GreenPower Motor Company Inc

XTSX:GPV

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning and welcome to the GreenPower Motor Company Third Quarter Earnings Conference 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, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you. This is Michael Sieffert, the 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, 2022. I'm here today with our Chief Executive Officer, Fraser Atkinson; and our President, Brendan Riley.

During today's call, we may make comments or statements about 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're made. We anticipate that 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 filed on SEDAR and on EDGAR and is also located on our website at www.greenpowermotor.com.

I'll now pass the call over to GreenPower's CEO, Fraser Atkinson.

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Michael. This was a record-setting quarter for GreenPower. We generated record revenues of $12.8 million in the third quarter, a year-over-year increase of 140% over the revenue of $5.3 million for the third quarter in the previous year. We delivered 101 GreenPower vehicles in the third quarter. With our extensive inventory, the deliveries this quarter are on track to exceed the third quarter. We reported deferred revenue of $12.5 million at the end of the third quarter, an increase of more than 92% from the beginning of the fiscal year. The majority of this, we expect to recognize over the next 12 months, further accelerating our revenue growth.

One of GreenPower's strengths and competitive advantage is that we have our own Cab and Chassis and we manage our supply chain. We refer to the EV Star Cab and Chassis or CC as our EV Star platform, which has allowed us to build a range of models for the passenger and cargo markets as well sell our CC to other manufacturers. Our commercial vehicle group had the EV Star Cargo, EV Star Cargo Plus and CC. EV Star and EV Star passengers are for the shuttle and transit sector. These represented the majority of the sales this quarter.

Another model utilizing the EV Star platform is GreenPower's Nano BEAST Type A all-electric purpose-built school bus with an all-aluminium body that is stronger than any other body used for the Type A school buses on the market today. In September, GreenPower's Nano BEAST won the Innovation Award for Best Green Bus Technology from School Transportation News. This market for all of the Type A school buses is $8,000 to $9,000 per annum. We are well positioned to help operators electrify their school bus fleets with our BEAST and Nano BEAST and are presently working on more than 30 school bus deals in 8 states where our first deliveries will utilize our current inventory.

During the quarter, the EPA announced to select BEAST for the School Bus Program with almost $1 billion of funding. GreenPower worked with dealers and school districts across a number of states who were selected to acquire the Type D for $375,000 or Type A school bus for $285,000. These deliveries must be completed by October 31, 2024.

GreenPower also has a significant number of opportunities for our all-electric school buses in California, utilizing the standard HVIP poachers, which has $250 million of new funding this year, school bus set aside funding with $135 million as well as the CEC Air Quality Management District and BW Trust funding for the purchase of all-electric school buses. These school bus sales will help further accelerate our growth with deliveries commencing over the next couple of quarters.

I'll now hand it over to Brendan Riley, GreenPower's President, for discussion on our operations.

[Brendan Riley, President]

Thank you, Fraser, and good morning, everyone, on the call. At GreenPower, we continue to demonstrate our winning strategy that focuses on our core business, a purpose-built Class IV EVs, leveraging our best-in-market EV Star family of vehicles and our best-in-class school buses. We delivered 84 EV Star Cab and Chassis to Workhorse during the third quarter as we continue to optimize the run rate of deliveries to them. We are currently in the process of delivering an additional tranche of EV Star CCs to Workhorse.

Our dealer network has been growing nationally during the quarter for both commercial vehicles and school buses. This reflects the tireless work of our school bus VP, Michael Perez; and that we've added recently, Claus Tritt, to Head our Commercial Vehicle Group Product and Sales Efforts. Claus has many years of experience in deploying proven sales strategies and building winning sales teams for the light and medium-duty commercial vehicle sector. Claus is also completing the full integration of selling the Lion Truck Body components and bodies nationally through our dealer and direct sales network.

Our new refrigerated EV Star Cargo Plus has been completed and this is a first of its kind vehicle to run the refrigeration system directly from the high-voltage battery. This creates a more efficient vehicle which saves cost and weight while improving reliability. This newest member of the GreenPower product line is also eligible for the $40,000 IRS tax credit, as are all of GreenPower EV products. With this new deduction that is part of the Biden administration Inflation Reduction Act, many of our zero-emission vehicles can now be bought across the country at price parity with legacy polluting internal combustion vehicles.

Our West Virginia facility in South Charleston, West Virginia is almost ready to produce our BEAST. That's our battery electric Type D school bus. Over the next months, we expect to manufacture the first built-in West Virginia buses ready to bring children to school safely and without polluting the environment.

In September, GreenPower began a pilot project with the state of West Virginia to demonstrate our Type D school buses to districts across the state and test the buses in a wide range of conditions. West Virginia purchased 3 BEASTS. Those are the Type D school buses in the second quarter. In November, the pilot project started the second round with a slate of new districts along with a Nano BEAST Type A school bus that was purchased in the third quarter.

In January, we launched the third round, bringing in the total coverage to 25% of all of the school districts of the state. We have demonstrated that our buses can work throughout the state in different regions, different temperatures. This pilot project has also given us valuable data on where we can improve our vehicles for a myriad of customers and applications.

Now, I'd like to turn it back over to Michael Sieffert, GreenPower’s CFO, who will cover the quarterly financial highlights.

[Michael Sieffert, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Brendan. GreenPower achieved its highest ever quarterly revenue of $12.8 million, which is an increase of 140% over the revenue of $5.3 million for the third quarter of last year. Revenue was generated from the sale of 1 Nano BEAST, 10 EV Star 22-foot Cargo, 5 EV Stars and 85 EV Star Cab and Chassis. It was also from a recognition of revenue under finance and operating leases and from our truck body manufacturing business, Lion Truck Body.

Cost of revenues in the quarter was $9.9 million, which generated a gross profit of $2.9 million or 22.5% of revenue compared to a gross profit of $27.8 million in the prior year. Gross profit for the quarter was lower than our historical range of 30%, primarily due to deliveries under a high-volume contract and from sales of our EV Star 22 foot Cargo, which are both at lower margins. We expect that our gross profit margin will be at similar levels in the coming quarters due to our expected sales mix.

We have seen a continued improvement in our quarterly adjusted EBITDA since the beginning of this calendar year, driven by these higher sales. We saw an increase in our quarterly cash expenses to $4.8 million during the quarter which was an increase of approximately $1.2 million compared to the prior quarter. Approximately 50% of this increase was attributable to higher transportation costs related to a significant increase in vehicle shipments to customers across the United States during the quarter. In addition, we saw a step cost increase in our general and administrative costs as we continue to expand our business in different regions and into new product lines through our acquisition of Lion Truck Body as well as higher professional fees and product development as we expanded into new markets and develop new products.

We finished the quarter with $25.6 million in working capital and approximately $0.6 million available liquidity. The Working capital included $7.9 million in AR, the majority of which was current at quarter end and $46.2 million in inventory which was comprised of over $34.6 million of finished goods inventory, primarily representing EV Star Cab and Chassis, EV Stars, EV Star Cargo and both BEAST and Nano BEAST school buses. Since the quarter end, we've collected a significant portion of the AR that was outstanding at the end of the year and we've raised approximately $3.5 million in equity through our ATM program. We have used the proceeds from these sources to continue to invest in our business platform in working capital investments for upcoming deliveries and our current available liquidity remains well above the level that it was at quarter end after these investments.

Finally, we finished the quarter with preferred revenue of $12.5 million, the majority of which we expect to recognize within the next 12 months.

I'll now turn it back to Fraser for a final word before the Q&A.

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Michael. To conclude, we've generated significant sales in our past quarter with our commercial vehicles and we expect that with our passenger as well as the school bus sales kicking in over the next several quarters to help further accelerate that along with the organic growth within the commercial vehicle group. Consequently, we are expecting a very solid growth over the next several quarters.

With that, operator, please open up the call for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Craig Irwin of ROTH Capital.

[Craig Irwin, ROTH Capital]

So, Fraser, one of the most exciting things going on right now in the macro is the opportunity for your customers to take vehicles at cost parity versus conventional vehicles with the Inflation Reduction Act in President Biden's commitment to the electrification of medium-duty trucks and heavy-duty trucks. Can you maybe talk us through some of the mechanics of how customers would apply for those available grants and subsidies? And do you expect sales of any of your vehicles this year to qualify? And is there anything else you would share to help us understand the near and longer-term impact?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, I think a lot of our activity that we were describing is based on programs that have been in place and are better known and better understood in terms of the whole process, whether it's on the commercial vehicle side with various incentive programs. So our plans don't count or expect that, that will have a significant impact in the first couple of quarters for our business and we're just being cautiously optimistic that it will take a few quarters to really propagate in the marketplace and have an impact in terms of the sales. But as far as the process goes, we've certainly seen a significant uptick in inquiries and interest now that the funding is available in the current year.

[Craig Irwin, ROTH Capital]

Understood. So shifting gears a little bit, the gross margins this quarter were again very healthy. Everybody expects that your large customer today is getting an attractive price given that they gave you a very healthy upfront payment and you have a strong collaboration there. But your margins are coming through slightly stronger than what we thought. Can you talk about the opportunity for leverage? Is this really part of what's coming through? Do we maybe see leverage over the next number of quarters as we see diversification in the buying groups? How should we think about sort of short and longer-term implications for gross margins as revenue ramps?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, short term will be -- the greatest impact will be on product mix. So, thank goodness for all of the rest of our product sales and that the 1s and the 2s, we benefit from a higher gross profit margin, which helps offset the higher volume, lower margin type sales that you're referring to. So short term, it will be product mix, getting our school bus sales dialed in to the ongoing revenue stream as well as a few of our passenger vehicles increasing the sales of those. So that will be the combination in the short term.

Longer term is that what we are seeing in the marketplace is with some of our peer group members that have being reporting gross profit losses where the cost of goods sold actually exceeds the revenue is that they are looking at price increases. And so we see that as the more likely scenario as opposed to trying to wring out additional cost savings through the supply chain. But in the long term, that's where certainly scale and repeatable contracts and repeatable invoices is going to benefit us from savings in that regard.

[Craig Irwin, ROTH Capital]

Okay. Excellent. And then you mentioned the progress at your West Virginia facility for producing the BEAST. Congratulations there. I know there's been a tremendous amount of effort into getting that up and running. Can you help us understand sort of the approximate timeline for initial deliveries out of that facility? What should we look for in the first weeks and months? And what do you see as a theoretical or potential deliveries number out of that facility, if you could possibly share that?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, initially, we were looking at doing our Nano BEAST Type A school bus in terms of the longer-term production plan. Right now, the longer-term production plan, as Brendan said in his remarks, was to focus on the Type D school bus. That is the product that we are most engaged with the market today and certainly can benefit from an East Coast presence with that product. So that takes a little longer to build the Nano BEAST and so we're looking at the first of those being later in the year in terms of production out of the West Virginia facility.

As far as the numbers, as we've said in the past, this facility does give us capability of a run rate upwards of 50 to 60 per month, which would be a capacity that would likely exceed the short-term market requirements or the short-term market needs.

[Craig Irwin, ROTH Capital]

Okay. And then would you expect many or most of those vehicles to be supported by vouchers from the Infrastructure Bill, the $1 billion in funding that was handed out in vouchers several months back. Is this something that's tracking well for the BEAST and your sales expectations out of the West Virginia facility?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Certainly, a part of it over the next couple of years that would be a key driver, but not the only one. One of the wildcards that really the industry as a whole is dealing with is the State of New York contract that we had completed our process last summer is still working through final details before we're able to actively pursue transactions on the - on this particular activity.

So what we're looking at is really taking advantage of each of the opportunities that on a state-by-state basis but not spreading ourselves too thin by trying to go after all 50 states. So what I mean by that is that there's a number of states that have state contracts that have almost like buying groups, whereas others, like California, there's just a whole slate of different funding programs for school buses. If you're not able to get EPA funding their CEC or air quality management district funding of a similar amount. And so we're able to pursue those programs as they become available and as new funding hits a particular year.

[Craig Irwin, ROTH Capital]

Excellent. Well, congratulations on the strong execution this quarter and we're looking forward to an exciting growth trajectory.

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Craig.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Greg Lewis of BTIG.

[Greg Lewis, BTIG]

Fraser or Mike, I was hoping you could maybe give a little bit of color or guidance on how you're thinking about the realization of inventory? I know you kind of mentioned that you expect it to really be realized over the next year. Is there any way in terms of thinking about timing where maybe you could be a little bit more chunkier in any specific quarters?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well that is the, I won't say $64,000 question because it's a lot more than that but that is one of the most impactful questions financially for GreenPower because we have segments of our inventory fully paid for and accept and say for the final completion PDI testing and delivery. We're ready to go and monetize. And a really good example is within the school bus space, this quarter was a single school bus sale and yet we have this very substantial near-end sales pipeline. And so the early deliveries, those will all be out of inventory for our school buses. And if, not to set an excuse or anything but in the school bus space, it's a little bit of a unique proposition that unlike the commercial there are more parties that need to be engaged in terms of getting infrastructure in place, getting contracts completed and signed and approved. And so there's a multitude of decision-makers in the school bus space, whereas in the commercial, generally speaking, we're dealing with 1 or 2 decision-makers that are involved in the process from start to the delivery and so on.

So, we're dealing with a number of properties where they've decided that they're going with our platform, who's the charging company they're going to utilize. And the utility engagement is being completed in terms of the infrastructure but they still have other contractual arrangements to sort out with their Board of trustees or their board as the case might be. And so it just takes a little longer to get those completed. But the funding also has deadlines which helps us in that these organizations have to get busy and get their deals completed so we can get our vehicles delivered to them. So that is a good example of a significant part of our inventory. It's ready to go. We have deals in many cases, earmarked to specific orders. And as those kick in, the initial deliveries are going to be all out of our current inventory.

[Greg Lewis, BTIG]

Yes, that's good to hear. And then I did want to follow up on that as you're working with your customers to get these vehicles and you mentioned that it could be dotting the Is and crossing the Ts at customer level. How much of the potential slowdown or the delaying of those deliveries do you kind of get the sense for? Is it infrastructure, i.e., lack of charging related? Or is it more just really at the decision level to get the government entities approving, or is it really just an infrastructure issue that has probably being worked on as we speak?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, I think it's a combination but infrastructure is less of an issue on the commercial side in that it's a simpler approach in some cases compared to school buses where they're looking at everything and anything that we're well into the particular vehicle that is going to meet their duty cycle requirements and the combination of payload and what they want to achieve. But then when you start looking at the infrastructure, it's not practical to be charging between the morning and the afternoon run because they're on peak rates. So they're looking in that instance that, okay, we need load management, we need scheduling, we need this, this and this and that isn't all dialed in at the front end. You don't want to be making changes on the fly. And that's a big part of within school buses is managing all of that. And in the past year, we've become intimately involved with the charging. And today, we don't have a charger as a solution but we need to be involved with that in order to reduce the amount of time that is spent on sorting out infrastructure issues. So that's number one, the biggest.

And then the second is just getting the platform nailed down and committed to without scope creep, where they decide, "Oh, let's have a look at B2G." And that's something that you don't want to be adding on or making a decision at the back end in terms of integrating your vehicle on a B2G solution. That needs to be part of the initial dialogue in scoping out the platform. So that does enter into the process with that particular sector and does cause some additional delays. But I think the key is that the programs all have requirements. The EPA funding and the selectives that have been awarded funding under that program, the way the rules are set is they need to have their vehicles delivered by October 31, 2024. And that seems like it's out there but a property that has up to the 25 MAX that is that some properties were awarded, you don't deliver 25 in a month, that's spread out over several quarters.

So all of that means that, we believe, that the whole process will be compressed over the next 6 to 9 months in terms of what we have seen.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Chris Souther of B. Riley.

[Chris Souther, B. Riley]

Maybe on the Class D school bus side, it looked like just the one delivery of school buses was a Nano and it sounded like the pipeline is certainly picking up on the school bus side. But I just wanted to see if you could give any color on how many wins you think you're going to have on the EPA program side. Do you have any firm orders yet through that program? And then just wanted to get a sense of like the inventory strategy for the school bus size flat with 35 in kind of finished goods and you were planning that's going to ramp in West Virginia. I just wanted to get a sense of kind of the cadence over the next couple of quarters, if you could provide a little more color.

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, that's a great combination of questions and thanks for that. Starting off with our most recent quarter, the selects for the EPA program were literally announced during our most recent quarter that we've just announced. So given that you have to get your contracts signed and deliveries out, I don't think anybody was in a position that they delivered product by December 31, 2022 under that EPA program. And it was an interesting anomaly in that people that had submitted or were eligible for other forms of funding, there in terms of VW trust funding in a number of states or in California, all their various programs. We're often waiting to see, well, can we do better? We got $340,000 under this Air Quality Management District but maybe we can get $375,000 under the EPA program plus $20,000 for our chargers. So we saw that a lot in the fall of last year. Now we're at a point where everybody has got their best shot and they do have their mandate. So we're now in a position we're able to move forward on those.

In terms of what our success rate is or what our expectations, we will be announcing the deals as we go. There's a number that we fully expect to get announced and be delivering over the next couple of quarters, as I say, out of current inventory. So both for the Type D as well as the Type A Nano BEAST which will certainly be incremental to the sales growth that we enjoyed.

[Chris Souther, B. Riley]

Okay. So are most of the pipeline customers you talked about, frankly, other programs that are now potentially kind of moving forward after they didn't get EPA or how many kind of EPA customers are in that mix of pipeline customers you called out?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

The over 30 deals that we referenced, they're spread out. California has a big chunk of those is significant as well as other state programs or other state contracts. So it's a pretty good cross. We have a pretty good cross-representation of deals and certainly, no one program is the dominant player within that pipeline.

[Chris Souther, B. Riley]

Got it. Okay. Maybe just the cadence of the workhorse deliveries. It sounded like some of the logistics challenges are improving here. And their commentary is sort of suggesting they'll take as many as they can get. So I think your MD&A had a hundred that were in process and delivery and another hundred that have been completed by contract manufacturer in Asia. Should we think about quarterly run rate as approaching 100 and staying around there? Or are you saying, hey, we might be able to do 200 a quarter, if not March, kind of the next quarter after that?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, I think we'll be sticking to a quarter-by-quarter communication and not getting ahead of ourselves and that's in part because of supply chain and shipping and logistical issues and moving larger volumes. That's been on us, not Workhorse in terms of getting the numbers up. Going from 10 to 100 is a whole different proposition as an organization. And so we're building our systems and our processes and our team in order to accommodate and to be able to do that and then repeat that on not just quarterly but monthly and in terms of the regular delivery. So no, we're not in a position to be laying out on a quarter-by-quarter basis what those anticipated or expected deliveries are. But I would agree with their commentary that this is on GreenPower in terms of ramping that up to meet the demand.

[Chris Souther, B. Riley]

Got it. Okay, that all makes sense. And maybe just my last one. It's great seeing the revenue start to ramp here. I wanted to see if you could just talk a little bit about the margin front. It makes sense, the kind of mix is going to be the key driver for gross margins. But can you give us any sense of what EBITDA breakeven looks like, given it seems like you guys are beefing up some of the OpEx lines to kind of help with the growth here? Should we expect kind of flattish gross margins as workhorse continues to be kind of a big chunk? And then where do we get kind of more leverage to hit positive EBITDA? Is that kind of calendar year 2023?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, I'll start at a high level and then I'll turn it over to Michael for more granularity on your question. At a high level, it's important to note that the expenses that were reported in our December 31, 2022 quarter, they include some of the initial start-up for our West Virginia facility which we're not even into the manufacturing, let alone delivery and revenue recognition out of that. And we also have with Michael Perez and his group with the school bus team that we've been incurring costs to get our dealer network in place to get our team out and engage with the extent of our sales pipeline as well as the delivery team for the nearing sales that we're pushing at the front end of that sales pipeline. So all of that we've incurred without any of the requisite revenue that will flow from that activity.

And likewise, with Clause stepping in with the commercial group or the commercial vehicle group is that he has undertaken a number of initiatives as well as building out a dealer network. And so some of those early expenses aren't represented by any sales now but will be realized down the road. So at a high level, we are continuing to invest in the capacity and the capability of a company that is a whole lot bigger than 100 vehicles in a quarter. And so that's represented in what we most recently reported.

But on that, I'll turn it over to Michael for any additional comments.

[Michael Sieffert, Chief Financial Officer]

Thanks, Fraser. I think Fraser described this very well is that we are investing in our business. We're building out a platform. And as we do that, you're going to have quarters like we've just experienced where you have an increase in those step costs and you don't yet have the, we'll call it, operating leverage from the gross profit margin sort of trickling down through those cash expenses. However, that being said, we're certainly happy with the trajectory. I mean this is our highest revenue quarter ever. At this run rate, we're approaching on a quarterly basis, annualized $50 million revenue which I think is a big step for us. And as we absorb some of these new investments and build out the business across the country, I mean we're really potentially just getting started here.

So, we're optimistic about reaching those higher sales levels that will allow us to generate positive EBITDA. But at this point, we're not in a position to talk about when that may be, although we're certainly happy with how this is progressing.

[Chris Souther, B. Riley]

Got it. Okay. Maybe just a last follow-up here and then I'll hop in the queue. Just the unabsorbed investments you're making today, how much more of that do you think we need over the next, call it, 6-month year, 2 years in order to be able to hit the growth plans that you guys are hoping?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, the commercial sales which represented the predominant activity for our most recent quarter essentially didn't have any school bus sales. We also have opportunities with our passenger vehicles, both the EV Star, the EV Star Plus and our EV 250. So those also would be incremental. So that's all of what, I think in Michael's comments.

[Chris Souther, B. Riley]

I was trying to get to the cost side, like you've made some of these additional investments, there's probably still some more ramp-up in West Virginia. I just wanted to get a sense of with the plans, like how much more OpEx do we think we need to invest on a quarterly basis to read some of these plans? Are there expectations that there will be kind of additional kind of step function changes in OpEx was rather what I was trying to get at.

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes, the December 31 quarter represents probably the bulk of that step up. So going forward there'll be some tweaking. We have probably a couple of positions that we'd like to fill. But otherwise, the majority being 75%, 80% as in our numbers and represented in our business model.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And our next question will come from Tate Sullivan of Maxim Group.

[Tate Sullivan, Maxim Group]

You mentioned 30 school bus deals in 8 states. Are those deals that you are currently in the process of bidding on or have been awarded? Or where are you in that process of those 30 deals?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

They all represent deals that we can see a path to getting not just signed contract but deliveries and so the bulk of them are where we are the primary or sole platform in terms of the OEM provider. And yes, that sort of is the representation. And as we said, it's more than the 30.

[Tate Sullivan, Maxim Group]

And then you mentioned some price points or maybe I misheard or this, is it the rebate through the EPA program, the $375,000 for the Type D bus, or is that roughly the sales price or average price for those vehicles?

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, the EPA program provides for the Type C or D. We, of course, just have the Type D but the type C or D electric is $375,000, that is what they provide. To be priced at anything other than that, to be priced higher creates a very different dynamic in the marketplace. So it is somewhat level set the field on that product. On our Nano BEAST Type A, we're looking at EPA funding of $285,000 and that was higher than where we, with our various dealers, had been targeting where prior to the EPA program coming out, it was more typically in the $260,000 to $270,000 type ballpark and $265,000 tended to be a number where some of the other Type A electric school bus manufacturers had also priced their products. So that side, we've seen a bit of an uptick as a result of the funding from the EPA program.

[Tate Sullivan, Maxim Group]

And shifting gears to the deferred revenue and it was the first time it was flat on a quarter-to-quarter basis in 3 quarters. Is this going to stay flat? Or are there scheduled additional upfront deposits or is this account for the near-term amount of deferred revenue, if you can address that?

[Michael Sieffert, Chief Financial Officer]

Deferred revenue isn't a metric that we try to predict. The way we look at this, though, is that it's something that does represent future sales. And so I think what we communicated was that over $12 million of that represents current deferred revenue which is effectively what we anticipate will be converted into... or sorry, over $11 million is what we anticipate will be converted into sales over the coming year. Now that number will certainly be replenished throughout the year but it's a difficult one for us to forecast.

[Fraser Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer]

But it's important to note that it's unlike some, like accounts payable, represent liabilities or obligations to pay and directly affect our cash flow. In the case of deferred revenue, it has an obviously a different impact in terms of our liquidity. So it's worth highlighting in the context that if one tracks this separate and apart from our working capital that one can see less of an impact on our cash requirements from the balance of our working capital requirements.

[Tate Sullivan, Maxim Group]

You mentioned, I believe, that you collected a bulk of accounts receivable already this quarter. I mean does it bring it back down to the $3 million or $4 million level or can you comment on that?

[Michael Sieffert, Chief Financial Officer]

Again, it's not something that we want to comment on mid-quarter. I mean we're certainly anticipating a good solid sales number again this quarter. And so of course, as you're collecting AR, you're creating more AR which is not a bad thing. So we're comfortable with our current liquidity. I think that, that's the key message that we've collected a number of those receivables that were outstanding at quarter end. We're actively pursuing other business and generating sales. And so we have a healthy liquidity given what our current needs are.

[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, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you. So thanks for everyone being on the call and for those that dial in for our pre-recorded version of our earnings call. We appreciate your support and appreciate your patience with our company as we build our business.

We've been consistently reporting a gross profit in the 20s, along with operating expenses that are a fraction of our peers. As Michael noted, since the end of the quarter, we've raised over $3.5 million off of our ATM on a very opportunistic basis. And as well as the finished goods inventory where we are expecting to complete deliveries over the next several quarters is going to help accelerate the growth and the record revenues that we reported in the most recent quarter as we dial in the school bus and expand our commercial vehicle group as well as opportunities with shuttle and passenger vehicles.

So with that, we thank you for your support and look forward to chatting to you in the near future.

[Operator]

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