and distributing products that are affordable, beautiful and provide an exceptional user experience.
Arrival created and patented a new method of vehicle production using Microfactories. But it is impossible to assemble vehicles that currently exist using this brand new approach, vehicles must be designed specifically to be assembled by Microfactories — including all components and parts (using new materials).
Our new method is radical. If you try to compare Gigafactories vs Microfactories, it is not Betamax vs VHS, it is Betamax vs Cloud Storage.
The Microfactory is a major disruptor. There is no situation where a giant factory has an advantage over an Arrival Microfactory in any aspect. A Microfactory excels in Capex per Vehicle, Assembly Cost per Vehicle and the list goes on. Just as a Mainframe is never better than Cloud Computing.
By decentralising production and placing Microfactories close to urban areas we provide local jobs, create business for local suppliers and pay local taxes. And by using Microfactories, assembly of vehicles in New York can be cheaper than in China.
This new method produces better vehicles competitive in price with fossil fuel equivalents, with up to 50% savings of operational cost. With Arrival’s products, there is no need to choose between being sustainable or cost efficient. What is good for business, is also good for people and the planet.
Announcement
For the first five years of our history, we worked in stealth to create our New Method and Products.
And now, Arrival begins our next phase of growth. We have made the decision to enter into a definitive merger agreement with CIIG (NASDAQ: CIIC). In CIIG, we saw a group that understood our unique business model and the technologies that underpin it. We shared the same excitement about our potential to significantly impact the world as we seek to accelerate the mass adoption of electric vehicles globally. We had many options to take Arrival to the next level, but we chose a process that provided us with the funds to ramp up production and expand globally to meet a rapidly increasing demand for our zero-emission products.
Progress So Far
Arrival has grown from an initial idea to a business valued at $5.4bn with over $1.2bn of orders on the books. We have four products in development and testing and our first vehicles’ production is planned for next year. 2020 has seen us emerge from stealth mode to announce strategic partnerships with Hyundai and Kia, funds managed by BlackRock and UPS, growth of our team to 1,300+ employees in seven global offices, and now, announcing a public offering with the expectation of becoming a cash flow positive company in 2023.
Market Potential
I look at the future and know our technologies will define us. The ecosystem we’re developing — starting with the Arrival Van and Arrival Bus — creates solutions for cities, governments, companies, and consumers. We understand the automotive industry’s future — electric and connected — and have designed our vehicles for those needs. We’re seeing rising demand to decarbonize transport networks, elevate passengers’ experience, and contribute to a greener, more efficient urban environment. We live in a connected system and need to create technologies and vehicles that are designed for interconnectedness and sustainable impact. The auto industry must consider the individual needs of all people that interact with its products, from the drivers and fleet managers to passengers and maintenance staff. By considering these needs and making vehicle design and impact responsive to that landscape, we ensure our product and our company’s livelihood as we continue to push the pace of innovation. We have created a high margin business enabled by our own hardware, software and next gen robotics — creating an expansive IP portfolio in the process.
It’s possible to make a product that’s green. It’s possible for it to have a superior TCO. It’s possible for it to be customised and tailored to your needs, yet future-proofed for the ever advancing world we live in.
We have all that and more in Arrival. But we’re not here to convince you. We’re here to deliver it.
Denis Sverdlov is Founder and CEO of Arrival. For more information on Arrival visit our website.
