A British electric vehicle company is taking root in the United States and plans to make its new concept of global production as the demand for new mobility systems grows.
Arrival, which is developing vans and electric buses, announced last week that it is building a second microfactory in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company plans to assemble vehicles there for a United Parcel Service fleet order starting in the second half of 2022.
President Avinash Rugoobur told Jim Cramer of CNBC on Monday that its vertically integrated microfactories require less space and capital investments than traditional manufacturing facilities.
“We are partnering with the city of Charlotte to produce an entire transport ecosystem together,” he said in an “Mad Money” interview. “When you look at the global scale that needs to change to be electric, we expect to have microfactories, you know, all over the world.”
Arrival is investing more than $ 41 million in facilities in Charlotte, where its headquarters are located in the United States.
The company plans to go public by merging a blank check with Ciig Merger and expects to hire more than 250 employees at the site. This is in addition to the 650 jobs he said he would bring to the area as part of the corporate offices he announced in December.
Arrival says it has a mission to accelerate the transition to zero-emission commercial vehicles. The company claims to have a competitive advantage in that it designs its own batteries and other components internally and writes its own software, said Rugoobur.
“What is interesting about the microfactory is that you can use the existing warehouses and turn them into production facilities,” said Rugoobur.
UPS placed an order with Arrival almost a year ago for 10,000 Generation 2 Electric Vehicles as part of the navigation giant’s move to electrify its fleet of delivery vans. The delivery company bet on Arrival at the same time.
Electric vehicles are expected to hit the streets in the next four years.