Exro Technologies Inc

TSX:EXRO

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Exro Technologies Q3 2024 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call may be recorded, and I will be standing by if you should need any assistance.

It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mr. Jeff O' Dowd. Please go ahead, sir.

[Jeffrey O' Dowd, executive]

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining today. We'll discuss our performance of the third quarter, followed by a Q&A session. Joining us today are Sue Ozdemir, our CEO; and Darrell Bishop, our CFO.

During this call, we will make forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ from those expressed or implied. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are listed in our MD&A for the quarter that ended September 30, 2024, which can be found on SEDAR and on our website.

In addition, during the call, we may refer to specific non-IFRS measures. These measures are also reconciliation of non-IFRS measures to the most directly comparable IFRS measures. Management believes these non-IFRS measures provide useful information to investors regarding the corporation's financial condition and results of operations as they provide additional metrics of performance.

These non-IFRS measures are not recognized under IFRS, do not have any standardized meaning prescribed on the IFRS and may differ from similarly named measures reported by other issuers. Accordingly, they may not be comparable. These measures should not be considered as a substitute for related financial information prepared under IFRS.

With that, I will now turn over our call to our CEO, Sue Ozdemir.

[Sue Ozdemir, executive]

Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We are proud of the operational and financial results we achieved this quarter and excited by our momentum heading into next year. We continue to deliver against our core strategy and make progress towards our key milestones of revenue growth, profitability and technology integration.

Our diligence and focus on execution drove revenue growth of 108%, while also reducing costs. This revenue was driven by delivery of a company record of 74 e-Propulsion systems to blue-chip OEM customers, a 106% increase over our Q2 2024 results. While we still have a way to go, we are moving closer to the future, we all envision.

I'm going to take a little bit to talk about where we're living today. We are living in an era where electrification is the now, but the world is still grappling with this transition and the mass adoption of electric vehicles. From grid and adequacies to electric vehicle adoption, the quest for energy efficiency is paramount.

The barriers to electrification are many, but we can group them really into 3 key buckets that continue to challenge everyone, including Exro in the industry from large legacy OEMs to emerging companies like ours, to motivated fleet owners that want to go green, these are some of the top challenges.

Cost, commercial vehicles are company assets. They are needed to deliver and aid a company's business outcomes. Beyond being energy efficient, these trucks need to have a total cost of ownership that makes sense. Within the passenger vehicle sector, the reasons are slightly different, but cost still remains the issue.

This is a key challenge that we see OEMs striving for, trying to get to profitability through vehicle platforms that are affordable with most global passenger automotive OEMs, trying to aim for a sub-25,000 price point. Later, Darrell will delve into issues like this, the cost, and we'll discuss how our success is continuing to drive down cost on a unit level without compromising performance. The second issue, performance.

Now going beyond the driving itself, but being able to achieve the outcome that's needed of that vehicle, a garbage truck that can pick up the same number of routes or an urban delivery truck that can tackle the heavy bulky loads with the same ease of intercity light loads. The variability of driving conditions and in particular, fleet in the groups needs to be considered.

This is how we at Exro talk about performance. There is no single solution as everyone drives differently. From the roads we climb on to the weather we navigate, the ability to tackle all conditions and how we achieve true mass adoption.

And finally, range. Now I know when we all think about range, we think about range anxiety, charging stations, but that is actually progressing in the right direction. There's a lot of work left to do. but we are overcoming this. We have many more chargers across North America today than just a year ago. But in fleet, there is still some work to go from a charging position. And we need to think about that impact on our grid and what we're going to face in the months and years to come.

Central to the electric transformation is innovation, and in particular, innovation in power electronics. It is through power electronics that we control electrical energy and energy efficiency. This capability is where Exro shines. Our technology optimizes electric vehicle propulsion systems by expanding their capabilities of electric motors and batteries, which are 2 of the foundational elements of the electric transition.

With our innovative technology, we have demonstrated that we can achieve performance without compromising price. Exro Packaging technology provides the solution to achieving powertrains with less complex systems that can deliver unprecedented real-world driving and cost-effective solutions.

Our systems utilizing power electronics to bring fast charging onboard vehicle inside the inverter itself. The end result is charging infrastructure costs that are 10% to 20% of the cost of the DC fast charging stations in the market today.

Our technology demonstrates the difference that real innovation makes. The transition to electrification is underway, and innovation is the key to our future. While we are proud of our progress and the accomplishments, we believe that there is still a significant potential to drive further improvements in both performance and cost efficiency.

So now let's dig into our Q3 financial performance. The past 6 months have been dedicated to execution on our core pillars that were part of our strategy for merging with SEA Electric in April of this year. I'm going to spend a few minutes discussing where we stand with each of those core pillars and why we are proud of the progress.

Our first pillar was around consistent growth and how we demonstrate building that foundation towards that growth. In Q3, we were able to deliver 74 propulsion systems, double what we did last quarter. While lower than what we had anticipated at the deal closing in April. This represents significant progress, especially given the challenge that we highlighted in Q2.

This quarter, we course corrected and implemented key quality metrics, improved processes and doubled down on our strategic supplier agreement. The quarter highlights not only our ability to deliver consistently, but also our commitment to ensuring that this momentum continues. Backed by our blue-chip OEMs, we are now poised to ramp up production, which will, in turn, drive growth and scale.

The second core pillar is our path to profitability. Delivering a record number of systems to top OEMs is not an easy task. Our team not only delivered but also drove substantial cost savings that our initial goal of bill of material cost reductions of 5%. We have achieved over 18% savings on our system since April 5, and remain focused on our path to profitability.

As we talked about at the start of today's call, this is a core objective as this is key to the transition is performance without compromising price. Innovating great technology is hard, but innovating great technology that is affordable is exponentially harder. Exro has long been committed to innovating while growing revenue and achieving profitability.

Now as we continue with full commercialization, we are focusing on programs that have visibility to profitability. Darrell is going to discuss our progress in more detail, but I will note that we improved our unit cost of goods sold by more than 20% over last quarter.

And finally, our technology disruption. As I said, innovation is the answer to an electrified future. Regardless of the sector, passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, the answer lies in our ability to deliver solutions to solve our customer's challenges.

Improved energy efficiency and performance while driving down costs. Our packages technology has been integrated with our OEM partners, and it continues to progress. We not only are able to produce more systems at a lower cost, but we're improving the technology as well. The integration of our coil driver into all Exro's propulsion systems remains on track for second half of 2025. We will provide more detail on our technology road map tomorrow at our inaugural Analyst Day.

Before turning it over to Darrell to go through our financial summary, let's go over an operational update. I wanted to take a minute to address some items as we continue to progress and evolve our organization. To do this, I'm going to walk through our progress from April when we closed the merger until now.

At the time of closing, we have 5 strategic goals for 2024. The first was delivering on 250 units in our first 6-month polls closed. In Q2, we discussed certain integration challenges and their impact on our business and forecast. We have worked hard to overcome these challenges. And while we cannot make up these units in the short term, our performance in Q3 should speak for itself in our commitment to delivering consistent quarter-over-quarter growth. With year-to-date revenue of $16.3 million and after 6 months of execution, we are now delivering against orders, backlog and future demand. Our future is bright.

The second was our cost savings of 20%, across the business. Again, we've long been committed to the foundational processes and systems that deliver efficiency and operational execution. These initiatives are not always visible externally, but they are the foundation of how we've been able to overcome many of the challenges post merger.

These behind-the-scene efforts have allowed us to recognize on a quarterly basis, the growth that we've seen quarter-over-quarter. They will become more evident as we continue to progress the business. The third was our first joint integrations.

Our Hino platform was committed as our first integration partner, which we announced in August. This work continues to progress, and we are pleased to announce that the vehicle is on site here in Mesa, for our Analyst Day tomorrow, with coil driver inside that allows featured Exro patented solution. Our guys have enjoyed being out and driving the vehicle today and really being able to not only see the coil driver, but the charging and really in full position.

In addition to our Hino integration, we have targeted a MAC integration for the fourth quarter, which remains on track. Supply chain efficiencies with a 5% reduction in bill of material. This is one of our big steps forward. It was an aggressive challenge, although it may not seem that way with 5%.

We continue to make progress in our efforts to reduce costs. We focused to reaching this profitability target. And with the support of our partners, we exceeded our expectations and delivered over 18% reduction in our bill of material in the past 6 months. We will provide more detail on this goal at our Analyst Day tomorrow. These cost outs have been driven by strategic sourcing within our supply chain, efficient ordering and efficient logistics.

And finally, our new innovation program. The Stellantis program announced in late Q3 provides some monumental step forward in our developments in the Passenger Vehicle segment. This program has pushed us to develop our cost position and improve performance without compromising price.

As we develop our work within the passenger vehicle segment, we continue to stay on focus with our 2 key partnerships in mid- and late-stage discussions and have an additional partnership in commercial trucking that is progressing through commercialization as well. These top pipeline positionings are progressing as we had hoped for this time of year.

Overall, while we recognize the frustrations experienced over the past year, I'd like to take a moment to say thank you to our shareholders and to remind all of our stakeholders that we cannot control the pace of the broader transition, but we can control the aspects within our reach.

Our patented technology is fully derisked, is demonstrating best-in-class performance, and is integrated into top OEM in electrification. We continue to control our costs developing ongoing cost reductions, and we control the partnerships we select in which we enter into, ensuring we collaborate with market leaders who share our commitment to excellence. I recognize all of the challenges, and I acknowledge the message that we've experienced. However, our vision of being best-in-class supplier for power electronics remains the same.

We are ready to scale and grow alongside the ongoing transition. Thank you. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Darrell. Sorry about that little mix up there. I thought my voice had went off on my phone there. So I apologize.

[Darrell Bishop, executive]

Thanks, Sue. Nothing like a live event here. Good afternoon, everyone. As we dive into the financial aspects of the quarter, I want to ground everyone and that the story around the quarter is that we demonstrated a steady improvement over Q2. So first, we are beginning to recognize the benefits of the SEA Electric acquisition that closed in April of this year. Second, our operations are beginning to stabilize. And third, we continue to drive down costs to demonstrate a focus on profitability.

As Sue highlighted, in Q3, we achieved a record revenue milestone of $11 million, more than double the $5.3 million posted in Q2. This revenue is primarily recognized from the delivery of 74 electric propulsion systems to OEMs during the quarter, a more than twofold increase on a sequential basis.

Importantly, we also demonstrated our ability to drive down costs on our bill of material and across the business. We were able to achieve these results while also addressing the many challenges to our supply chain, which we highlighted on our Q2 earnings call.

In Q3, we successfully reduced costs on a per unit basis while also doubling our deliveries. Our cost of goods sold for the quarter was $12.6 million, resulting in a gross profit loss, excluding a noncash provision for inventory of $1.7 million. This is compared to a $2.7 million loss in Q2.

On a per unit basis, costs decreased by approximately 20% quarter-over-quarter as we improve supply chain efficiency, we minimized air freighting of materials and ensured onetime -- on-time delivery of parts. We continue to drive down that bill of materials as Sue highlighted, and we are targeting an additional 20% reduction by the end of Q2 2025.

Turning to notable operating expenses. Payroll and SG&A accounted for $8.1 million and $3.4 million, respectively, showing reductions of 7% and 35% quarter-over-quarter. Following the close of Q3, we implemented additional cost-cutting measures, which included further reductions in payroll and SG&A as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline operations.

Since April 5, we've reduced our head count by approximately 35% and annual payroll by more than USD 10 million. Other items worth noting. Accounts payables stood at $31.3 million at the end of the quarter, which was up slightly from just over $29 million in Q2, as we continue to work through the legacy SEA acquisition payables in conjunction with ramping up our working capital purchases to support the growth that you saw in Q4 and going into 2025.

Offsetting this was an inventory value of $27.9 million, down from $32 million in Q2 as we advanced the conversion of inventory into revenue in Q3. The main components of this inventory at September 30, included raw materials, which were valued at just over $20 million. This includes batteries, motors, the components that make up our EV propulsion system, in addition to a work in progress inventory of $7.1 million.

Moving to goodwill and intangibles. Given the decline in our share price through Q3 and the decreased volume outlook since April 5, we were obligated by accounting standards to complete an impairment test. This test resulted in a write-down of all goodwill and a portion of intangible assets related to the SEA Electric acquisition. This is a $211 million noncash adjustment to the carrying value of these assets.

From a cash perspective, we closed the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of just -- of $14.0 million. This was supported by a $25 million equity financing, which we completed in Q3, which was backed predominantly by existing shareholders who are aligned with our long-term vision.

As we continue our path to profitability, we are also actively engaged to secure additional non-dilutive capital. We believe our execution in Q3 has positioned us well to secure the necessary bridge to profitability with the goal of achieving sub sustainability in the second half of 2025.

I want to take a few minutes to further highlight that path to profitability. I want to emphasize that we remain laser-focused on our revenue growth in parallel with our cost-out efforts. So I just want to dive into the progress that we've made on a couple of key initiatives.

First, our bill of material cost reductions. As Sue highlighted, when we closed the acquisition of SEA Electric in April, we were targeting a 5% reduction in our bill of material on our propulsion systems for 2024. Building on the progress made in Q2, the team continued to drive down costs and implement continuous improvements. As a result, we've achieved more than 18% in savings on our bill of material and are on track to further exceed our 2024 goals through Q4.

Second, cross-business cost outs. In the first 6 months, we've achieved roughly USD 15 million in annualized savings against the 2024 target of USD 10 million. These cost reductions have been primarily driven by head count reductions, facilities optimization and operational efficiencies. While much of these savings are annualized, they underscore the strength of our CapEx-light business model and our focus on efficient processes and supply chain management.

Third will be a design evolution. We continue to make progress in R&D. While we've seen success in reducing costs, it has been driven by the foundational work we've done over the past few years. Our initial mission, which was set 5 years ago was to build a technology platform that was both scalable and flexible.

Our current R&D spend alongside partnerships with world-class OEMs like Stellantis, Mac, Linamar and Hino and others position us for continued innovation and cost reduction. And this all coincides with our plan to continue to demonstrate quarter-over-quarter growth and deliveries of our technologies with blue-chip OEM customers through efficient execution.

Before I turn it back to Sue and we open it up for questions, I just want to echo Sue's sentiment that innovation is that key to our electrified future. Over the first 6 months after we closed the merger, our organization has undergone a transformational shift, overcoming numerous challenges and delivering record results quarter-over-quarter.

While the journey thus far has not been without its hurdles, we are making progress in the key drivers of our business: consistent growth, cost reduction and a clearer path to cash flow profitability. With that, I'll turn it back over to Sue for some closing remarks and questions.

[Sue Ozdemir, executive]

Thank you, Darrell. First off, I want to say thank you to all of the Exro team for your dedication to our progress. Tomorrow marks our first inaugural Analyst Day in Mesa, where we will launch our integrated coil driver propulsion system with a ride-and-drive event that allows the opportunity to see the differentiation firsthand. And we will provide guidance towards our 2025 business plan.

Thank you to all of our shareholders for all of your continued support. We greatly appreciate it. And with that, I'll open it up for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We will move first to Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets.

[Chris Murray, analyst]

Yes. So I guess the first question, just looking at kind of production rates and the ramp. I think, Sue, you talked about initial expectations as was for $250 million. We've done call it, maybe half of that, a little bit less than half of that. Can you talk about how the ramp is progressing as -- Q4 into 2025. And I know that you had mentioned that in last quarter, there were things pronounced some software issues and things like that, they're holding back some inventory delivery. If you can just maybe address kind of where we're at in terms of that cadence, that would be helpful.

[Sue Ozdemir, executive]

Yes, sure, Chris. And tomorrow, we'll be providing kind of the details around it. But what I would say is the software issues have been fully dealt with, they're not any type of barrier for us right now. And we continue to see that growth continuing into the quarters to come. We're well set up right now. We're expecting shipments in to continue to set us up through the first quarter, and we see that ability to continue to grow quarter-over-quarter.

[Chris Murray, analyst]

Okay. All right. And then just maybe thinking about the SEA write-down, and I appreciate there was some accounting requirements in this. But in going through the notes and thinking about what it kind of implies about kind of longer-term revenue growth from SEA, can you maybe address kind of puts and takes around the combination? And what's really changed in the expectations since you've done the transaction.

And as well, I'm sure we're going to get this question. But in terms of the compensation that Exro provided to SEA, is there anything that offsets some of those changes even at this point?

[Darrell Bishop, executive]

Yes. Maybe I'll jump in a little bit on the impairment first, Chris. I think you kind of hit it with the beginning part of your question in terms of this, I want to identify this as a noncash write-down in goodwill and intangible assets. A lot of it was driven by the share price depreciation that we've seen as well as the -- that forecast that we're lower today than what we anticipated at the beginning of the year when we announced the merger with Sea Electric.

We'll give some additional color to that tomorrow when we go through the guidance and the outlook on the Analyst Day. But for the most part, this was driven by -- the bigger part of it would have been the depreciation of our share price from approximately $1 a share when we announced the acquisition of SEA Electric earlier this year, and we were around $0.85 on April 5, when we closed. And then at the end of the quarter, we were sub $0.30 a share. And so that would have been the bigger driver in there.

[Chris Murray, analyst]

Okay. And then just 1 quick question. Just -- and I appreciate for giving more detail, but you had it in previous quarters. And even as part of the combination, you talked about doing kind of a reverse user share consolidation. Any thoughts around that at this point with where the shares are trading?

[Darrell Bishop, executive]

Yes. I think it's always something that's been out there, Chris. I would say it's not a topic of conversation right now and anything that we're speaking with from a board level and a management perspective. To be quite frank, we are laser focused on the operations. We are focused on rebuilding the value that we see, and I think that we're starting to recognize from the execution within the business and kind of really put our head down on making sense of that first.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We will move next to Jeff Grampp with Alliance Global Partners.

[Jeffrey Grampp, analyst]

Good evening. I was curious, for Sue or Darrell, kind of the trajectory of those 74 systems throughout the quarter or even better if you have anything post-quarter in terms of the shipment cadence. Just wondering either the distribution of those shipments throughout the quarter? Was there kind of an accelerating pace, maybe exiting into September and maybe how shipments have trended into Q4? Anything along those lines that you could share would be great.

[Sue Ozdemir, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Jeff. And great question. So yes, there's definitely kind of an acceleration. I would say we're not quite at that full ramp of week-over-week is exactly growth, but I would say you definitely see the ramp month-over-month, where we kind of came out stronger at the end of the month as those efficiencies really started to take effect and kind of inventory started to catch up with supply chain and kind of really positioned us well as we go into the fourth quarter.

We've got some holidays, so that's -- we're navigating that. But from a delivery and execution perspective, we're really well set up coming out of the quarter and expect that ramp to continue week-over-week.

[Jeffrey Grampp, analyst]

Okay. Great. I appreciate those details. And for my follow-up on the cost side of things, I appreciate all the efforts you guys have made on that front. Would you say Q3 OpEx is kind of a good representation of where you guys would like to keep things going forward? Or have there been some either cuts made in the quarter that you didn't get a full benefit from or anything kind of forthcoming that can further benefit the OpEx side of things.

[Darrell Bishop, executive]

Yes. Great question, Chris. I would say we are continuing our cost-out efforts across the business, including OpEx -- when you look at the payroll numbers quarter-over-quarter, we made some progress there. There were some additional cuts that were made subsequent to the quarter through the month of October, that you will see pay -- that you will see play out with our Q4 results and certainly on an annualized basis as we look into 2025.

Now when we are optimizing the business from that perspective, of course, that plays over into an SG&A perspective as well, your direct head count impact from an SG&A standpoint. And so we would anticipate to see that those costs continue to decrease across the business.

[Sue Ozdemir, executive]

And Chris, I'll add on a little bit on that one. Just to say it kind of goes to what we were talking about with the foundational systems that we have in place and that ability to get more efficient as we go. So as we continue to ramp where a lot of companies have to do the investment at that point. That's investment that we've made over the past years that we're now recognizing. And so we can do those cost reductions but still ramp up the units that we need to do.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] With no other questions holding. I'll now turn the conference back to Sue Ozdemir for any additional or closing remarks.

[Sue Ozdemir, executive]

Well, thank you once again to our shareholders. Keep an eye on our website on our Investor Center where we'll be sharing all the highlights of our Analyst Day tomorrow, and we look forward to having everybody enjoy in our guidance and our innovation. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.