GreenPower Motor Company Inc

XTSX:GPV

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the GreenPower Motor Company Third Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Sieffert, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

[Michael Sieffert, CFO & Secretary]

Thank you. This is Michael Sieffert, Chief Financial Officer of GreenPower Motor Company. I would like to welcome everyone to our call to discuss GreenPower's financial results for the period ended December 31, 2021. I'm here today with our Chief Executive Officer, Fraser Atkinson; our President, Brendan Riley; and our VP of Sales and Marketing, Ryne Shetterly. During today's call, we may make comments or statements about our future expectations, plans and prospects, which may constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provision under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in our quarterly interim results and MD&A filed on SEDAR and on EDGAR. In addition, these forward-looking statements relate to the date on which they are made. We anticipate subsequent events and developments may cause the company's views to change. GreenPower disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Also, during the course of today's call, we may refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures. Reconciliation of these non-IFRS measures can be found in our MD&A on SEDAR and on EDGAR and is also located on our website at www.greenpowermotor.com. I will now pass the call over to GreenPower's CEO, Fraser Atkinson.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Thanks, Michael. Over the years, we've talked about money and mandates being drivers for adoption of electric vehicles and growth drivers for companies like ours. Recent developments on the West Coast include the state of California stepping up with proposed funding of $400 million over 3 years for the purchase of zero-emission school buses, with $130 million being allocated this year alone, along with $200 million over 3 years for a transit bus set-aside fund for $60 million for this year. On the East Coast, we have the state of New York announcing a mandate for zero-emission school buses by 2035. The federal level recently announced an unprecedented level of funding of $5 billion over 5 years for the purchase of zero-emission buses. Earlier this week, Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, stated this could be available as early as April of this year. We are well positioned to take advantage of these programs with our BEAST all-electric school bus introduced at the end of last August and our family of transit vehicles. Our EV Star products can satisfy a number of requirements for transit properties including Buy America. Now I want to talk about our recently announced plans to manufacture all-electric school buses in the state of West Virginia. When we were exploring our options on how to expand our business, Brendan and I determined that we needed to find a factory-ready property and develop a partnership with the local community and state. We found that in South Charleston, West Virginia, the building is only a few years old. So instead of spending time and resources on a teardown or a new build, we will have a nominal CapEx so we can start the more important work of building electric school buses right away. Our goal is to be producing upward of 1,000 all-electric school bus or purpose-built school buses in the state annually in 3 to 4 years' time. The original plan was to take occupancy on September 1, 2022, but we've been working with the state to move this up to May of 2022. In terms of the partnership we were seeking, the state of West Virginia is purchasing the property and giving us a rent-free holiday until next year. And when we do start paying the monthly lease payments, these will be applied to the purchase price of the property. We can also earn incentives for up to $3.5 million if we hit various employment levels. Finally, the state of West Virginia has committed to provide funding of $15 million for the purchase of GreenPower vehicles manufactured in the state. The city of South Charleston has been extremely supportive. On February 1, we announced a partnership with BridgeValley Community and Technical College and the Workforce Development Board of Kanawha County to provide workforce development and training opportunities for potential employees at our new manufacturing facility. In summary, this will give us a dedicated facility for manufacturing our all-electric school buses, extends our footprint across the nation and, importantly, frees up space at our facility in Southern California. So we'll be able to increase the throughput of various EV Star models and low-floor transit vehicles. Next, I'll turn it over to Michael Sieffert, GreenPower's CFO, who will cover the quarterly financials.

[Michael Sieffert, CFO & Secretary]

Thank you, Fraser. For the third quarter ended December 31, 2021, GreenPower recorded revenues of $5.3 million, which was an increase of 121% over the revenue of $2.4 million for the comparable quarter and first fiscal year -- in the previous fiscal year. Revenue for the third quarter included the delivery of 8 BEAST school buses, a follow-on delivery of 4 EV Stars to a Fortune 500 company, 3 EV Star Plus for shuttle services at Vancouver International Airport and deliveries of various EV Stars and EV Star CCs to several other customers. Gross profit for the quarter was $1.5 million or 27.8%, which was an increase from the gross profit margin of 21.5% during the last quarter. The gross profit this quarter was slightly below our 30% target due to the sale of BEAST school buses at a lower margin, which was partially offset by sales of other products at a gross margin above 30%. We continue to target a gross margin of up to 30%, which may vary from quarter-to-quarter based on product and customer mix. We saw an increase in our cash expenses to $3 million this quarter, which was attributable to continued investments in our business, including sales activities, expanding our team of production and operations professionals, and professional fees and product development as we expanded into new markets and develop new products. We finished the quarter with $29.4 million in working capital, plus approximately $4 million in available liquidity. Working capital included $5.4 million in accounts receivable, the majority of which was current at quarter end, and $28.6 million in inventory, which is comprised of over $10.7 million in finished goods and $17.9 million in work in process. We have completed work in process inventory since quarter end and have over 100 EV Stars and 30 BEAST school buses that we expect to be driving near-term sales growth. I now hand it over to Brendan for some operational details.

[Brendan Riley, President & Director]

Thank you, Michael. On the product front, we're very excited to introduce our 22-foot cargo van. It's called our EV Star Cargo. This battery electric van is ideally sized in options for commercial use in urban markets and the mid-mile delivery space. The EV Star Cargo is the only battery electric vehicle currently available with this high-payload range with payload and large-range category, giving it a massive and diverse addressable market. We expect deliveries to begin later in the current quarter with a strong initial order backlog for this unit in place that's also growing. We also have accelerated the rollout of our very popular BEAST all-electric school bus. Initial deliveries began during the quarter and will continue to ramp up throughout the year. I cannot emphasize enough how much the BEAST is truly in a class of its own when compared to the competition that's out there. It is the most feature-packed all-electric school bus on the market, and it incorporates a very advanced Constellium EcoRange body, which is lighter, stronger, safer and offers a smoother ride and a longer life span than any other school bus ever made. Initial customer feedback has been exceptional, and we have high expectations for this product in 2022 and beyond. We've also made a great progress in positioning GreenPower for future growth. Despite some minorly relative -- excuse me, despite some relatively minor headwinds from Omicron last year and early this year, we continue to accelerate deliveries while building our sales reach both internally and externally. These recent expansions provide GreenPower with tremendously greater reach on a national level. In closing, GreenPower has demonstrated that we have the products, the market demand and are now tirelessly working to solidify strategic relationships necessary to catapult our growth to the next level. We are optimistic that 2022 will provide -- will prove to be a transformative year, and I look forward to providing additional details on our progress when prudent. With that being said, operator, please open up the call for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group.

[Tate H. Sullivan, Senior Industrials Analyst]

Starting with inventory, if I may. And you noted in the press release you're near a targeted level of inventory, but I think you said that you've built inventory since the quarter end or I'd expect -- how do you measure your targeted level? Or how do you look at that longer term, please?

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Tate, this is Fraser. So we've -- with the close to $30 million of inventory we reported at year-end, the mix was 1/3-2/3 or 40-60. And on a longer-term basis, we're looking at having maximizing our throughput with more of a 50-50 in terms of 50% finished goods and 50% related to various stages of production. So we're -- I'd say the previous end -- at quarter end, we're probably closer to 20-80. And so we made great progress in getting to that target and would expect to be there in the next number of months.

[Tate H. Sullivan, Senior Industrials Analyst]

And then just to confirm, the timing of delivery of that finished goods inventory to customers, is it dependent mostly on when the customers receive their government funding?

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Actually, a lot of them -- at the year-end, for example, we had a number of vehicles that were sitting and waiting for a particular component of the package. So for example, we would order a seat package for a vehicle, and it would arrive with all of the seats but not the barriers that were part of the overall installation of that seat package. So the vehicle would have to be set aside. We move and work on another vehicle while we wait for the barriers, receive them, move back to that vehicle, complete and deliver. So there has been some disruptions related to activities like that with -- and they're not common to just GreenPower, but common to the automotive industry as a whole. And then the management of different level of -- or different types of models as we're now having to deliver across our product catalog as opposed to just 1 or 2 in a quarter. So that's been a bit of a learning experience. And we've really, I believe, dialed it in so that we can manage multiple model deliveries all at the same time. And as I noted, with the upcoming West Virginia manufacturing facility will give us the ability to really free up some additional capacity or flow through or throughput in our California facility.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Chris Souther with B. Riley.

[Christopher Curran Souther, Research Analyst]

Maybe start off on West Virginia plans. Could you walk through the cadence of production timing to get to the 1,000 a year? When do we start kind of deploying vehicles from that facility? And then any timing on the large order, obviously, from the state? And how many vehicles that includes? That would be helpful.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Well, I'll start on the state and then just give a high level, and Brendan can provide a lot more detail in terms of the -- what we are doing to ramp up the production. But in terms of the state funding, they were very, very helpful in crafting a plan to provide funding that can be leveraged. So often, when you have funding programs, they're specific to an organizational goal or similar things and such that you can't stack them. So if there's other funding available, such as this impending federal funding that is expected to be released in April, May of this year or other forms of funding, is we're able to stack all of those as well as what the end operator or fleet operator would pay as well. So we see the ability to leverage this into -- in the magnitude of $30 million to $40 million of sales from the $15 million of revenue. So that's sort of first off on the $15 million funding. And I should also point out, that's a minimum. So there's an opportunity to certainly be above that. And the team has already been through South Charleston. Ryne was out doing some demonstrations with our BEAST Type D all-electric school bus. So by the time we open the facility, we'll have a bit of a running start in terms of the expectations and the knowledge set in the marketplace of our product and the desire to look at an adoption or electrification strategy. As far as the manufacturing facility goes, as a point of reference, when -- post NASDAQ, when we announced that we were now moving towards producing product and producing it to inventory, and in the case of the BEAST Type D school bus, that means building it up to where we then finish it pursuant to the customer order as opposed to historically where we would just build pursuant to the customer order from the start. And so that enabled us initially to do 5 a month. Last year, we increased that to 10 a month. And part of the West Virginia strategy was -- well, just going incrementally from 5 to 10 to 15, we felt wasn't going to meet the potential opportunities in the marketplace, and we needed a different strategy in terms of really ramping up production. And that's having a dedicated facility and having a facility that could produce in volumes we felt would accomplish that. So in terms of the first tranche, if we can get into the facility in May instead of having to wait until September and start to build this summer, then we're confident that the first vehicles would be rolling off this fall. And as far as the numbers go, just on one shift and a regular production cycle, we're looking at in the magnitude of 20, 30 plus a month just on that sort of initial production level. And I'll turn it over to Brendan to sort of add to that.

[Brendan Riley, President & Director]

Yes. Thank you, Fraser, and Chris, thank you for the question. I would say that Fraser answered that question pretty completely. We -- the facility as it sits right now with our existing processes and using very readily available tooling and the equipment that's out there, we anticipate to be at a run rate of 30 to 40 a month of combined school bus products out of that facility by the end of 2022. So by the end of this year, we will be at a run rate of -- on that. So you can expect about -- after we build out the facility more, that quantity will increase. But until that quantity increases, we won't -- we're really not giving estimates. I mean the 1,000 buses a month -- excuse me, a year coming out of that facility is really a number that we've got on the capacity of that entire facility filled out running multiple shifts. So we're very comfortable with saying that, that facility is capable of producing, with slight modifications, about 30 units a month.

[Christopher Curran Souther, Research Analyst]

Okay. Got it. No, that's very helpful. And maybe just talk a little bit about the cash needs here. We've got about $4 million on the line of credit at quarter end. And we're talking about kind of extending here just between help from the state as far as timing of some of the payments and the like, obviously, will be helpful. But if you guys look to kind of build inventory there is what I'd imagine -- what are kind of the cash needs over the next year or so as you get up to production and start to get deliveries coming off the line in West Virginia between kind of the 2 facilities here?

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Well, the overall inventory is such that the West Virginia, which will be later this -- if we're in, in May, then a lot of that will be kicking in, in the summer. But in the meantime, we're finally at a point where -- and I think Brendan talked about this in our -- in his quote in our press release, I mean, right now, we're working on 30 BEAST school buses. We're working on even double that in terms of EV Stars and Cab and Chassis, just to name 3 of our models or products in terms of getting them organized for deliveries. So we've got significant revenue on -- coming in on the books. And the vast majority of that is pursuant to customer orders that is backed by vouchers, rebates or various levels of government financing or actual cash payments were on direct sales to customers. So as a mix, that is -- that's at a level that we haven't enjoyed -- had the opportunity to enjoy before and is really changing the dynamic in our working capital. So getting to that proper mix in terms of finished goods to our -- the balance of our working capital and inventory for the vehicles in production is a critical part of really driving a working capital that has got nearing cash deliveries for us as opposed to that amount that is sitting in production has a ways to go before we can monetize that.

[Christopher Curran Souther, Research Analyst]

Okay. No, understood. That makes a lot of sense. So can you -- just last one here for me -- talk about near-term visibility for EV Star and BEAST over this quarter, kind of next quarter. How should we think about the timing of deliveries? Any way -- any ways you guys can talk about how many different vouchers between New Jersey, California, orders when you exclude the 15 from West Virginia, which is obviously coming from that facility? I'm just curious, so how do we think about visibility for this quarter and for the next couple of quarters as we start to get -- kind of shift that finished inventory into sales would be helpful.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Well, on firm orders that we have announced or that is in the public domain, we have 10 BEAST school buses. We have -- and I'm just pinning us off the end of the December 31 quarter. We've got over -- or I'm going to say approximately 60 approved HVIP vouchers that principally relate to the EV Stars and as well some EV Star Cab and Chassis. We have as well the 22-foot EV Star Cargo that Brendan was talking about. And apparently, this is information that was released by the New Jersey program, but we're -- we have one of the highest, if not the highest, number of approved vouchers there. So we have over 20 of our cargo vans that are targeted to existing approved vouchers. And as Brendan alluded to, there's a number of pending orders. Well, that's a good example of the number of customers that are engaged with us, saying, well, as soon as you've got those delivered, we want to be in the queue for the next round of 22-foot cargo vans that you can deliver pursuant to this program. So there's -- that just gives you an idea of a number of the different models and the different funding mechanisms, all pursuant to firm orders.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Craig Irwin with ROTH Capital Partners.

[Craig Edward Irwin, MD & Senior Research Analyst]

Fraser, congratulations on improving sales out there with the BEAST. And it sounds like you're pretty well teed up for the money when EPA starts to disburse it. Can you maybe describe for us in a little bit more detail the process by which you expect school districts and school bus operators to get funded? And I understand this March is a very important time point. Can you maybe give us key milestones we should look for that would help with confidence and visibility on that money materializing? And do you expect this to be a significant impact before the end of the calendar year?

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Well, I'm going -- Ryne, who's on our call here -- I'm going to let Ryne start because he spent the better part of this week out demonstrating our BEAST Type D school bus. So Ryne, do you want to start with this? And then back to me in talking about milestones.

[Ryne Shetterly, Vice President of Sales & Marketing]

Yes. Absolutely, Fraser. Man, the process here has been very exciting, especially over the last couple of months in terms of demonstrations on the BEAST school bus. Right now, we're doing a lot of demos with some school districts that had previously seen our 36-foot variant of the Synapse 72. And as you know, we've re-branded, 40-foot vehicle, 90-passenger, 194 kilowatt-hour battery pack. The reviews that we're getting back, people's lives are -- our eyes are absolutely lighting up. They're very excited about what we've done, what we've accomplished up to this point. People rant and rave about fit and finish. And that's only a part of it, building the sizzle on the sales side. The technical part all comes together with the grants, right? And that's where we're helping our local dealer, whether it's Creative Bus Sales here in California and some of the other partnerships that are on the horizon. We basically take them. We give a demo. We get their sales team trained up, familiar with the product. And then even with that, I'm still joining them and doing the initial pitches on the front end just to make sure everybody is comfortable with how to present a purpose-built Type D electric school bus. Once they decided that this product is something that's going to meet their needs, the sales process in the school bus arena is a lot shorter. It's a lot more relationship-based than it is in transit. Transit is a much more process sale. And once they determine that the vehicle is the right fit, then we turn it over to our grants team and our dealer's grant team, and then they work together on getting it all processed, deals are coming together very quickly. Just this week alone, I did 9 demonstrations in Northern California. I've got -- next week in San Joaquin Valley, I'm doing a ride and drive with Creative Bus Sales where they expect -- they have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 RSVPs for that event in Reedley, California and in Salinas, California. And these are the types of things, these are the grassroots efforts that are going to propel us to the next level. And to add to that, we are duplicating those efforts out of state. We haven't made those announcements yet, but there's a lot of exciting activity behind the scenes that we know will pay dividends in this calendar year. So to answer your question, Craig, yes. And with that, I'll turn it over to Craig -- or to Fraser for the milestones.

[Brendan Riley, President & Director]

Fraser, this is Brendan. Real quick, if I may, just add to Craig's -- to the response to Craig. Craig, the EPA appears to be the one that's going to be administering the largest, the $5 billion that we're looking at for this sector. And it's going to be tailored. They're saying it's going to be tailored after the DERA grant, which was a very successful diesel emission reduction grant that has been out for years and years. So we anticipate a very similar mechanism for how that funding is going to work. And basically, the school boards or the school systems themselves will apply for the DERA funding. They'll get approval right away, and then they can go out and buy the vehicle very quickly and very efficiently. So Ryne is exactly right. We anticipate it to be a very straightforward -- they'll have money in the bank ready to spend on vehicles -- approved vehicles, and that's how we anticipate it to roll out.

[Ryne Shetterly, Vice President of Sales & Marketing]

In other words, Craig, it's not going to -- and I know why you're asking. It's not going to be like the FTA Low-No grant where they're going to, hey, it's going to be a -- we expect that first come, first serve -- a lot of people have seen the California HVIP program or the VW mitigation program here in California to be a success, and we believe that it's going to be a very simple straightforward process, just to echo what Brendan said. But the fact of the matter is it's not going to be anything like the FTA Low-No program, which you pay $50,000 to put the proposal together, and it takes a year or 2 to get a notification back. It's just not going to be like that.

[Craig Edward Irwin, MD & Senior Research Analyst]

Understood. And Fraser, the catalysts on the awards, if you could help with that.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Sure. And just to note that as a company, we did have some input on the process. And so the rules that have been issued aren't a surprise to us at all, and fortunately, have a few tweaks that not just for us but for the industry as a whole, hopefully, do make it as seamless as possible so that we can see a significant rollout of the funding and -- which will lead to the faster adoption. In terms of -- a really good question in terms of where do we expect to be at the end of March, and number one, I'd say, on the school buses, we went from 2 in the September 30 quarter to 8 in the December 31. If we get the 10 pursuant to the customer orders and another half dozen for the pending order box, then that represents a doubling again Q-over-Q and I believe is completely doable and sets us up to continue to accelerate the deployment further from there in terms of Q-over-Q going forward. So I think that's what -- and that's all from current with no impact whatsoever from West Virginia. We don't see West Virginia impacting the September 30 quarter. But if we get in, in May, we certainly believe that we can be delivering products in the fall that would be then kicking in on the December 31 quarter. So that is sort of the landscape for the calendar year for the BEAST school buses. And then on -- with the other products, we're now really set up for hitting each of the different categories in terms of passengers, our own cargo delivery logistics vehicles and the CC, which we haven't talked a lot about on the call, but we have been working with partnerships where we see increases in the CC coming down the road as well as fulfilling existing customer orders with both on the cargo side and on the passenger side on the EV Stars. So you can expect to see additional press releases on specifics or, in general, partnerships that help drive larger volumes than what we've had to date.

[Craig Edward Irwin, MD & Senior Research Analyst]

Understood. Understood. So the next thing I wanted to ask about is the 6 BEAST units for Thermolito. So I might have missed this in the beginning of the call, but I wanted to just ask and confirm that they were recognized as revenue in the quarter. And then as a second part of the question, January 6, the press release has me think maybe the receivables, the cash that came in from this roughly $2 million customer delivery most likely landed after the end of the calendar year. Can you comment about the roughly $2 million in cash inflow? Is that really a first quarter event here?

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Yes and yes would be the short answer. But yes, we did recognize the revenue. Those vehicles have been -- they've passed the California Highway Patrol inspection. They've received their 292 cards. They are good to go. The receivable was booked at December 31. So the cash comes in, in our current quarter as opposed to cash that was realized which -- or, in fact, wasn't realized at December 31 as it was sitting in our accounts receivable.

[Craig Edward Irwin, MD & Senior Research Analyst]

Understood. That's good to hear because it kind of indicates that the cash position was understated. Congratulations on the progress. I'll hop back in the queue.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Tyler DiMatteo with BTIG.

[Tyler DiMatteo, Analyst]

So I just kind of wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the customer mix. I know that pre-COVID, corporations looked to be a nice little driver of demand. And I know, I guess, in the prior quarter, you also said you had deliveries to a Fortune 500 company and then a follow-up delivery of another 4 vehicles. Like are there any signs -- or I guess what are the signs of those potential customers returning? I know you alluded to it a little bit, but I just kind of -- can we just add some more color to that, if you don't mind?

[Ryne Shetterly, Vice President of Sales & Marketing]

Yes, this is Ryne.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

As a lead-in to Ryne, I'll just say Ryne is waiting for all of the corporations to have their employees returning to their campuses. So with that as an introductory comment, over to you, Ryne.

[Ryne Shetterly, Vice President of Sales & Marketing]

Waiting at their doorstep. Yes. Exactly. We've had -- every time -- I'm getting reluctant to answer these questions, right, because every time we think we're out of the COVID pause, there's a new variant and it's more this and more that, which has definitely created some headwinds. But with that, it's actually given us some time to develop our relationships with these customers before their full-blown back in service. We're supporting them. We're working through some of their technology needs on our products that we may not have done before in the past. So we're growing and maturing there. But the big thing is them getting back to work. I can remember 1.5 years ago when the reopening was in 3 months, and here we are 1.5 years later, and a lot of these tech campuses are still talking about springtime now. It does look -- you get some grumblings of orders getting ready to finally materialize. With that, we're keeping our fingers crossed. We're optimistic. We're maintaining these relationships and making sure that these folks have all the information they need to make the best decision. And once they do, we've got the product on hand to deliver quickly, meet their needs, meet their spec and, more importantly, start building some revenue-generating activity all across the country.

[Tyler DiMatteo, Analyst]

Okay. Great. And I guess kind of shifting gears here just a little bit. Do we have any update on the Forest River contract? Or anything going on there?

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Well, they -- that has -- when we originally announced it, we did indicate that the parties intended to get the first tranche of Cab and Chassis configured with their Starcraft cutaway body. And our -- even in our last quarterly update, we said, okay, that -- we're not even going to come close to that September 30. And when I say that we, we're waiting for Forest River to complete the homologation. And as where we sit today, they are still not done with the 5. And I think what that does speak to is that it's not easy -- is that I think when they jumped into this, their expectation was, well, we'll just slap our body on and away we go. Well, it's not that simple. We've got a high-voltage system. It has to be carefully integrated and all of that. And we're -- unlike an ICE vehicle, all of our secondary systems like air conditioner, for example, all run on motors. So there a huge learning curve on their part, and we've just adopted a process that we've got a lot of other great business to work on. And we'll be patient with them to get this done. But as we as we sit today, until they're done, those 5, there isn't a next step in that relationship.

[Operator]

Our next question is a follow-up from Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group.

[Tate H. Sullivan, Senior Industrials Analyst]

And you answered one of my earlier questions on the accounts receivable timing of that collection and then also on the available liquidity on your credit facility of about $4 million. Michael, can you just remind me what is the term -- when is the maturity of that current facility, please?

[Michael Sieffert, CFO & Secretary]

So it's a facility actually that we are in discussions with on a regular basis with our bank that we will maintain over time. So there's not a set maturity on that.

[Tate H. Sullivan, Senior Industrials Analyst]

Great. And just reviewing the documents, it looks like -- I mean there are some metrics in there -- percent of finished goods to accounts receivable, current ratio metric, but I think you're well within those metrics.

[Michael Sieffert, CFO & Secretary]

Exactly. We're well within those limits. And so there's no concern there.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Or put another way, they would give us more if it was just applied based on those.

[Tate H. Sullivan, Senior Industrials Analyst]

Great. Okay. And then just one more, if I may. On the facility opening process for May, is it -- or April, I think you said in South Carolina, what -- in terms of -- is it more the supply chain management getting the inventory -- starting to get inventory to the facility? Is it building a -- is it getting equipment delivered, hiring the people? Can you just give a little more background on that?

[Brendan Riley, President & Director]

Tate, this is Brendan. It's in West Virginia -- South Charleston, West Virginia. The biggest hurdle in a facility like that building vehicles is getting the facility staffed up. We can have the tooling, the jigs, fixtures fast up in position relatively quickly. The facility is really a world-class facility, one of the nicest we've seen really anywhere. So we don't anticipate a lot of upgrades to the facility as requirements for rolling vehicles down the line and out the door. So we would -- I would say the biggest hurdle is finding the right employees, having them trained and having them in place. And with our partnership with BridgeValley and the Kanawha workforce development folks, we really believe we're going to be ahead of the curve there. And as Fraser said, we anticipate vehicles running off the line there by fall. So we're expecting a 3- to 5-month window before we take -- from the time when we take possession of the building to where we're actually rolling product out the door. And we've actually done this before in Porterville when we moved into our current facility that we have right now. We basically moved in, and we're rolling products out the door of that facility within 90 to 120 days.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Barry Sine with Spartan Capital Securities.

[Barry Sine, Director of Research]

First question on the BEAST. Could you update us what the ASP is on that? And then one other question. I think I saw Ryne in a video where you showed that vehicle off in West Virginia. And in the video, you mentioned that was a California spec vehicle. And I guess each state needs to be slightly different. Is that an onerous process? Is that a long process? Are there a lot of adjustments? Or is it a fairly minor process?

[Ryne Shetterly, Vice President of Sales & Marketing]

Some of those processes is -- Barry, thanks for the question. Some of those processes are more in-depth than others. There are some states that replicate California spec. So obviously, we'd go in there and be very seamless. And some of -- at West Virginia, it's actually very minor differences. For instance, the West Virginia school bus specification does not allow for, believe it or not, seatbelts. Whereas California, it's a requirement. So for many of the folks, they walked into the bus and they said, "Wow, this bus has seatbelts. That's great." But it's not part of their certification process, right? So it's going to be a lot of things like that, black wheels versus black bumpers versus green -- it's very small things. We brought -- we've recently brought a resource on board that's been in the school bus industry for 25 years, and this individual is going to be helping dial in our school bus specs state by state. So we are mobilizing, and we're definitely preparing to make a big push coast to coast.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Sorry, Barry. You might be on mute.

[Barry Sine, Director of Research]

Yes. Can you hear me?

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Can hear you now.

[Barry Sine, Director of Research]

Okay. What is the list price on the BEAST?

[Ryne Shetterly, Vice President of Sales & Marketing]

So the list price is going to go dealer by dealer, state by state. I mean you could take an average, right, of between $375,000 and $400,000. That's the dealer pricing. That is not our pricing to the dealer, but that gives you an idea of what these vehicles are coming to market at.

[Barry Sine, Director of Research]

Okay. And I want to shift gears and ask about something else. And I may mischaracterize this, but you have an issue where sometimes, you'll have finished inventory, but you'll be waiting for a government entity to approve vouchers. When I hear that, I kind of roll my eyes. Climate change is a fairly significant crisis, Earth in the balance and all that. How can we be waiting for bureaucrats to approve vouchers? Is there any hope that we see progress on that? And if that were to happen, presumably, that would improve your working capital situation if we could get that voucher process [ faster ] a little bit.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Well, we have -- we're not waiting for any vouchers, and all of the -- in our earlier comments, any of the orders pursuant to customers, we're talking about firm order and if it is tied into a particular rebate or voucher and an approved voucher. So there isn't any of the finished goods that we're talking about that we're "waiting" for something to happen. It's that, in our case, and for example, the BEAST school buses, the 10 that are going out, I don't believe any of them are off of the HVIP program. Actually, one of them is. And the rest are all from various air quality management district funding. So those are all pursuant to both the firm order and funding in place.

[Barry Sine, Director of Research]

So just to ask another way, how do you get products out of finished goods faster, so they don't sit on your balance sheet? What is the impediment to why it cannot be -- why can't you deliver it almost immediately from the time it's finished?

[Brendan Riley, President & Director]

Barry, this is Brendan. Really quick. There are several issues with getting the bus delivered. But often, it's having the customer ready for delivery, infrastructure in place. And it can even be waiting for CHP to come out and sign off on a vehicle. But all that gets better with time. We are -- we're improving -- most of it's basically having the customer go through their learning curve and understand what they're accepting and training and all the things that go along with vehicles especially that are disruptive and of a new nature. I can tell you when I first got into the space over 10 years ago, the acceptance process of a vehicle, I mean, like when you -- a customer received the vehicle to when they accepted it and signed off on it and released the funds, used to take up to 4, 5 months in some cases. That's down drastically, and the school buses are really accelerating that. So we believe a lot of that is training, experience, GreenPower getting better at walking customers through all those different things. We don't find it to be so much of a getting the voucher redeemed or getting paid on the voucher. Those -- the folks have been pretty good at getting those -- getting that funding out as soon as the customer accepts it.

[Barry Sine, Director of Research]

Okay. So that sounds positive for working capital going forward.

[Brendan Riley, President & Director]

Yes, we believe.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Very much so. Yes.

[Operator]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Fraser Atkinson for any closing remarks.

[Fraser Atkinson, Executive Chairman & CEO]

Thank you, everyone, for participating on today's earnings calls, and we appreciate the questions as -- we can't anticipate all of the questions that our stakeholders have. So it's great to be able to provide additional color or commentary on our business. As -- our next cycle is our year-end at March 31. And as a result, our annual filing is a little later than the 45 days that our quarterly follows, would be an extended period of time out in terms of our next call, and we have a lot going on. So the company will be endeavoring to keep very timely updates. And as we indicated on this call, there's a lot to follow in terms of our deliveries and our continued rollout of our BEAST school bus as well as our family of EV Star products getting into additional markets from the traditional markets that we've been serving. So we appreciate your support. And everyone, have a great day. Thank you.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.