Item 1A. Risk Factors
Investing in our securities involves risks. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this Quarterly Report, including the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our condensed consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report, before deciding whether to purchase any of our securities. Our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects could also be harmed by risks and uncertainties that are not presently known to us or that we currently believe are not material. If any of these risks actually occur, our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. Unless otherwise indicated, references in these risk factors to our business being harmed will include harm to our business, reputation, brand, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. In such event, the market price of our securities could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment.
Risks Related to Our Financial Condition
There is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern for a period of twelve months from the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Under ASC Subtopic 205-40, Presentation of Financial Statements—Going Concern (“ASC 205-40”), we have the responsibility to evaluate whether conditions and/or events raise substantial doubt about our ability to meet our future obligations as they become due within one year of the financial statements included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q being issued.
As of March 31, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of $296.2 million.
Our potential inability to maintain the Liquidity (as defined in the Note Purchase Agreement) requirement under the Convertible Notes Facility and any resulting potential events of default under the Convertible Notes Facility and the Senior Credit Facility when coupled with the following conditions: our available cash resources, recurring losses and cash outflows from operations, an expectation of continuing operating losses and cash outflows from operations for the foreseeable future, and the need to raise additional capital to finance our future operations, causes substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern to exist.
Prior to the amendment of our Convertible Notes Facility on March 31, 2023, we were required to maintain Liquidity (as defined in the Note Purchase Agreement) as of the last day of each quarter of not less than the greater of (a) $75.0 million and (b) an amount equal to the product of multiplying (i) the amount of Cash Burn (as defined in the Note Purchase Agreement) from operations for the three-month period ending on the end of such month by (ii) four (the “Minimum Liquidity Covenant”).
As of December 31, 2022, we did not have Liquidity in an amount equal to clause (b) above as of such date. As a result, we obtained a waiver of the Minimum Liquidity Covenant for the quarter ended December 31, 2022. Without such waiver, we would have been in default of the Convertible Notes Facility, which would have resulted in a cross-default under the Senior Credit Facility. However, at the time of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, we had not obtained a waiver of the Minimum Liquidity Covenant for any future periods, and as a result of anticipated operating cash outflows from operations, capital investment at our Powered 1 battery factory and incremental cash payments for the workforce reduction we announced in January 2023, we had determined that we may not satisfy the Minimum Liquidity Covenant as of March 31, 2023 for the quarter ended March 31, 2023. Accordingly, the then potential events of default under the Convertible Notes Facility and the Senior Credit Facility, when coupled with the following conditions: our available cash resources, recurring losses and cash outflows from operations, an expectation of continuing operating losses and cash
outflows from operations for the foreseeable future, and the need to raise additional capital to finance our future operations, caused us to determine that there was substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern at the time of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.
In addition, the audit report included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K contained a going concern qualification, and our inability to deliver audited financial statements certified by our independent registered public accounting firm without qualification (or similar notation) as to going concern is an event of default under both the Convertible Notes Facility and the Senior Credit Facility. We obtained waivers of such event of default under the Convertible Notes Facility and the Senior Credit Facility.
On March 31, 2023, we entered into the amendment to the Convertible Notes Facility, which, among other things, amends the Minimum Liquidity Covenant to provide (i) a waiver of the Minimum Liquidity Covenant through and including May 31, 2024, instead requiring a minimum Liquidity of $125.0 million as of the last day of each quarter from March 31, 2023 through and including May 31, 2024, and (ii) a waiver of the requirement that our financial statements be certified by our auditor without qualification (or similar notation) as to going concern for our consolidated financial statements for fiscal years 2022 and 2023. After May 31, 2024, the Convertible Notes Facility requires us to maintain Liquidity at each quarter end of not less than the greater of (i) $75.0 million and (ii) four times of Cash Burn (as defined in the Note Purchase Agreement) for the three-month period then ended.
If we are not able to comply with or obtain waivers for our covenants under the Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility, we would be in default under one or both of the Senior Credit Facility or the Convertible Notes Facility which would have an immediate adverse effect on our business. An unwaived event of default under the Convertible Notes Facility and a corresponding cross-default under the Senior Credit Facility would permit (i) the holders of the Convertible Notes to cause all of the outstanding indebtedness under the Convertible Notes Facility to become immediately due and payable and (ii) the lenders under the Senior Credit Facility to cause all of the outstanding indebtedness under the Senior Credit Facility to become immediately due and payable, to require any outstanding letters of credit to be cash collateralized and to terminate all commitments to extend credit under the Senior Credit Facility. If such indebtedness were to become immediately due and payable in the event of such a default this would have an immediate adverse effect on our ability to meet our working capital needs and our business and operating results. If we do not have sufficient funds or we are unable to arrange for additional financing to repay outstanding debt, the lenders under the Senior Credit Facility and holders of the Convertible Notes Facility could seek to enforce their security interests in the collateral securing the indebtedness under the Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility, which are secured by substantially all of Proterra OpCo’s assets including its intellectual property.
There is no assurance that we will be able to comply with the covenants under the Convertible Notes Facility or the Senior Credit Facility or, if applicable, obtain any future waivers under the Convertible Notes Facility or the Senior Credit Facility or other resolution with the holders of the Convertible Notes and the lenders under the Senior Credit Facility on a timely basis, on favorable terms or at all.
We are exploring potential options for raising additional funds through potential alternatives, which may include, among other things, the issuance of equity, equity-linked, and/or debt securities, debt financings or other capital sources and/or strategic transactions. However, we have not yet secured additional financing and we may not be successful in securing additional financing or executing a transaction on a timely basis, on acceptable terms or at all. Furthermore, high volatility and uncertainty in the capital markets resulting from macroeconomic conditions, including rising inflation rates and interest rates, and recent and potential future disruptions in access to bank deposits or lending commitments due to bank failures, has had, and could continue to have, and a negative impact on the credit and financial markets and on the price of our common stock and could adversely impact our ability to raise additional funds. In addition, substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern may cause, investors or other financing sources to be unwilling to provide funding to us on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. If sufficient funds are not available, we will have to delay, reduce the scope of, or eliminate some of our business activities, including related operating expenses, and our suppliers could impose more onerous terms on us, such as requiring cash payments prior to parts delivery, which would adversely affect our business prospects and our ability to continue our operations and would have a negative impact on our financial condition and ability to pursue our business strategies, and we may have to liquidate our assets and may receive less than the value at which those assets are carried on our financial statements, and/or seek protection under Chapters 7 or 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. This could potentially cause us to cease operations
and result in a complete or partial loss of your investment in our common stock. See the risk factor titled, “The Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility contain obligations and covenants that have and may in the future restrict and impact our business and financing activities. We have in the past obtained waivers of certain covenants contained in the Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility. If we are not able to comply with or obtain further waivers for our covenants contained in the Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility, we would be in default under one or both of the Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility, which may have an immediate adverse effect on our business,” for further information regarding the consequence of a default under our Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility.
The Senior Credit Facility, and the Convertible Notes Facility contain obligations and covenants that have and may in the future restrict and impact our business and financing activities. We have in the past obtained waivers of certain covenants contained in the Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility. If we are not able to comply with or obtain further waivers for our covenants contained in the Senior Credit Facility and Convertible Notes Facility, we would be in default under one or both of the Senior Credit Facility or Convertible Notes Facility which would have an immediate adverse effect on our business.
The Senior Credit Facility and Convertible Notes Facility are secured by substantially all our assets, including our intellectual property and other restricted property. Subject to certain exceptions, the Senior Credit Facility and Convertible Notes also restrict our ability to, among other things:
•dispose of or sell our assets;
•make material changes in our business or management, or accounting and reporting practices;
•acquire, consolidate, or merge with other entities;
•incur additional indebtedness;
•create liens on our assets;
•pay dividends;
•make investments;
•enter transactions with affiliates; and
•pre-pay other indebtedness.
In addition, the Convertible Notes Facility contains an additional holding company covenant limiting Proterra’s ability to engage in business, operations and activities other than as set forth in the Note Purchase Agreement as well as contain certain customary non-financial covenants.
The covenants in the Senior Credit Facility and Convertible Notes Facility, and any future financing agreements that we may enter may, restrict our ability to finance our operations, engage in, expand or otherwise pursue our business activities and strategies. Further, if we fail to comply with our debt covenants in the future, there is no assurance that we will be able to obtain any future waivers under the Convertible Notes Facility or the Senior Credit Facility. See the Risk Factor entitled “There is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern for a period of twelve months from the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.” for risks related to our events of default, cross-defaults under the debt instruments, and related waivers, as applicable, concerning maintaining Liquidity (as defined in the Note Purchase Agreement), our failure to deliver audited financial statements certified by our independent registered public accounting firm without qualification (or similar notation) in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ending December 31, 2022 under the Senior Credit Facility and the Convertible Notes Facility and the consequences of an event of default and if we do not have sufficient funds or we are unable to arrange for additional financing to repay our outstanding indebtedness.
We will require additional capital to support our business activities and business growth and to comply with our obligations under the Convertible Notes Facility and the Senior Credit Facility, which may be dilutive to our stockholders, and such capital might not be available on terms acceptable to us, if at all.
We will require additional capital to support our business activities and business growth and to comply with our obligations under the Convertible Notes Facility and Senior Credit Facility, and we are exploring potential options for raising additional funds through potential alternatives, which may include, among other things, the issuance of equity, equity-linked, and/or debt securities, debt financings or other capital sources and/or strategic transactions. However, we have not yet secured and we may not be successful in securing additional financing or executing a transaction on a timely basis or on terms favorable to us, if at all. We intend to continue to make investments to support our business growth and will require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to improve our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. In addition, we need to service our indebtedness and to comply with the requirements of the terms governing the Convertible Notes Facility. If we raise additional funds through issuances of equity or convertible securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences, and privileges superior to those of holders of our common stock. Any debt financing that we may secure in the future could involve similar and/or additional restrictive covenants as those in our existing indebtedness relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, including the ability to pay dividends. This may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential strategic transactions.
There can be no assurance that further deterioration in credit and financial markets and confidence in economic conditions will not occur, including as a result of recent bank failures. The recent closures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank has resulted in broader financial institution liquidity risk and concerns, and future adverse developments with respect to specific financial institutions or the broader financial services industry may lead to market-wide liquidity shortages. The failure of any bank in which we deposit our funds could reduce the amount of cash we have available, or delay our ability to access such funds. Any such failure may increase the possibility of a sustained deterioration of financial market liquidity, or illiquidity at clearing, cash management and/or custodial financial institutions. In the event we have a commercial relationship with a bank that has failed or is otherwise distressed, we may experience delays or other issues in meeting our financial obligations. If other banks and financial institutions fail or become insolvent in the future in response to financial conditions affecting the banking system and financial markets, our ability to access our cash and cash equivalents and investments may be threatened and our ability to borrow or raise additional capital when needed to grow our business could be substantially impaired. A severe or prolonged economic downturn could result in a variety of risks to our business, including weakened demand for our products and harm our ability to raise additional capital when needed on acceptable terms, if at all. If the equity and credit markets continue to deteriorate, it may make any necessary debt or equity financing more difficult, more costly, and more dilutive. Failure to secure any necessary financing in a timely manner and on favorable terms would impair our ability to maintain compliance with our obligations under the Convertible Notes Facility and the Senior Credit Facility and to achieve our growth strategy, would harm our financial performance and stock price and would require us to delay or abandon our business plans. We cannot anticipate all of the ways in which the current economic climate and financial market conditions could adversely impact our access to capital. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us when we require it, we will have to delay, reduce the scope of, or eliminate some of our business activities, including related operating expenses, and our suppliers could impose more onerous terms, such as requiring cash payments prior to parts delivery, and we may not be able to comply with the covenants in our Convertible Notes Facility, which would adversely affect our business prospects and the Company’s ability to continue our operations and would have a negative impact on our financial condition and ability to pursue our business strategies, and we may have to liquidate our assets and may receive less than the value at which those assets are carried on the Company’s financial statements, and/or seek protection under Chapters 7 or 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.
We may not have the ability to, or have a sufficient number of authorized shares to, convert all of the Convertible Notes into shares of our common stock, and if we are unable to obtain certain stockholder approvals, we may need to use our cash resources to settle such conversions.
The Convertible Notes Facility contains certain mandatory and optional conversion provisions. Under these conversion provisions, each Convertible Note is convertible at a conversion price equal to (i) $4.00, until one-third
of the aggregate balance of such Converted Note is converted, (ii) thereafter, $5.00 until one-third of the aggregate balance of such Converted Note is converted and (iii), thereafter, $6.00; provided, however, that for optional conversions, the conversion price of the Convertible Notes is subject to a reset following any Qualified Financing (as defined in the Convertible Notes), equal to 75% of the lowest per share purchase price of the common stock or preferred stock sold in such Qualified Financing, subject to a $1.016 floor. Our ability to settle conversions using shares of our common stock is currently limited to (i) 45,257,360 shares of our common stock unless and until we receive stockholder approval of the Nasdaq Proposal, and (ii) assuming we receive stockholder approval as described in (i), 177,782,000 shares of our common stock unless and until we receive stockholder approval of an amendment to our certificate of incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of our common stock. Although we are obligated to use best efforts to seek such stockholder approvals in connection with our 2023 annual meeting of stockholders (and thereafter if we do not obtain such approvals) and we intend to seek such stockholder approvals at our 2023 annual meeting of stockholders, there is no guarantee that we will be able to obtain stockholder approvals on a timely basis or at all. Until such time that we receive such stockholder approvals, if at all, if a proposed conversion of the Convertible Notes cannot be completed in full due to such limitations, the holders of the Convertible Notes shall have the right to elect either (x) to rescind the conversion with respect to (and only with respect to) the portion of the Balance (as defined below) of the Convertible Note that relates to the Excess Shares (as defined below) or (y) for us to pay to such holder of Convertible Notes an amount equal to the product of (A) the number of Excess Shares, multiplied by (B) the simple average of the daily volume weighted average price of our common stock for the 20 consecutive trading days ending on and including the trading day immediately preceding the applicable conversion date. This could adversely affect our liquidity and/or we may not have sufficient cash available at that time to satisfy such cash settlement. Our failure to make cash payments to settle conversions required by the Convertible Notes, would constitute a default under the Convertible Notes Facility. See “Conversion of the Convertible Notes will dilute the ownership interest of existing stockholders or may otherwise depress our stock price.” and “We may acquire or invest in additional companies, or undertake other strategic transactions or other business relationships which may divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders, consume resources that are necessary to sustain our business, and which we may not be able to integrate successfully.” for more information regarding the impact of dilution.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies prove to be incorrect or financial reporting standards or interpretations change, our operating results could be adversely affected.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates, judgments, and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in our financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, and equity as of the date of the financial statements, and the amount of revenue and expenses, during the periods presented, that are not readily apparent from other sources. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our financial statements include those related to determination of revenue recognition, stock-based compensation, inventory, and warranties. Our operating results may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of industry or financial analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our common stock.
Additionally, we regularly monitor our compliance with applicable financial reporting standards and review new pronouncements and drafts thereof that are relevant to us. As a result of new standards, changes to existing standards, and changes in interpretation, we might be required to change our accounting policies, alter our operational policies, or implement new or enhance existing systems so that they reflect new or amended financial reporting standards, or we may be required to restate our published financial statements. Changes to existing standards or changes in their interpretation may have an adverse effect on our reputation, business, financial position, and profit, or cause an adverse deviation from our revenue and operating profit target, which may negatively impact our financial results.
We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting and may identify additional material weaknesses in the future. If we fail to remediate these material weaknesses or otherwise fail to establish and maintain effective control over financial reporting, it may adversely affect our ability to accurately and timely report our financial results in the future, and may adversely affect
investor confidence, our reputation, our ability to raise additional capital, and our business operations and financial condition.
A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
Management, with the participation of the principal executive officer and principal financial officer, under the oversight of our board of directors, evaluated the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of March 31, 2023, using the framework in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on this evaluation, our principal executive officer and principal financial officer have concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of March 31, 2023, because of the material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting, described below and in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, filed with SEC on March 17, 2023 and amended on May 1, 2023, remained as of March 31, 2023.
We did not have a sufficient number of trained resources with assigned responsibility and accountability for the design, operation and documentation of internal control over financial reporting.
As a result:
•We did not have an effective risk assessment process that defined clear financial reporting objectives and evaluated risks at a sufficient level of detail to identify all relevant risks of material misstatement across the entity.
•We did not have an effective information and communication process that identified and assessed the source of and controls necessary to ensure the reliability of information used in financial reporting and that communicates relevant information about roles and responsibilities for internal control over financial reporting.
•We did not have effective monitoring activities to assess the operation of internal control over financial reporting, including the continued appropriateness of control design and level of documentation maintained to support control effectiveness.
As a consequence, we did not effectively design, implement, or operate process-level control activities for substantially all of our financial reporting processes.
Our management, with the oversight of the audit committee of our board of directors, is in the process of designing and implementing a remediation plan and is taking steps to remediate the material weaknesses. The material weaknesses will not be considered remediated until such time as management designs and implements effective controls that operate for a sufficient period of time and concludes, through testing, that these controls are effective. Furthermore, we cannot ensure that the measures we have taken to date, and actions we may take in the future, will be sufficient to remediate in a timely manner or at all the control deficiencies that led to our material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting or that they will prevent or avoid potential future material weaknesses due to a failure to implement and maintain adequate internal control over financial reporting or circumvention of these controls. In addition, even if we are successful in strengthening our controls and procedures, in the future these controls and procedures may not be adequate to prevent or identify irregularities or errors or to facilitate the fair presentation of our financial statements.
We will need to continue to dedicate internal resources, engage outside consultants and maintain a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue steps to remediate the material weakness and any future control deficiencies or material weaknesses, and improve control processes as appropriate, validate through testing that controls are functioning as documented and maintain a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal control over financial reporting. If we are not able to correct material weaknesses or deficiencies in internal controls in a timely manner or otherwise comply with the requirements of Section 404 in a timely manner, our ability to record, process, summarize and report financial information accurately and within applicable time periods may be adversely affected and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC, the Nasdaq Stock Market or other regulatory authorities as well as shareholder litigation which would require additional financial and management resources and could adversely
affect the market price of our common stock. Furthermore, if we cannot provide reliable financial reports or prevent fraud, our business and results of operations could be harmed. Inferior internal controls could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, which could have a negative effect on the trading price of our common stock.
Any failure to remediate the material weaknesses or otherwise develop or maintain effective controls or any difficulties encountered in their implementation or improvement could limit our ability to prevent or detect a misstatement of our accounts or disclosures that could result in material misstatements of our annual or interim financial statements. In such case, we may be unable to maintain compliance with securities law requirements regarding timely filing of periodic reports in addition to the listing requirements of the Nasdaq. For example, in connection with the identification of the material weakness described above, we were unable to file our Annual Report on Form 10-K by the deadline prescribed by the SEC and, as a result, we are currently not eligible to utilize a Form S-3 registration statement. Additionally, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and our stock price may decline as a result. In addition, perceptions of the Company among customers, suppliers, lenders, investors, securities analysts and others could also be adversely affected.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Our limited history of selling battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies makes it difficult to evaluate our business and prospects and may increase the risks associated with your investment.
Although we were incorporated in 2004, we only began delivering electric vehicles in 2010, and through March 31, 2023 had delivered over 1,050 electric transit buses. In the three months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022, we recognized $79.5 million and $58.6 million, respectively, in total revenue. In 2022, 2021 and 2020, we recognized $309.4 million, $242.9 million, and $196.9 million in total revenue, respectively. Since 2010, our product line has changed significantly, and our most recent transit bus model has only been in operation since 2020. Further, we started developing our battery technology in 2015 and did not begin battery pack production in any significant volume until 2017. We also have limited experience deploying our electric powertrain technology in vehicles other than electric transit buses. In 2018, we announced our software platform for connected vehicle intelligence, which we now refer to as our Valence (formerly called APEX) fleet and energy management software-as-a-service platform, which has only had beta customers until recently; we just relaunched the platform as Valence in 2022. Our energy services, which includes fleet planning, charging infrastructure and related energy management services, only began generating limited revenue in 2019. We began providing integrated charging solutions in 2019 and have only begun sourcing our new charging hardware from a new partner in 2020, with our first deliveries occurring in 2021.
As a result, we have a limited operating history upon which to evaluate our business and future prospects, which subjects us to a number of risks and uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and predict future growth. Our limited operating experience is particularly concentrated in our Proterra Transit line of business, and that limited experience may not prove to be relevant to Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy. As a result, the operating history of Proterra Transit may not prove to be predictive of the success of Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy.
Moreover, because of the limited deployment of our products and services to date and our focus on electric transit buses, defects or other problems with our products or industry-wide setbacks that impact the electric vehicle market may disproportionately impact our ability to attract additional customers or sell to existing customers, and harm our brand and reputation relative to larger, more established vehicle manufacturers that have a longer operating history and investments in more than one technology. We have encountered and expect to continue to encounter risks and difficulties experienced by growing companies in rapidly developing and changing industries, including challenges related to achieving market acceptance of our existing and future products and services, competing against companies with greater financial and technical resources, competing against entrenched incumbent competitors that have long-standing relationships with our prospective customers in the commercial vehicle market, including the public transit market and other transportation markets, recruiting and retaining qualified employees, and making use of our limited resources. We cannot ensure that we will be successful in addressing these and other challenges that we may face in the future, and our business may be
adversely affected if we do not manage these risks appropriately. As a result, we may not attain sufficient revenue to achieve or maintain positive cash flow from operations or profitability in any given period, or at all.
We have a history of net losses, have experienced rapid growth and anticipate increasing our operating expenses in the future, and may not achieve or sustain positive gross margin or profitability in the future.
We incurred net losses of $244.0 million in the three months ended March 31, 2023, $238.0 million, $250.0 million, and $127.0 million in 2022, 2021, and 2020, respectively, and we expect to incur net losses for the foreseeable future. As of March 31, 2023, we had an accumulated deficit of $1.3 billion. We expect to make significant expenditures related to the development and expansion of our business, including: making new capital investments and continuing investments in our electric powertrain, including advancements in our battery technology and high voltage systems; hiring and retaining qualified employees; adding additional production lines or production shifts in our manufacturing facilities; building new manufacturing facilities; expanding our software offerings; expanding our business into new markets and geographies; research and development in new product and service categories; and in connection with legal, accounting, and other administrative expenses related to operating as a public company.
We have also experienced rapid growth in recent periods. For example, our number of employees has increased significantly over the last few years, from 492 full-time employees as of December 31, 2018 to 1,057 full-time employees as of March 31, 2023 (reflecting the workforce reduction implemented in the first quarter of 2023). On January 13, 2023, we approved a plan designed to improve operational efficiency, including reducing our workforce by approximately 25% and closing our City of Industry facility. We will move manufacturing from our City of Industry facility to our existing facilities in South Carolina. In transitioning manufacturing facilities, we may experience delays and disruptions in our manufacturing and production activities. We also expect to continue to hire new employees, particularly for our manufacturing facilities in South Carolina. Managing our growth has and will place significant demands on our management as well as on our administrative, operational, legal and financial resources. To manage our growth effectively, we must continue to improve and expand our infrastructure, including our information technology, financial, legal, compliance and administrative systems and controls. We must also continue to effectively and efficiently manage our employees, operations, finances, research and development, and capital investments.
All of these efforts may prove more expensive than we currently anticipate, and we may not succeed in increasing our revenue sufficiently, or at all, to offset these higher expenses. While our revenue has grown in recent periods, our operating expenses have also increased significantly. If our revenue declines or fails to grow at a rate faster than increases in our operating expenses, or we are unable to increase gross margin, whether through reducing the cost of production or increasing sales, we would not be able to achieve and maintain profitability in future periods. As a result, we may continue to generate losses. We cannot ensure that we will achieve profitability in the future or that, if we do become profitable, that we will be able to sustain profitability.
Our operating results have fluctuated and may fluctuate from quarter to quarter, which makes our future results difficult to predict.
Our quarterly operating results have fluctuated in the past and may fluctuate in the future. Our revenue recognition with respect to electric transit buses and charging systems depends on the timing of delivery and customer acceptance. Large order sizes may result in a significant number of electric transit buses or charging systems being accepted or rejected at one time, which could disproportionately impact revenue recognition in a given quarter. Revenue for battery systems and electrification and charging solutions is less dependent on customer acceptance but can be unpredictable based on our customers’ ability to cancel within lead times. Additionally, we have a limited operating history, which makes it difficult to forecast our future results and subjects us to several risks and uncertainties, including our ability to plan for and anticipate future growth. As a result, our past quarterly operating results may not be reliable indicators of future performance, particularly in our rapidly evolving market.
Our operating results in any given quarter can be influenced by numerous factors, many of which are unpredictable or are outside of our control, including:
•our ability to maintain and grow our customer base and to sell additional products to our existing customers;
•our ability to build a reputation as a manufacturer of quality battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software and electric transit buses and to build trust and long-term relationships with customers;
•the effects of ongoing macroeconomic conditions, particularly with respect to funding for state and federal transit programs and reduced operating revenue from reduced passenger levels, and the effect on our suppliers and customers;
•the amount of funding appropriated annually for state and federal transit programs and the amount and timing of government funding programs for electric vehicles;
•our ability to deliver our products as planned to meet our revenue goals and avoid liquidated damages within certain contracts, which may depend on factors such as supply shortages of components and component quality issues, customer configuration, manufacturing, or shipping delays, our ability to manage logistics, and to accurately forecast inventory and labor requirements;
•the mix of order size for transit bus orders, and variations in profit margins for each contract, which may affect our overall gross margin in any particular period;
•fluctuations in the cost and availability of raw materials, including as a result of tariffs and other trade restrictions;
•cancellations or modifications of awards or orders by our customers;
•our ability to design and produce safe, reliable, and quality products on an ongoing basis;
•the cost of materials used in our products;
•levels of warranty claims or estimated costs of warranty claims and vehicle or equipment recalls;
•our ability to distinguish ourselves from competitors in our industry by developing and offering competitive products, effectively partner with manufacturers in adjacent markets and respond to competitive developments, including the introduction of new battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software or electric transit buses and pricing changes by our competitors;
•our ability to promote the adoption of electric vehicles over other fuel solutions such as diesel-hybrid, hybrid, or compressed natural gas vehicles or battery electric fuel cell vehicles;
•the success and timing of our strategic relationships to enter adjacent markets;
•pricing pressure as a result of competition or otherwise;
•our ability to implement cost reduction measures;
•buying patterns of customers, and the procurement schedules of our current and prospective customers in the public transit market, school bus market, and other commercial vehicle markets;
•current and evolving industry standards and government regulations that impact our business at the federal, state, and local level, particularly in the areas of product safety and rules of origin such as Buy America, Buy American, and provincial Canadian Content regulations, and competitive bidding regulations at the federal, state and local level for electric transit buses;
•the timing of testing by, and the ability of our buses to pass, the FTA’s federal bus testing program;
•delays or disruptions in our supply, manufacturing, or distribution chain, including insolvency, credit, or other difficulties confronting our key suppliers;
•our ability to effectively manage the length and complexity of our sales cycles;
•the mix of financing alternatives that we offer and our customers choose to utilize;
•our ability to continuously improve our product without obsoleting inventory or production tooling;
•litigation, adverse judgments, settlements, or other litigation-related costs;
•timing of stock-based compensation expense; and
•general economic and political conditions and government regulations in the United States and Canada and the countries where we may expand in the future, macroeconomic such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation and interest rates, uncertain credit and global financial markets, recent and potential future disruptions in access to bank deposits or lending commitments due to bank failures, supply chain disruption and geopolitical conditions, including the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and related sanctions.
The impact of one or more of the foregoing and other factors may cause our operating results to vary significantly. As such, we believe that quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful and should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. If we fail to meet or exceed the expectations of investors or securities analysts, then the trading price of our common stock could fall substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class action suits.
Further increases in costs, disruption of supply, or shortage of materials, particularly lithium-ion cells, wiring harnesses, and drivetrain components could continue to harm our business.
We may experience, and have continued to experience, increases in the cost of, or a sustained interruption in the supply of or shortage of materials necessary for, the production, maintenance and service of our transit buses, battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, and related technologies. For example, our vehicle and equipment deliveries were impacted by constraints and inefficiencies in production driven by shortages in component parts, particularly resin for connectors, wiring harnesses, and certain drivetrain components, resulting in part from global supply chain disruptions. In the past, these delays have caused temporary shutdowns of our production lines, and have caused delays in production and incremental shipping costs for air freight. Further, if suppliers impose unfavorable credit terms or impose more onerous terms on us, such as requiring cash payments prior to parts delivery, as a result of our current financial condition, this could restrict our ability to secure parts and limit our production. Any such increases in cost, including due to inflation, supply interruption, materials shortages, or an increase in freight and logistics costs, our unfavorable credit terms with suppliers could adversely impact our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.
Our suppliers also use various materials, including aluminum, carbon fiber, lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper and neodymium. The prices and supply of these materials have and may fluctuate, depending on market conditions, geopolitical risks, fluctuations in currency exchange rates, and global supply and demand for these materials. Our contracts do not all have mechanisms in place that allow us to raise prices to the end customer due to inflation or other material cost increases. If we are not able to raise our prices to our end customers, inflationary pressures and other material cost increases could, in turn, negatively impact our operating results.
Moreover, we are subject to risks and uncertainties associated with changing economic, political, and other conditions in foreign countries. Unavailability or delay of imports from our suppliers have caused and may in the future cause interruptions in our supply chain and increase our costs of procurement. Consequently, we may experience increased competition for materials, which could further increase the cost to us of sourcing materials
and negatively impact our ability to source parts from our current suppliers and from identifying and working with new suppliers.
Our business is dependent on reliable availability of lithium-ion cells for our battery packs. While we believe other sources of lithium-ion cells will be available for our battery packs, to date, we have only used one supplier for lithium-ion cells for the battery packs used in commercial applications for our Proterra Transit and Proterra Powered customers. As we increase battery pack production, there is no guarantee that our current cell supplier will be able to supply the volume that we will require to meet growing demand. Battery cell demand continues to increase across vehicle segments including passenger car, and new incentives and tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in August 2022, may further accelerate demand and competition for cell supply. Any disruption in the supply of battery cells could disrupt production of our battery systems and electric transit buses until we are able to find a different supplier that can meet our specifications and production demands. Such disruption could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.
We expect raw material prices to be volatile for the foreseeable future due to inflation and continued global supply chain issues. While we believe our exposure to increased costs is no greater than the industry as a whole, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected if our efforts to mitigate their effects are unsuccessful. Substantial increases in the prices for our materials or prices charged to us, particularly those charged by lithium-ion cell suppliers or charger hardware providers, have and would increase our operating costs and have and could reduce our margins if we cannot recoup the increased costs through increased sale prices on our battery systems, vehicles or charging systems. Furthermore, fluctuations in fuel costs, or other economic conditions, may cause us to experience significant increases in freight charges and material costs. Additionally, because the negotiated price of an existing battery system, vehicle or charging system is established at the outset, we, rather than our customers, bear the economic risk of increases in the cost of materials. Moreover, any attempts to increase battery system, vehicle or charging system prices in response to increased material costs could increase the difficulty of selling our electric transit buses or battery systems at attractive prices to new and existing customers and lead to cancellations of customer orders. If we are unable to effectively manage our supply chain and respond to disruptions to our supply chain in a cost-efficient manner, we may fail to achieve the financial results we expect or that financial analysts and investors expect, and our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results may be adversely affected.
Our recent workforce reduction and planned closure of our City of Industry facility may not be as successful as anticipated and may not improve overall efficiency.
On January 20, 2023, we implemented a reduction-in-force and announced the planned closure of our City of Industry facility by December 31, 2023. While we believe this will improve operational efficiency and expect to realize cost reductions, we may not be able to realize the full benefits within the anticipated time frame, or at all. We may also incur other charges, costs, future cash expenditures or impairments not currently contemplated due to events that may occur as a result of, or in connection with the reduction in workforce and facility closure. Further, we may experience unintended consequences and costs, such as the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise, attrition beyond our intended reduction-in-force, a reduction in morale among our remaining employees, and the risk that we may not achieve the anticipated benefits, all of which may have an adverse effect on our results of operations or financial condition.
While we have implemented, and intend to continue to implement, cost-reduction strategies in order to meet our goals, if we do not achieve expected savings or if operating costs increase as a result of investments in strategic initiatives, our total operating costs would be greater than anticipated. We may also incur substantial costs or cost overruns in utilizing and increasing our production capability, particularly if we build new battery production lines, and if we vertically integrate subsystem production into our manufacturing facilities. In addition, if we do not manage cost-reduction efforts properly, such efforts may affect the quality of our products and our ability to generate future revenue. Moreover, significant portions of our operating expenses are fixed costs that will neither increase nor decrease proportionately with revenue. In addition, we incur significant costs related to procuring the materials required to manufacture our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems and electric transit buses, as well as assembling electric transit buses and systems, and compensating our personnel. If we are not able to implement further cost-reduction efforts or reduce our fixed costs sufficiently in response to a decline in revenue, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results may be adversely affected.
Because many of the markets in which we compete are new and rapidly evolving, including possible consolidation of industry players, it is difficult to forecast long-term end-customer adoption rates and demand for our products, and our ability to meet demand for our products.
We are pursuing opportunities in markets that are undergoing rapid changes, including technological and regulatory changes, and it is difficult to predict the timing and size of the opportunities. There may be ongoing consolidation of industry players which could impact market demand for our products and competition for electrification solutions. For example, in October 2022 Nikola Corporation, a customer, completed an acquisition of Romeo Power, a competitor. Commercial vehicle battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies, represent complex products and services. Because these automotive systems depend on technology from many companies, commercialization of commercial vehicle electrification products could be delayed or impaired due to unavailability of technology or integration challenges inherent in the use of multiple vendors in commercial vehicle production. Although we currently have contracts with several commercial customers, these companies may not be able to implement our technology immediately, or at all. Some of our commercial customers are emerging companies that may not be able to commercialize their products on the production timelines they contemplated when entering into a contract with us, or at all. In 2022, we renegotiated production volumes and minimum order penalties for some customers, and any future inability of customers to meet contract commitments could adversely affect our business and financial results.
In addition, regulatory, safety or reliability requirements, many of which are outside of our control, could also cause delays or otherwise impair commercial adoption of these new technologies, which will adversely affect our growth. Our future financial performance will depend on our ability to make timely investments in the correct market opportunities. If one or more of these markets experience a shift in customer or prospective customer demand, our products may not compete as effectively, if at all. It is also possible that we may not be able to meet demand, and lose customer or prospective customer confidence as a result and lose business to competitors. In the evolving nature of the markets in which we operate, it is difficult to predict customer demand or adoption rates for our products or the future growth of the markets in which we operate. If demand does not develop or if we cannot accurately forecast customer demand, the size of our markets, or our future financial results, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
If our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, electric transit buses, fleet and energy management software, or other products have product defects and if our customer service is not effective in addressing customer concerns, our ability to develop, market and sell our products and services could be harmed.
Our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software and electric transit buses have in the past contained, and may in the future contain, product defects. Due to the limited deployment of our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies, there may be latent problems with our products that have not yet been discovered.
We have in the past found defects in our battery systems, electric transit buses, and charging systems. We may in the future find additional design and manufacturing defects that cause our products to require repair or not perform as expected. While we perform our own and in some cases third-party testing on the products we manufacture, we currently have a limited amount of customer operating experience with our battery systems, drivetrains, high-voltage systems, electric transit buses, software systems, and charging solutions by which to evaluate detailed long-term quality, reliability, durability, and performance characteristics of these products and solutions. There can be no assurance that we will be able to detect and fix any defects in our products prior to their sale to or operation by customers. Our efforts to remedy any issues may not be timely, may hamper production, or may not be satisfactory to our customers. Further, our business has grown rapidly in recent periods, and we may not be able to scale our service organization or partner with an existing service network quickly enough to satisfactorily provide timely customer service and address product defects, customer complaints, and warranty issues, which could result in customer dissatisfaction and negatively impact further sales.
Any product defects, delays, or legal restrictions on our products, or other failure of our products to perform as expected could harm our reputation, negatively impact our ability to market and sell our products, and result in
delivery delays, product recalls, product liability claims, customer contract terminations, adverse regulatory actions, and significant warranty and other expenses, and could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our battery packs use of lithium-ion cells, which have been observed to catch fire, and our charging solutions operate at high voltages which may cause concerns regarding the use of battery systems, electrification and charging solutions and fleet and energy management software in public transit and other commercial vehicles.
The battery packs that we produce make use of lithium-ion cells. On rare occasions, it is possible for lithium-ion cells to rapidly release contained energy by venting smoke and flames in a manner that can ignite nearby materials as well as other lithium-ion cells. Highly publicized incidents of laptop computers and cell phones containing lithium-ion batteries bursting into flames have focused consumer attention on the safety of these cells. Fires have also been reported in electric cars and transit buses using lithium-ion batteries, including one of our transit buses. These events have raised questions about the suitability of using lithium-ion cells for commercial vehicle applications.
Despite the safety features that we design into our battery packs, there has been, and could be a failure of the battery packs in our buses or battery packs that we may produce for third parties. In November 2022, we experienced the first known fire on a Proterra transit bus that involved our proprietary battery system. There were no injuries and no known property damage, other than to exterior parts of the bus near the thermal event and the involved battery pack. After investigation we issued a recall for a limited number of battery packs. Incidents such as the November 2022 event could subject us to lawsuits, product recalls, cancelled contracts, lost customers, and potentially slow market adoption of our electric transit buses by transit authorities and our technologies by other customers. Also, negative public perceptions regarding the suitability of lithium-ion cells for commercial vehicle applications or any future incident involving lithium-ion cells, such as a vehicle or other fires, particularly public transit vehicle incidents, even if unrelated to our products, could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
In addition to thermal risk related to battery packs, related accessories and ancillary products could also be subject to similar safety concerns and risks as a result of the high voltage they carry and transmit. Our charging solutions also operate at high voltages and charging equipment must be properly maintained. In the past, our legacy single blade chargers have experienced charger fires which caused damage to the chargers and the bus. In particular, we experienced four such thermal incidents related to our legacy overhead single blade chargers over 2019 and 2020, including one incident in which a charger was completely destroyed. While none of these events resulted in personal injury or significant property damage to the bus or other property, it is possible that other such or related incidents could occur in the future, or that such thermal discharge could result in personal injury or property damage.
We also store a significant number of lithium-ion cells and design, test, and produce battery modules and packs at our manufacturing facilities and other locations. While we have implemented safety procedures for handling cells, we may experience a safety issue or fire related to the cells. Once we ship our customers battery systems, those systems are out of immediate control. Any mishandling of battery systems or equipment failures in our operations or in our customers operations may cause accidents that could potentially harm our employees or third parties or result in disruptions to our business or our customers’ business. While we have implemented safety procedures and require our customers to implement safety procedures, we or our customers could experience a safety issue or fire which could disrupt operations or cause injuries and could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Defects in the materials or workmanship of our composite bus bodies could harm our reputation, expose us to product warranty or other liability claims, decrease demand for our buses, or materially harm existing or prospective customer relationships.
We are one of a small number of transit bus manufacturers to use a composite unibody for our electric transit buses. In the past, we have sourced composite bus bodies from three suppliers, and now use only one supplier. Defects in the composite body, including non-structural concerns, whether caused by design, engineering, materials, manufacturing errors, or deficiencies in manufacturing or quality control processes at our suppliers, are
an inherent risk in manufacturing technically advanced products for new applications. We offer our customers a twelve-year warranty on the composite bus body structure and bear the risk of possible defects. We have experienced defects in some bus bodies and have had to make repairs. For example, in October 2018 we discovered cracking in the wheel wells on some of our buses which required us to repair these defects under our warranty and will increase our field and customer service costs. In addition, in 2020 and 2021, we discovered a manufacturing quality issue that required us to repair laminate cracks that occurred near door frames of certain customer buses, and we expect that we will have to make more of these types of repairs. In 2020, we filed a recall related to the attachment of a torque limiter plate to the composite bus body that did not have proper adhesive application and could compromise the steering gear box and steering of the vehicle. In 2022, we voluntarily filed a new recall on the same issue for a new population of buses. Certain customers have experienced superficial cracking in the exterior gel coat or skin coat of the composite body which has caused certain customers to remove buses from revenue service and required us to develop inspection criteria and repair protocols, when applicable. We have also had to address vehicle inspection guidelines that are designed for metal frame buses with chassis and are not necessarily applicable to composite unibody architecture. Though these defects have not materially impacted us to date, we expect to continue to address these issues, and these defects or future defects with our advanced body materials whether structural or not may harm our existing and prospective customer relationships, damage our brand, and result in a reduction of awards, customer contract terminations, adverse regulatory actions, increased warranty claims, product liability claims and other damages.
Our most recent business expansion with Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy may not be as successful as anticipated, may not attract the customers and business partners we expect, and the assumptions underlying the growth prospects of these businesses may not prove to be accurate.
We have recently introduced and, in the future may introduce, new services and products that our customers and prospective customers may not utilize to the extent we anticipate or at all. For example, Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy products and services are designed to simplify the complexities of electric vehicle energy delivery and the deployment of large electric vehicle fleets for our customers. Through these businesses, we offer to design, build, finance, operate, and maintain the energy ecosystem that we believe to be required to power commercial electric vehicles. We have made, and will continue to be required to make, significant investments to scale these businesses, but we cannot be certain that such investments will be successful or meet the needs of our customers. Moreover, even if our customers use these services, we may encounter new challenges related to the delivery of energy solutions and competition from companies that may be better positioned to provide energy management services. If we invest in services or products that are not adopted by our customers or fail to invest in new services and products that meet the needs of our customers, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected. In addition, we have limited history operating these businesses and providing the products and services they offer. There can be no assurances that these products and services will be accepted by our customers, or that we will effectively be able to market and sell them to existing customers, especially our transit customers who comprise the vast majority of our current revenues. Further, the limited experience we have acquired operating Proterra Transit may not prove to be applicable to Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy.
We expect Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy product lines to account for a growing percentage of our revenue in the future, and it is possible that certain assumptions underlying the launch of these businesses are subsequently determined to be inaccurate, such as assumptions regarding the growing adoption of electrification by commercial vehicle manufacturers and their customers in general; the attractiveness of our products and services to OEMs that would use our battery systems, electric drivetrains, high-voltage systems, vehicle controls, telemetry gateways, charging solutions, software and telematics platforms and related technologies in their electric transit buses or elsewhere; government and regulatory initiatives and directives impacting the adoption of electrification technologies for commercial vehicle applications; and the overall reliance by enterprises on commercial vehicles and the demand for medium- and heavy-duty trucks in the future.
We face intense and increasing competition in the transit bus market and may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors, which could adversely affect our business, revenue growth, and market share.
The transit bus industry is relationship driven and dominated by incumbent companies that have served their respective markets longer than we have. In the transit bus industry, our main sources of competition are
incumbent transit vehicle integrators that have served our market with legacy diesel, diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas products for many years, such as NFI Group Inc., Gillig Corporation, and Nova Bus Company; BYD Company Ltd., a Chinese company that offers an array of vehicles and other products, including electric transit vehicles; and new entrants and companies in adjacent markets, including other vehicle manufacturers that have entered or are reported to have plans to enter the transit bus market.
In the transit bus industry, electric bus procurements still represent a minority of annual transit bus purchases. As the number of electric bus OEMs increases, we may not be able to maintain our leading market position in North America. We also may not be successful in competing against incumbent competitors that have longer histories of serving the transit bus market and established track records of service, or with much larger, well-funded companies that choose to invest in the electric transit bus market. As more established bus companies develop their electric vehicle or competing zero-emission solutions, their long history in the transit sector could prove to be a competitive advantage which may have a negative impact on our ability to compete with them. Moreover, our competitors that also manufacture diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas vehicles may have an advantage with their existing and prospective customers that are interested in exploring diesel alternatives without committing to electric vehicles or to pursue a gradual electrification strategy with the same manufacturer. Additionally, these competitors have more experience with the procurement process of public transit authorities, including bid protests. Competitors, potential customers, or regulators may also make claims that our electric transit buses or competitive bid activity are not in compliance with laws, regulatory requirements, or industry standards, which may impact our ability to sell our electric transit buses and to compete successfully for current and future customers. Actions by competitors may have consequences for future business or effects that we have not anticipated on other future opportunities.
We face intense and increasing competition in the commercial vehicle electrification market and may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors, which could adversely affect our business, revenue growth, and market share.
The electric powertrain, electric commercial vehicle and charging solutions industries are highly competitive. We may not be successful in competing against companies in the battery systems, electric powertrain, charging solutions and related industries who may have more resources than we do or who are able to produce products and deliver services that are perceived by the market to be superior to ours. Global battery makers in particular may be able to leverage their superior scale and access to capital to sell their products more effectively to potential customers and may be further incentivized to compete with us in the North American market to take advantage of new incentives and tax credits for commercial vehicle electrification in the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in August 2022. We may also face competitive pressure from incumbent vehicle producers that decide to enter the battery system or electric powertrain business, or vertically integrate their supply chain, and that are able to leverage their superior resources and capital to produce products that perform or are priced competitively when compared to our own.
In the battery system and electric powertrain industry, our main sources of competition include large Chinese battery suppliers such as CATL; incumbent tier one automotive suppliers that are developing electric powertrain alternatives to internal combustion engines, such as Cummins, Allison Transmission, BorgWarner and Dana; and commercial vehicle manufacturers that are developing or may develop their own internal electric powertrain solutions for their vehicles including large automotive companies, such as Daimler Truck Group and Volvo Group. In the future, incumbents and new companies offering competing zero emission solutions such as fuel cell electric vehicles may also become significant competitors.
In the charging solutions industry, our main sources of competition are incumbent charging solutions providers that develop charging solutions for commercial vehicles such as Siemens, ABB, Heliox, ChargePoint and Rhombus; and software companies that offer charging management solutions and can partner with hardware providers to provide complete solutions to end customers.
These competitors may have greater financial, technical, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and other resources than we do, and may have more experience and ability to devote greater resources to designing, developing, testing, manufacturing, distributing, deploying, promoting, selling or supporting battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software, and related technologies. Similarly, our principal competitors that also design, test, manufacture and deploy battery systems, electrification and
charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems and related technologies for passenger vehicles may have a competitive advantage, through their established distribution and service networks for legacy vehicle technology, brand recognition and market acceptance of their products and services, and perceived reliability or popularity, all of which could be attractive to prospective partners and manufacturers that are exploring commercial vehicle electrification alternatives. As a result, our current and potential competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, or customer requirements, or devote greater resources than we can to the development, promotion, distribution and sale of their products and services. Our competitors and potential competitors may also be able to develop products or services that are equal or superior to ours, achieve greater market acceptance of their products and services, and increase sales by utilizing different distribution channels than we do. Some of our competitors may aggressively discount their products and services in order to gain market share, which could result in pricing pressures, reduced profit margins, lost market share, or a failure to grow market share for us. As the market for commercial electric vehicles grows and battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software, and related technologies gain wider adoption, we expect that additional specialized providers of battery systems, electric powertrain technology, charging infrastructure, and related software solutions and related technologies will enter the markets that we address and that larger competitors could more effectively sell their offerings.
In addition, we developed our battery system and powertrain systems and related components to be compliant with “Buy America” regulations applicable to the transit business, which means that we may have higher costs to procure components, and design, test and manufacture such products in the United States than competitors that are not compliant with Buy America or similar regulations. Our competitors may be able to manufacture comparable or competitive products in more cost-effective jurisdictions and import them to the United States at prices lower than ours, which competition could cause us to lose market share or compel us to reduce prices for goods or services to remain competitive, which could result in reduced sales and revenue in industry segments that are not subject to Buy America or similar regulation. The production of battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, and related technologies in China, where production costs are lower and where the development of such technologies could be subsidized by the state, could negatively impact our competitive profile by presenting our customers and partners a more cost-effective alternative to our products and services, which could result in reduced sales and revenue and loss of market share or compel us to reduce prices for goods or services to remain competitive.
Moreover, current and future competitors may also make strategic acquisitions or establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with others, including our current or future suppliers or business partners. By doing so, these competitors may increase their ability to meet the needs of our customers or potential customers. These developments could limit our ability to generate revenue from existing and new customers. If we are unable to compete successfully against current and future competitors, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results would be adversely affected.
Our suppliers have and may fail in the future to deliver components according to schedules, prices, quality and volumes that are acceptable to us, or we may be unable to manage these suppliers effectively.
Some of our products contain thousands of parts that we purchase from hundreds of mostly single-source direct suppliers, generally without long-term supply agreements. This exposes us to multiple potential sources of component shortages. Unexpected changes in business conditions, materials pricing, labor issues, wars, governmental changes, tariffs, natural disasters, health epidemics and its related disruption of global supply chains, particularly in the industrial sector, and other factors beyond our or our suppliers’ control could also affect these suppliers’ ability to deliver components to us or to remain solvent and operational. Single source suppliers provide us with a number of components that are required for manufacturing of our current products, including our composite bus bodies. If a single source supplier was to go out of business, we might be unable to find a replacement for such source in a timely manner, or at all. If a single source supplier were to be acquired by a competitor, that competitor may elect not to sell to us in the future. We have experienced and continue to experience component shortages and delays, including wiring harnesses. In the fourth quarter of 2022, difficulty sourcing wiring harnesses from a vendor resulted in our production delays and fewer buses delivered in that quarter. In the first quarter of 2023, we experienced a shortage in certain components used to complete our battery packs, temporarily idling our manufacturing lines in City of Industry. The unavailability of any component or supplier has in the past, and could in the future result in production delays, idle manufacturing facilities, require
product design changes, cause loss of access to important technology and tools for producing and supporting our products, and create delays in providing replacement parts to our customers. We have also experienced delays in sourcing replacement parts for some of our oldest transit buses in customer fleets, which has led to customer dissatisfaction and buses being out of service for lengthy periods while awaiting replacement parts.
Moreover, significant increases in our production, or product design changes made by us have required and may in the future require us to procure additional components in a short amount of time. Our suppliers may not be able to sustainably meet our timelines or our cost, quality and volume needs, or may increase prices to do so, requiring us to replace them with other sources. Our supply for battery cells and other raw materials is critical in allowing us to scale our operations and meet our growth profitability and cash flow targets, such that any supply delay or vulnerability in the battery cell supply chain could alter our growth plans. Further, we have limited manufacturing experience and we may experience issues increasing the level of localized procurement at our current or future facilities. While we have to date secured additional or alternate sources or developed our own replacements for many of our components, and we believe that we will be able to continue to do so, there is no assurance that we will be able to do so quickly or at all, particularly with highly customized components. Additionally, we may be unsuccessful in our continuous efforts to negotiate with existing suppliers to obtain cost reductions and avoid unfavorable changes to terms, source less expensive suppliers for certain parts, and redesign certain parts to make them less expensive to produce. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.
As the scale of our production increases, we will also need to accurately forecast, purchase, warehouse and transport components at high volumes to our manufacturing facilities across the United States. If we are unable to accurately match the timing and quantities of component purchases to our actual needs or successfully implement automation, inventory management and other systems to accommodate the increased complexity in our supply chain and parts management, we may incur unexpected production disruption, storage, transportation and write-off costs, which may harm our business and operating results.
Our dependence on a limited number of suppliers introduces significant risk that could have adverse effects on our financial condition and operating results.
We are a relatively low-volume producer of battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software and electric transit buses, and related technologies, and do not have significant purchasing power with suppliers in the electric vehicle market for many components of our products, including batteries, drivetrains, high-voltage systems and electric transit buses. As a result, suppliers and other third parties may be less likely to invest time and resources in developing business relationships with us if they are not convinced that our business will succeed. Larger suppliers have in the past and may in the future require minimum order quantities from us, which can expose us to liquidated damages or substantial penalties. For example, in 2022, we incurred nearly $8 million in penalties owed to our bus body supplier.
To build and maintain our business and obtain favorable contract terms, we must maintain our suppliers’ and other vendors’ confidence in our stability, liquidity, and business prospects. Maintaining such confidence may be complicated by certain factors, such as our limited operating history, suppliers’ unfamiliarity with our products, competition, and uncertainty regarding the future of commercial vehicle electrification. Some of these factors are outside of our control and any negative perception about our business prospects, even if exaggerated or unfounded, would likely harm our business and make it more difficult to contract with suppliers on favorable terms. In addition, some of our suppliers may have more established relationships with our competitors, and as a result of those relationships, some suppliers may choose to limit or terminate their relationship with us.
In addition, with respect to our battery manufacturing operations that supports Proterra Transit and Proterra Powered, our battery production volumes are relatively small and we are currently sole sourcing key components from select suppliers, such as LG Energy Solution, for the lithium-ion cells that we use to manufacture our battery packs and other sole source suppliers for key elements of the battery pack. Disruptions in production may result if we had to replace any of these sole source suppliers on short notice. As we increase battery production volumes, if our current sole source suppliers cannot meet our demand for increased supply, we may find our ability to grow our business constrained if there are not alternative sources of supply that we can secure in a timely fashion, or at all.
With respect to our transit business, we have few long-term agreements with suppliers and typically purchase supplies on an order-by-order basis depending on the material requirements to build customers’ buses. In many cases, we rely on a small group of suppliers, many of which are single-source suppliers, to provide us with components for our products, such as our bus body, which we sole source from TPI Composites Inc, and components of our drivetrains. Moreover, transit bus customers have specified a certain supplier for components, such as its preferred seating or heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units, and we are then beholden to that specified supplier’s terms and delivery schedule. While we obtain components from multiple sources when that is a viable alternative, certain components used in our electric transit buses, such as bus bodies sourced from TPI Composites, must be custom made for us. In 2022 and into early 2023 we sourced wiring harnesses for our transit and powertrain products largely from one vendor that has experienced challenges and financial instability in its business, which created disruption in our supply and slowed our production.
If these suppliers become unwilling or unable to provide components, there may be few alternatives for supply of specific components, such as wiring harnesses, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or favorable prices, or that meet our published specifications in a timely manner or at all. We have experienced in the past, may again experience delays while we qualify new suppliers and validate their components. In addition, replacing our sole source suppliers may require us to reengineer our products, which could be time consuming and costly.
Our reliance on a small group of sole-source suppliers as well as certain suppliers specifically chosen by customers creates multiple potential sources of delivery failure or component shortages for the production of our products. As a result, we have in the past, and may be required to in the future renegotiate our existing agreements with our suppliers, potentially with less favorable terms, and incur additional costs associated with the production. In the past, we have experienced delays related to supply shortages, including, most recently, as a result of the global supply chain disruptions related to the continuing impacts of the macroeconomics conditions, and untimely or unsatisfactory delivery of components, including cells, wiring harnesses and other drivetrain components, that have stalled production with respect to our electric transit buses and our battery systems. Moreover, although we continue to expend significant time and resources vetting and managing suppliers and sourcing alternatives, we may experience future interruptions in our supply chain. Failure by our suppliers to provide components for our electric transit buses, battery systems or other products has in the past, and could in the future, severely restrict our ability to manufacture our products and prevent us from fulfilling customer orders in a timely fashion, which could harm our relationships with our customers and result in contract fines, negative publicity, damage to our reputation, and adverse effects on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
We have been and may continue to be impacted by macroeconomic conditions, rising inflation rates, uncertain credit and global financial market, including recent and potential bank failures, supply chain disruption and geopolitical events, such as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
In recent years, the United States and other significant markets have experienced cyclical downturns and worldwide economic conditions remain uncertain, including downturns of economic displacement related to COVID-19 or other similar pandemics and the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Economic uncertainty and associated macroeconomic conditions, including high volatility and uncertainty in the capital markets including as a result of inflation and interest rate spikes and recent and potential disruptions in access to bank deposits or lending commitments due to bank failures, make it difficult for our customers and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and could cause our customers to slow spending on our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies, which could delay and lengthen sales cycles. Furthermore, during uncertain economic times our customers may face issues gaining timely access to sufficient funding, which could result in an impairment of their ability to make timely payments to us. If that were to occur, we may be required to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts and our results could be negatively impacted. A weak or declining economy could also strain our suppliers, possibly resulting in supply disruption. In addition, there is a risk that our current or future suppliers, service providers, manufacturers or other partners may not survive such difficult economic times, which would directly affect our ability to attain our operating goals on schedule and on budget.
A significant downturn in economic activity, or general spending on transit or commercial vehicle electrification technologies, may cause our current or potential customers to react by reducing their capital and operating
expenditures in general or by specifically reducing their spending on electric commercial vehicles and related technologies. In addition, our customers may delay or cancel projects to upgrade or replace existing vehicles in their fleets, or other projects to electrify commercial vehicle fleets, with our products or seek to lower their costs by renegotiating contracts. Moreover, competitors may respond to challenging market conditions by lowering prices and attempting to lure away our customers.
Given the global nature of our supply chain and customer base, global political, economic, and other conditions, including geopolitical risks such as the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine and related sanctions, may adversely affect our business and results of operations in ways we cannot foresee at the outset. War and economic dislocations may spur recessions, economic downturns, slowing economic growth and social and political instability; commodity shortages, supply chain risks and price increases; instability in U.S. and global capital and credit markets which could impact us, our suppliers and customers; and currency exchange rate fluctuations among other impacts that adversely affect our business or results of operations.
We cannot predict the timing, strength, or duration of any economic slowdown or any subsequent recovery generally, or in any industry. If the conditions in the general economy and the markets in which we operate worsen from present levels, our business, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
Our transit business is significantly dependent on government funding for public transit, and the unavailability, reduction, or elimination of government economic incentives would have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our principal transit customers are transit authorities that depend on government funding and programs authorized for public transportation under Title 49, Chapter 53 of the U.S. Code, and administered by the FTA, including Urbanized Area Formula Grants, Formula Grants for Rural Areas, the Capital Investment Program, and the Bus and Bus Facilities Program. The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, or FAST Act, enacted in December 2015, allocated over $305 billion for highway, transit, and vehicle safety programs for the five-year period that ended on December 31, 2020. Among other programs, the FAST Act reinstated a competitive Bus and Bus Facilities Infrastructure Investment Program, which grew from $268 million in 2016 to $344 million in 2020, resulting in an 89% increase over the 2015 funding levels for buses and bus facilities. To date, a substantial majority of our customers have received funding through these FAST Act programs in order to purchase new electric transit buses. For example, in 2018, nearly 70% of transit agencies that ordered buses from us were recipients of grants through the Low or No Emission Vehicle Program. The Low or No Emission Vehicle Program has enabled public transit agencies to purchase electric transit buses when the upfront cost of the electric bus was significantly higher than legacy diesel buses and the technology was new to customers. On November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA), also referred to as the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law”, into law, reauthorizing surface transportation programs through the federal government’s fiscal year in 2026, increasing funding for transit focused programs and establishing additional funding opportunities for no and low emission vehicles at unprecedented levels of funding. In August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, further expanding incentives for commercial zero emission vehicles including clean vehicle tax credits.
In addition to funding and incentives under the FAST Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act, certain states and cities offer vouchers for the purchase of electric buses, such as California’s Hybrid & Zero Emission Truck & Voucher Incentive Project, and the New York Truck Voucher Incentive Program. These vouchers provide point-of-sale discounts to vehicle purchasers. Additionally, there are other state programs that help fund electric bus purchases, including California’s Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, which has been allocated a portion of California’s Cap-and-Trade funds annually. The California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS, also enables transit agencies using electricity as a source of fuel to opt into the LCFS program and earn credits that can be monetized. While the value of these credits fluctuates, the credits may help to offset up to half of the fuel costs for our transit customers.
There can be no assurance that these programs will be reauthorized following expiration of their current terms, that other government funding programs will continue to be available at the current levels or at all in the future, or that new government funding programs will be adopted, including with respect to products and services that are currently or will in the future be offered by Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy. Uncertainty or delay in extending, renewing, or adopting these incentives beyond their current or future expiration dates could negatively
impact our business because sales cycles for public and other transit customers are long and customers may be unwilling to adopt electric technology if supportive funding is not assured. For example, transit authorities have reduced order sizes in the past because of a decrease in available funding.
Available government funding and economic incentives are subject to change for a variety of reasons that are beyond our control, including budget and the policy initiatives and priorities of current and future administrations at the federal and state level. In addition, future government shutdowns may impact the availability and administration of government funding, which could adversely impact future bus orders and result in payment delays for existing orders. For example, we experienced payment delays from customers during the U.S. federal government shutdown in January 2019 related to the FTA’s inability to administer grant funding during the shutdown. If government support for adoption of electric vehicles and clean energy initiatives wanes, as it did during the Trump Administration, this could adversely affect the growth of the North American public transit electric bus market and the commercial electric vehicle market generally, and could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our future growth prospects depend upon the interest of commercial vehicle manufacturers in adopting our products and services that are designed to facilitate the electrification of commercial vehicles.
Our growth is highly dependent upon the adoption of our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software and electric transit buses by commercial vehicle manufacturers and OEMs, and their willingness to partner with us on the design, development, testing, manufacturing, distribution, deployment, promotion, sale, and support of our products. The market for commercial electric vehicles and electrification technologies is relatively new, rapidly evolving, and characterized by rapidly changing technologies, price competition, additional competitors, evolving government regulation and industry standards, frequent new product and vehicle announcements, and changing demands and behaviors of customers and potential partners. For example, in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act passed in the United States, adding unprecedented funding opportunities and tax credits for passenger car and commercial vehicle electrification, could make the United States an attractive market for vehicle electrification and increase competition as more industry players enter our core market. As a result, we spend resources educating our potential customers and partners on the benefits of adopting electric vehicle technology and engaging in lobbying efforts to promote clean energy initiatives that benefit our business activities.
Other factors that may influence the adoption of our commercial vehicle electrification technologies by manufacturers and OEMs include:
•perceptions about commercial electric vehicle performance, total cost of ownership, design, quality, cost and reliability that may be attributed to the use of advanced technology (in particular with respect to lithium-ion battery packs), especially if adverse events or accidents occur that are linked to the quality or safety of commercial electric vehicles;
•the amount and availability of federal, state, or other government funding and, in particular, the availability of economic incentives promoting fuel efficiency and alternate forms of energy, such as the Low or No Emission Vehicle Program, the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program and the tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act;
•the range over which commercial electric vehicles may be driven on a single battery charge and the time it takes to recharge the batteries of these vehicles;
•the cost and feasibility of installing new charging infrastructure;
•concerns about electric grid capacity and reliability, the cost of electricity, and reliance of utilities on fossil fuels for electricity generation, which could derail our past and present efforts to promote commercial electric vehicles as a practical substitution for vehicles that require fossil fuels;
•the availability of alternative fuel vehicles, including diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas vehicles, and battery electric fuel cell vehicles;
•improvements in the fuel economy of the internal combustion engine;
•perceptions about the impact of electric vehicles on the environment and the health and welfare of communities;
•perceptions about the use of electric batteries, sourcing of battery components, recyclability, and safe disposal of batteries;
•the availability of service for commercial electric vehicles;
•the environmental consciousness of corporations and public agencies;
•volatility in the cost of diesel fuel and oil;
•government regulations;
•social and political support for clean energy initiatives and commercial electric vehicles;
•perceptions about and the actual cost of alternative fuel vehicles; and
•macroeconomic factors.
Moreover, the willingness of commercial vehicle manufacturers and OEMs to embrace our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software, and related technologies depends, in part, on the real or perceived reliability of these products and services, and their ability to provide complete electrification solutions to potential customers. Any lapse in quality, reliability or performance of any of these products or services could harm the perception of our other products and negatively impact the adoption of our products or services.
Any of the factors described above may cause current or potential customers not to purchase or adopt our products or services. If the market for commercial electric vehicles does not develop as we expect or develops more slowly than we expect, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
The growth of our transit business is dependent upon the willingness of corporate and other public transportation providers to adopt and fund the purchase of electric vehicles for mass transit.
The growth of our transit business is highly dependent upon the adoption of electric transit buses for mass transit by corporate and public transportation providers. The market for electric transit buses is relatively new, rapidly evolving, and characterized by rapidly changing technologies, price competition, additional competitors, evolving government regulation and industry standards, frequent new vehicle announcements, and changing demands and behaviors of riders. As a result, we spend resources educating our potential customers on the benefits of adopting electric vehicle technology and engaging in lobbying efforts to promote clean energy initiatives.
The same factors described above that may influence the adoption of our commercial vehicle electrification technologies by manufacturers and OEMs, also may influence the adoption of electric transit buses by corporate and public transportation providers. Moreover, the willingness of corporate and public transportation providers to embrace electric transit buses depends, in part, on the willingness of users of public transportation to continue to use buses instead of alternative modes of transportation, including private car, rail, and ridesharing services including Uber, Lyft, and electric bikes and scooter services, on-demand shuttles and, in the future, autonomous vehicles. Bus ridership has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and has been declining in large transportation markets, which may lead to fewer investments in electric transit buses in the long term.
Any of these factors may cause current or potential corporate and other public transit customers not to purchase our electric transit buses or use our services. If the market for electric vehicles for mass transit does not
develop as we expect or develops more slowly than we expect, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
If we fail to make the right investment decisions in our technologies and services, we may be at a competitive disadvantage.
Electrification of commercial vehicles is a relatively new field. We have invested significant resources into our technologies, including our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies. For example, we invested in a single-blade overhead charging system that we have deployed and must continue to support for transit customers, even though the industry has moved to other solutions such as overhead pantograph or plug-in charging which also have required, and may continue to require, new investments on our part. In the third quarter of 2022, we made a strategic equity investment in a privately held entity that we expect to manufacture LFP cells domestically for us in the future. However, there is no guarantee that this company will succeed in making cells to our specifications, that we will develop product using these cells, or that we will be successful introducing a product with these cells into the market. If we select and invest in technology or technology standards that are not widely adopted or invest in technologies that are not widely adopted by large customers who influence the industry in the future, we may not recover our investments in these technologies and may be at a competitive disadvantage, and our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
We have a long sales, production, and technology development cycle for new public transit customers, which may create fluctuations in whether and when revenue is recognized, may result in unfavorably priced contracts and may have an adverse effect on our business.
The vast majority of our current and historical sales are to transit agencies that do not procure electric transit buses every year. The complexity, expense, and nature of government procurement processes result in a lengthy customer acquisition and sales process. It can take us years to attract, obtain an award from, contract with, and recognize revenue from the sale of a vehicle to a new customer, if we are successful at all. We have in the past entered contracts with customers based on certain assumptions regarding the cost of production, but the buses were produced years after the award was made when costs were much higher and it was unprofitable to fulfil the order. In 2022, we negotiated with several customers to make adjustments in pricing to acknowledge inflation but were not always successful. With long contract cycles we may continue to face this risk in the future even with contract terms that allow for inflation adjustments.
Before awarding an order for electric transit buses, transit agencies generally conduct a comprehensive and competitive proposal process based on a variety of criteria, including technical requirements, reliability, reputation, and price. Even if we are awarded an order, the actual realization and timing of revenue is subject to various contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, including the customer’s interpretation of technical or performance requirements for acceptance, timing and conditions of customer acceptance, and the customer’s reduction, modification, or termination of an order. A customer is not obligated to purchase the electric transit buses and may cancel or modify an award prior to entering into a contract with us. We have in the past, and may in the future, experience customer cancellations or modifications of awards. Customers have in the past , and customers may in the future cancel or modify an award for a variety of reasons, including as a result of improvements in our technology or the technology of our competitors between the dates of award and signed contract, or as the result of a successful bid protest.
Our sales and production cycle for a transit customer can be a long and time-consuming process. The initial sales process from first engagement to award typically ranges from 6 to 18 months. The award of a proposal is typically followed by a pre-production process where the design and specifications of the customized buses are mutually agreed and we negotiate a final contract and purchase order with our customer. Procurement of parts and production typically follow this final agreement between us and the customer. Once a bus is fully manufactured, the customer typically performs a final inspection and determines whether to accept delivery of the bus, at which time we recognize revenue on the sale. In other cases, revenue is recognized upon acceptance by the customer, typically by signing an acceptance document, which can cause delay in revenue recognition. The length of time between a customer award and vehicle acceptance typically varies between 12 and 24 months, depending on product availability, production capacity, and the pre-delivery and post-delivery inspection process by the customer which has in the past resulted in additional changes to the transit bus after manufacturing
completion, re-works, further product validation and acceptance periods, and additional costs to us that we may not be able to recover. Consequently, we have in the past, and we may continue to invest significant resources and incur substantial expenses before a customer accepts a bus order and these expenses may not be recovered at all if a customer does not accept the completed bus, the bus requires costly modifications, or we extend additional warranties. For instance, we create a bill of materials and obtain the appropriate parts for each customized bus for a customer, which can result in excessive inventory risk if a customer changes or cancels the order. In addition, we may devote significant management effort to develop potential relationships that do not result in bus orders, acceptance of the bus as delivered, and the corresponding recognition of revenue, and the diversion of that effort may prevent us from pursuing other opportunities. As a result, our long sales and development cycle may subject us to significant risks that could have an adverse effect our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
If we are unable to attract new customers and expand sales to existing customers, our revenue growth could be slower than we expect and our business would be adversely affected.
Our ability to achieve significant future revenue will depend in large part upon our ability both to attract new customers and to expand our sales to existing customers, including sales of Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy products and services to current and future customers, including Proterra Transit customers. If we fail to attract new customers or fail to maintain and expand our customer relationships, our business would be adversely affected. For example, if our existing transit customers do not expand their orders, our revenue may grow more slowly than expected, may not grow at all, or may decline. Additionally, we have a small direct sales force for each part of our business. We plan to continue expanding our sales efforts, but we cannot be assured that our efforts will result in sales to new customers, or increased sales to existing customers, with respect to our Proterra Powered, Proterra Transit or Proterra Energy offerings. Further, given the small size of our sales team, losing a member of our team may adversely affect our sales efforts with existing or potential new customers. If our efforts to expand sales to our existing customers are not successful, our existing customers do not continue to purchase additional products and services, or we are unable to attract new customers, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results would be adversely affected.
We could incur material losses and costs from product warranty claims, recalls, or remediation of electric transit buses for real or perceived deficiencies or from customer satisfaction campaigns.
We provide warranties on our Proterra Transit, Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy hardware products and process warranty claims in the ordinary course of our business. Warranty estimates are inherently uncertain and changes to our historical or projected experience, especially with respect to new battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems or other vehicle technologies, may cause material changes to our warranty reserves in the future. If our warranty reserves are inadequate to cover future warranty claims on our products, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected. In addition, we may also choose to upgrade parts or systems across an entire vehicle fleet or electric drivetrain product line for our own service or customer satisfaction needs, which may result in unforeseen costs.
We provide a limited warranty to customers on battery systems, electric transit buses and charging systems. The limited warranty ranges from one to twelve years depending on the components. Specifically, under the fleet defect provisions included in some transit bus purchase contracts, we are required to establish proactive programs to prevent the re-occurrence of defects in electric transit buses delivered under the contract if the same defect occurs in more than a specified percentage of the fleet within the base warranty period following delivery of the electric transit bus. We calculate an estimate of these costs into each of our contracts based on our historical experience and technical expectations. Warranty reserves include management’s best estimate of the projected costs to repair or to replace items under warranty. These estimates are based on actual claims incurred to date and an estimate of the nature, frequency, and costs of future claims.
Because of the short operating history of our current product line, we have had limited data upon which to base our warranty expense estimates. Also, although we may offer customers lengthy warranties, our ability to recover warranty claims from underlying suppliers may be limited to a shorter period by contract. We are currently aware of warranty claims on certain transit bus structures and components which may result in material warranty costs. For example, we have received warranty claims related to cracked wheel wells and rear door framing in our buses and failures with third-party charging systems installed by us that did not meet customer specifications.
We are potentially subject to recalls of our products to cure real or perceived manufacturing defects or if we fail to comply with applicable U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS. We have filed voluntary recalls with the United States National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. We are potentially subject to recalls made by the suppliers of components or parts that we purchase and incorporate into our electric transit buses. In October 2018, for example, we initiated a recall on certain of our electric transit buses because of a defect in a brake caliper after an equipment recall by our axle supplier, even though none of our customers had experienced a problem with the part. We may also need to bring battery systems back to our facilities for warranty work and deploy staff to assist customers with battery system issues, and we may need to transport buses back to one of our facilities or retrofit transit buses in the field to address a warranty claim, a recall campaign, or to otherwise satisfy customer concerns, which may require significant staff to be deployed to customer locations.
Even if a defect or perceived defect is not subject to a warranty claim or a current recall process, we may still incur costs of a customer satisfaction campaign when we choose to upgrade our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies without cost to the customer. For example, we are currently aware that the amount of weight on the front axle of certain of our buses in operation may exceed the manufacturer’s gross axle weight rating. To address this issue with our customers, in 2019 we launched a customer satisfaction campaign to upgrade our electric transit buses’ front axle, which will result in increased labor and parts costs, for which we have accrued a reserve. We are also aware of cracks in the gel coat finish on some of our composite bus bodies which has required and is expected to require customer service support at our cost.
A product warranty claim, product recall, or product remediation, as a result of real or perceived defects, caused by systems or components engineered or manufactured by us or our suppliers, could involve significant expense and could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results. In addition, adverse publicity or industry rumors and speculation that may result from a customer or customers taking our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies out of service pending a repair or remedy, product warranty claims, or product recalls, could slow market acceptance of our products and have an adverse effect on our reputation, brand image, and our ability to successfully market and sell our products.
If we are unable to scale production and deliver battery systems and buses on time, our business could be adversely affected.
Our business plan calls for significant increases in both vehicle and battery system production in a short amount of time to meet expected delivery dates to customers. Our ability to achieve our production plans will depend upon many factors, including adding additional battery lines, auxiliary vehicle production lines and production shifts, recruiting and training new staff while maintaining our desired quality levels, and improving our vehicle configuration process, supply chain management, and our suppliers’ ability to support our needs. Moreover, because many of our orders are with respect to products that will be delivered more than a year after the order placed, whether we are the battery system supplier or, in the case of electric transit buses, the vehicle OEM, there can be no assurance that we will be able to accurately forecast our supply chain demands or scale our manufacturing accordingly to meet the delivery deadlines for these orders. In addition, we have adopted, and may adopt in the future, new factory and supply chain management technologies and manufacturing and quality control processes, which we must successfully introduce and scale for production across our factories. We have introduced new battery system configurations for our customers and we are new to modifying our production processes to complete different configurations. Moreover, our electric transit buses are customized for our customers and certain battery systems require custom integration with our customer electric transit buses, which means that each new electric transit bus order brings its own set of challenges to vehicle configuration and supply chain. For example, each new electric transit bus configuration may introduce a multitude of parts that we have not used in previous electric transit bus builds, which in turn requires obtaining parts from new suppliers that engineering must validate and incorporate into our vehicle configuration. In the past, we have experienced changes in work instructions for electric transit buses that have not been timely communicated between factories, resulting in recalls of delivered product. We have limited experience developing, manufacturing, selling, servicing, and allocating our available resources among multiple products and multiple factories simultaneously. If we fail to effectively manage the complexity of our production process, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
Our inability to deliver electric transit buses that meet customer specifications in a timely manner could significantly delay recognition of revenue and receipt of payment, because we do not recognize revenue and are not paid for electric transit buses until they are delivered to the customer. Moreover, some of our contracts with transit agencies include liquidated damages clauses that apply monetary penalties on a per vehicle per day basis if electric transit buses are not delivered to the customer by the date specified in the contract. Per day penalties can be significant depending on the contract. We have delivered battery systems, charging systems and electric transit buses late in the past, and have incurred substantial penalties with respect to certain of these late deliveries, which have reduced our revenue and margin. Although we actively manage our production schedule and our customers’ expectations, we may still fail to meet delivery deadlines and may incur penalties as a result. If we are unable to realize our production plans and deliver our battery systems and buses on time, our reputation, business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
Our business could be adversely affected if utilities and state utility commissions do not, or are slow to, support transportation electrification efforts.
Fleet-wide adoption of electric vehicles will benefit from favorable electricity rate structures for transit authorities and other large fleet operators and investment in make-ready infrastructure for electric vehicle charging at scale by utilities. For example, pursuant to California Senate Bill 350: Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act, the California investor-owned utilities have submitted Integrated Resource Plans that detailed how each utility will meet its customers’ resource needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including support for transportation electrification. The California Public Utilities Commission approved the plans in May 2018, including Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s proposed investment in infrastructure and rebates and Southern California Edison Corporation’s proposed time-of-use rates for charging electric transit buses. In September 2018, the Public Service Enterprise Group in New Jersey outlined a number of initiatives, including providing funding for charging system installations, deploying make-ready electric infrastructure and making grants for electric school buses. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities will now evaluate the filing. In addition, utility commissions in several states are also evaluating the needs and benefits of transportation electrification, including the transit bus sector.
Our customers expect to pay lower electricity costs and generally look to the utilities to invest in infrastructure upgrades that will support commercial vehicle electrification plans. Therefore, efforts on the part of utility companies and state utility commissions to develop an appropriate rate designed to ensure that electricity as a fuel is competitive with fossil fuels will improve the total cost of ownership benefits for our transit customers and vehicle fleet owners, and enhance the attractiveness of our other products and offerings. Similarly, investments that utilities make to upgrade the infrastructure necessary to support additional load on the electrical grid will save our customers from potentially having to make their own investments. However, if utilities and utility commissions do not make the necessary investments to support commercial vehicle electrification and develop the appropriate, cost-competitive electricity rates, or delay such efforts, the market for battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software and electric transit buses, and related technologies may not develop as we expect or may develop more slowly than we expect, and our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
Our revenue has in the past depended, and will likely continue to depend, on a small number of customers that fluctuate from year to year, and failure to add new customers or expand sales to our existing customers could have an adverse effect on our operating results for a particular period.
Because the majority of our historical and current customers are public transit authorities that do not procure new vehicle fleets every year, the composition of customers that account for a significant portion of our revenue is likely to vary from year to year based on which customers have accepted delivery of large fleet orders with us during the applicable period. For example, two customers accounted for approximately 33% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2022. Moreover, because public transit authorities tend to procure new vehicles in large batch orders, our revenue in any given quarter may be highly dependent on a single customer. For example, in the third and fourth quarter of 2022, approximately 45% and 67%, respectively, of electric transit buses were delivered to a single customer, Miami-Dade County. In the second quarter of 2020, approximately 50% of the electric transit buses we delivered were delivered to a single customer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and in the fourth quarter of 2020, approximately 40% of the buses we delivered were delivered to a single customer, the City of Edmonton. We believe that we will continue to depend upon a relatively small
number of customers for a significant portion of our revenue in any given period for the foreseeable future because we have only recently begun to deliver our buses and other products at a larger scale and we have a lengthy sales cycle and on-ramp for new customers. Our failure to diversify our customer base by adding new customers or expanding sales to our existing Proterra Transit customers and our failure to add new customers and expand sales to existing customers in our Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy businesses outside of the transit industry could therefore have an adverse effect on our operating results for a particular period.
Our industry and its technology are rapidly evolving and may be subject to unforeseen changes. Developments in alternative technologies and powertrains or improvements in the internal combustion engine may adversely affect the demand for our electric transit buses and our electric battery solutions for commercial vehicles.
The electric vehicle industry, and the electric commercial vehicle industry in particular, is relatively new and has experienced substantial change in the last several years. As more companies invest in electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle technology and alternative modes of transportation, we may be unable to keep up with technology advancements and, as a result, our competitiveness may suffer. As technologies change, we plan to spend significant resources in ongoing research and development, and to upgrade or adapt our products and services, and introduce new products and services in order to continue to provide battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software for electric transit buses, and related technologies with the latest technology, in particular battery technology. Our research and development efforts may not be sufficient or could involve substantial costs and delays and lower our return on investment for our technologies. For example, we invested substantial resources into developing a charging system solution in 2018 and then replaced that solution by entering into a new contract for supply of charging systems a few years later. Delays or missed opportunities to adopt new technologies could adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
In addition, we may not be able to compete effectively with other alternative fuel vehicles and integrate the latest technology, which may include autonomous vehicle technology, into our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, and related technologies. Even if we are able to keep pace with changes in technology and develop new products and services, we are subject to the risk that our prior models, products, services and designs will become obsolete more quickly than expected, resulting in unused inventory and potentially reducing our return on investment, or become increasingly difficult to service or provide replacement parts at competitive prices. For example, we incurred $0.8 million, $1.9 million and $3.0 million in inventory write-offs in 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively, as the result of unused raw materials or adopting new technologies. Additionally, given the long sales cycle of each of our products and services, customers may delay purchases and modify or cancel existing orders in anticipation of the release of new models and technology. Moreover, developments in alternative technologies, such as advanced diesel, ethanol, fuel cells, or compressed natural gas, or improvements in the fuel economy of the internal combustion engine, may adversely affect our business and prospects in ways we do not currently anticipate. Any developments with respect to these technologies, in particular fuel cell technologies and related chemical research, or the perception that they may occur, may prompt us to invest heavily in additional research to compete effectively with these advances, which research and development may not be effective. Any failure by us to successfully react to changes in existing technologies could adversely affect our competitive position and growth prospects.
If we are unable to successfully manufacture and sell our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software and electric transit buses, and related technologies, our business could be adversely affected.
We have limited experience with manufacturing and selling battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management software and electric transit buses, and related technologies to global commercial vehicle manufacturers and other types of manufacturers. As we develop partnerships with global commercial vehicle manufacturers to provide these products and other component parts to these partners and customers, we must introduce and implement manufacturing and quality control processes across our factories that are comparable to those of other Tier 1 suppliers in the automotive industry. We have identified areas for improvement as we scale and mature, such as ISO certification for our operations, that would allow us to meet quality standards required by companies such as Daimler and its subsidiaries. Furthermore, we must compete against more established battery designers, drivetrain designers, vehicle manufacturers, charging solution
designers and component suppliers with greater resources and more experience in large scale manufacturing and deployment than we have. To compete effectively against these incumbent manufacturers and suppliers, we will have to devote substantial resources and effort to efficiently and effectively scale our manufacturing capabilities, implement new manufacturing and quality control processes, and enhance our existing processes. The implementation of a Tier 1 automotive supplier manufacturing operations inherently involves risks related to infrastructure and process development, quality control, and customer acceptance. If we fail to mature our manufacturing operations to the satisfaction of our customers, then our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
If we are unable to design, develop, market, and sell new products and services that address adjacent market opportunities, our business, prospects, and operating results may be adversely impacted.
We may not be able to successfully develop new products and services or develop a significantly broader customer base. For the past several years, we have focused our business on the development and sale of electric transit buses for the mass transit market. Our product line in the transit market is currently limited to the 40-foot and 35-foot ZX5 transit buses, and spare parts. We have recently expanded our offerings to include battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, and fleet and energy management software, and related technologies that are designed for broader application to other commercial vehicles.
In this regard, we have entered into development and supply agreements to develop and sell our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions and fleet and energy management software to other medium-duty and heavy-duty commercial vehicle manufacturers. Our business model offers end-to-end powertrain systems, energy system integrations when electric drivetrains are supplied by a third party, and battery system supply when integration and electric drivetrains are supplied by third parties to the end customer. Achieving success in these relatively new markets will require us to, among other things:
•enter into strategic agreements with leading manufacturers in these markets and maintain and grow these relationships;
•adapt our electric powertrain technology to meet the specifications of additional commercial vehicle categories;
•successfully compete with other manufacturers in the new markets;
•effectively and efficiently scale our manufacturing capabilities;
•effectively and efficiently grow and manage our supply chain;
•expand our sales and marketing capabilities;
•enter into service partnerships or expand our internal service and parts capabilities;
•expand our integration and engineering services to compete with other integrators and suppliers of high voltage systems, controls and drivetrains;
•expand our software and telematics platform to offer competitive solutions;
•develop technology solutions that are compatible with offerings of third-party providers;
•develop charging solutions, including software and telematics that are compatible with electric vehicle technology independent of manufacturer or supplier; and
•comply with changing regulations applicable to our products and services.
If we fail to adequately improve our products and services to compete effectively against our competitors, we may not be successful in expanding our customer base in the electric commercial vehicle market.
In addition, our failure to address additional market opportunities could harm our business, financial condition, operating results, and prospects. We may not be able to successfully design, develop, or test new products and services in order to effectively compete with our competitors in these new markets. Furthermore, there may be no demand by customers to purchase newly developed or improved products and services, there may be risks and unbudgeted costs associated with launching new products and services, and we may not be able to recoup our research and development costs, all of which could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
We may not be able to develop, maintain and grow strategic relationships in the Proterra Powered or Proterra Energy business, identify new strategic relationship opportunities, or form strategic relationships, in the future.
We expect that our ability to establish, maintain, and manage strategic relationships, such as development and supply agreements with customers that could have a significant impact on the success of our business. While we expect to increase the amount of revenue associated with Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy, there can be no assurance that we will be able to identify or secure suitable and scalable business relationship opportunities in the future or that our competitors will not capitalize on such opportunities before we do. Moreover, identifying such opportunities could demand substantial management time and resources, and may involve significant costs and uncertainties.
Additionally, we cannot guarantee that the companies with which we have developed or will develop strategic relationships will continue to devote the resources necessary to promote mutually beneficial business relationships and grow our business. Our current arrangements are not exclusive, and some of our strategic partners offer competing products. As a result of these factors, many of the companies with which we have development and supply agreements may choose to develop alternative products in addition to or in lieu of our solutions, either on their own or in collaboration with others, including our competitors. If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining our relationships with key strategic partners, our overall growth could be impaired, and our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
Lack of long-term customer contracts, uncertainty regarding customer option exercises, and customer suspension or termination of contracts may have adverse effects on our business.
Proterra Transit relies heavily on sales to public and other transit authorities, which, consistent with general industry practice, do not make long-term purchase commitments with transit vendors. Most transit authorities usually undertake significant procurement of new transit buses once every few years and typically acquire a relatively small percentage of their fleet each time. Often, the terms of our procurements allow customers, without notice or penalty, to suspend or terminate their relationship with us at any time and for any reason. For example, one of our customers previously made an award to us for buses in 2017, but due in part to improvements in electric vehicle technology and the release of new bus models, withdrew the award in 2018 in favor of considering a new request for proposal process. Some customers have also elected to purchase fuel cell vehicles for their transit fleet. Even if customers continue their relationship with us, they may not purchase the same volume of products as in the past or they may not pay the same price for those products. This may also be true with respect to Proterra Powered, where customers may have long-term contracts, but are not subject to fixed quantity order requirements such that final orders may be below our revenue expectations or estimates.
Further, many transit authority contracts include options to purchase additional electric transit buses in the future, and while a portion of future orders may be represented by options, customers may not end up exercising these options. Although options represent a significant source of potential orders for us, we do not have an extensive history of fulfilling orders based on our customer option agreements. Even if we had a history of significant option exercises by customers, customers may not continue to exercise such options at the same rate or at all in the future. Any loss of customers or decrease in the number of electric transit buses or battery systems purchased under a contract could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
We are competing for the business of both small and large transit agencies, which place different demands on our business, and if we do not build an organization that can serve both types of transit
customers, by scaling our internal resources to meet varying customer needs, our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results may be harmed.
Proterra Transit has competed for, and may in the future compete for, the business of larger transit agencies that maintain fleets of several hundred to thousands of vehicles, including Los Angeles, Miami Dade County and Chicago. This size of customer places significant demands on our business because they have large, specialized groups of professionals focused on different requirements or systems related to transit bus procurement and rigorous inspections with multiple levels of review to assure each bus meets their specifications, which may be driven by conformity with other vehicles in the fleet, large long-term supply contracts, such as for tires and other wear items, and operating contracts with maintenance and operations teams. Serving these customers requires significant investment in customer relationship managers and service professionals to support the levels of design, review, change orders, inspection, and commissioning and delivery of the electric transit buses. Similarly, servicing our Proterra Powered customers requires significant investments in customer relationship managers and other professionals as each customer requires different levels of battery integration support and service.
We also compete for the business of smaller transit agencies. Although smaller transit agencies often have less complicated procurement processes than larger transit agencies, serving these smaller agencies requires processing small order sizes while still catering to the specific vehicle configurations for each customer. If we continue to serve both large and small transit agency customers, we will need to effectively and efficiently scale our internal resources to meet varying customer needs. Our failure to do so could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our business is subject to substantial regulations, which are evolving, and unfavorable changes or failure by us to comply with these regulations could have an adverse effect on our business.
The majority of our current transit customers are government entities and we are subject to many local, state, and federal laws that add significant compliance costs to our operations. In addition, local, state, and federal regulations may conflict, making it difficult to build one vehicle that satisfies all requirements in all jurisdictions. Moreover, competitive bidding rules for government contracts add additional layers of complexity and require compliance with federal and state conflict of interest rules and rules governing our choice of suppliers and components.
Our electric transit buses and component products must comply with the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, as amended (“NTMVSA”), and regulations promulgated thereunder, which are administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”). NTMVSA requires vehicle and equipment manufacturers to provide notice of safety defects to NHTSA and initiate a recall process within five days of such a determination by a manufacturer. NHTSA also administers reporting requirements from vehicle manufacturers under the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation Act of 2000 (the “TREAD Act”). We have ongoing reporting requirements under the TREAD Act and in the past have failed to timely report under the TREAD Act. NHTSA may also require a manufacturer to recall and repair vehicles that contain safety defects or that are not compliant with FMVSS or other certification requirements for vehicles. Sales into foreign countries may be subject to similar regulations. We cannot assure you that violations of these laws and regulations will not occur in the future or have not occurred in the past as a result of human error, accidents, equipment failure, manufacturing or design defects, or other causes. It is possible that our reporting for historical periods for which we failed to timely report may reveal instances where we should have taken actions required by law but failed to do so. For example, we became subject to certain early warning reporting obligations under the TREAD Act in 2018. Our ongoing reporting obligations require us to provide certain early warning data to help identify potential safety-related defects, including certain safety data dating back ten years. While we have filed reports for current periods, we are currently not in full compliance with these early warning reporting requirements for prior periods. As we work to remediate our non-compliance, we may be subject to retrospective safety recall notices on our electric transit buses. Recalls of our electric transit buses or components, whether initiated by us, NHTSA or another authority, or penalties for regulatory compliance failures could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business and operating results and be used by our competitors to our disadvantage.
Furthermore, if we choose to expand internationally, we would likely face additional international requirements that may not be compatible with regulations that govern our business in the United States. For example, in the United States, we developed our supply chain to ensure that we comply with Buy America regulations, which
govern manufactured products and rolling stock, including transit bus, procurements that are paid for, in part, with funds administered by the FTA. Buy America regulations currently require that 70% of our vehicle components by cost be manufactured in the United States, and the Made in America Office opened under the Biden-Harris administration has proposed rules which may raise this requirement further. Buy America regulations have the effect of rendering the cost of our supply chain more expensive when compared with our competitors. As we began selling buses to airports, we had to modify our operations to comply with the Buy American requirements under the FAA rules, which differ from the Buy America requirements under the FTA rules. In June 2018, we received our first order from a Canadian transit authority, and as a result, we need to comply with Canadian Content requirements, which will require sourcing components from Canadian suppliers or assembly of components in Canada. These regulations may increase the costs of doing business and add operational challenges.
In addition, there is no assurance that the current Buy America, Buy American, or Canadian Content requirements will not change or become stricter or that we will continue to be able to meet those requirements in the future. Our competitors have lobbied extensively to alter Buy America regulations to effectively prohibit our use of cylindrical battery cells produced outside of the United States for which there currently is no source of domestic supply available to us. Lack of domestic supply of cylindrical battery cells may also make our product less competitive and less desirable to customers that demand product that meets the domestic content requirements to achieve tariff-free status under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement which entered into force on July 1, 2020.
Also, our ability to meet domestic content requirements is, in part, dependent on hundreds of suppliers. If any of these suppliers change the source of the components or subcomponents comprising their products, they could potentially prevent us from meeting domestic content requirements and negatively impact our business. Conversely, if domestic content requirements become less stringent in the future, foreign competitors without significant U.S. operations may be able to enter the U.S. market more easily and gain market share. Thus, any change to domestic content regulations could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Delays in FTA mandated Model Bus Testing Program, or failure to successfully complete federally mandated testing, could adversely impact our business.
The FTA mandates that new transit bus models must undergo testing at its testing facility in Altoona, Pennsylvania and meet certain performance standards set by the FTA’s Model Bus Testing Program, known as “Altoona Testing,” in order to be eligible to receive federal funding. There is only one facility approved for testing by the FTA and in the past, we have experienced delays of several months before receiving regulatory approval to test our buses at Altoona, as well as delays in the actual testing at Altoona. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a shut-down of the Altoona facility in 2020 and there can be no assurances that the facility will not be shut down again due to the COVID-19 pandemic or otherwise. We may in the future choose to undergo testing or be required to do so.
When available, Altoona Testing is designed to promote production of better transit vehicles and components and to ensure that transit customers purchase vehicles that can withstand the rigors of transit service. Our 40-foot and 35-foot electric transit buses, including the ZX5 with DuoPower drivetrain, have satisfactorily completed Altoona Testing, but for each material change that we make to our transit bus platform, we must undergo a new round of testing. We have in the past and may in the future experience failures of components of our transit bus during Altoona Testing, which may prolong the test process, and cause us to be required to redesign components on the test bus and restart the testing process. Testing is available to vendors on a first-come, first-served basis. We cannot receive payment from customers relying on federal funds unless the applicable bus platform has satisfactorily completed Altoona Testing, and thus testing delays could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results. We have in the past and may in the future experience delays in Altoona Testing availability, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, other pandemics, or other unforeseen events. In the past, a delay in receiving a required Altoona test report resulted in late delivery of buses to a customer and caused us to incur monetary penalties, delayed acceptance and delayed revenue recognition and customer payments. Moreover, there can be no assurance that the current Altoona Testing requirements will not change or become more onerous or that our future bus models will pass Altoona Testing. For instance, in 2016, the Model Bus Testing Program regulations changed to require a pass/fail test result. If we cannot produce
electric transit buses that pass Altoona Testing, we would not be able to continue to sell buses to customers in the United States that rely on federal funds for their procurements, which would have a material and adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Failure to comply with the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (“DBE”) program requirements or our failure to have our DBE goals approved by the FTA could adversely impact our transit business.
The FTA requires transit vehicle manufacturers that bid on federally-assisted rolling stock procurements to submit annual goals to support qualified DBEs (as defined in the DBE program regulations), and to certify that they have complied with the requirements of the DBE program established by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which aims to increase the participation of DBEs in state and local procurements. Companies are certified as DBE if they are for-profit small businesses majority-owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. The FTA reviews and approves transit vehicle manufacturers’ DBE goals for the upcoming year and maintains a certified list of transit vehicle manufacturers that are eligible to bid on federally funded vehicle procurements based on their goals to contract with DBEs and good faith implementation of those goals. Our failure to comply with the DBE program requirements or a delay in having our DBE goals approved by the FTA could result in our ineligibility to bid on federally funded transit vehicle procurements, which could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our business and prospects depend significantly on our ability to build our brand. We may not succeed in continuing to establish, maintain, and strengthen our brand, and our brand and reputation could be harmed by negative publicity regarding our company or products.
Our business and prospects are heavily dependent on our ability to develop, maintain, and strengthen our brand. Promoting and positioning our brand will depend significantly on our ability to provide high quality battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies, and we have limited experience in these areas, particularly with respect to products and services that are not used in electric transit buses. In addition, we expect that our ability to develop, maintain, and strengthen our brand will also depend heavily on the success of our branding efforts. To promote our brand, we need to incur increased expenses, including product demonstrations and attending trade conferences. Brand promotion activities may not yield increased revenue, and even if they do, the increased revenue may not offset the expenses we incur in building and maintaining our brand and reputation. If we fail to promote and maintain our brand successfully or to maintain loyalty among our customers, or if we incur substantial expenses in an unsuccessful attempt to promote and maintain our brand, we may fail to attract new customers and partners, or retain our existing customers and partners and our business and financial condition may be adversely affected.
Moreover, any negative publicity relating to our employees, current or future partners, original equipment manufacturers deploying our battery or powertrain technology in their electric transit buses, partners or customers who use our high-voltage systems or software and telematics platforms, or others associated with these parties may also tarnish our own reputation simply by association and may reduce the value of our brand. Additionally, if safety or other incidents or product defects occur or are perceived to have occurred, whether or not such incidents or defects are our fault, we could be subject to adverse publicity, which could be particularly harmful to our business given our limited operating history. Given the popularity of social media, any negative publicity about our products or their safety, whether true or not, could quickly proliferate and harm customer and community perceptions and confidence in our brand. For example, in 2021, we were the subject of negative publicity arising out of the appearance of cracks in the composite bus body architecture, potential early retirement of some of our first generation transit buses and negative political commentary. Public transit agencies and OEMs are particularly sensitive to concerns and perceptions of the passenger and community constituencies they serve. If the passengers in our electric transit buses or people in communities where electric transit buses using our technology are deployed form a negative opinion of our electric transit buses or battery systems or charging solutions, our current and potential customers might not choose our products, and strategic partners in other markets may not adopt our battery systems or electric powertrain technology or charging solutions. Other businesses, including our competitors, and organized labor, may also be incentivized to fund negative campaigns against our company to damage our brand and reputation to further their own purposes. Future customers of our products and services may have similar sensitivities and may be subject to similar public opinion and perception risks. Damage to our brand and reputation may result in reduced demand for our products and increased risk of losing market share to our competitors. Any efforts to restore the value of our brand and rebuild our reputation
may be costly and may not be successful, and our inability to develop and maintain a strong brand could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
The use of lithium-ion cells may become disfavored as a result of the availability, or perceived superiority of, other types of batteries or yet undeveloped or unknown technologies.
The battery packs that we currently produce make use of lithium-ion cells, which we believe currently represent the industry standard for battery technology for electric vehicles. It is possible, however, that other types of batteries or yet undeveloped or unknown technologies may become favored in the future, such as lithium iron phosphate (“LFP”) batteries. LFP batteries currently have a wide range of applications, including in electric vehicle applications, and are perceived by many as offering cost-effective performance as compared to lithium-ion cells. The cost-effectiveness of LFPs is due, in part, to substantial investments in this technology development and manufacturing capability in China. While we believe that our products and services based on the lithium-ion cells that we have chosen to offer our customers present advantages with respect to ease of integration with their products and services and underlying performance, it is possible that these customers and partners may deem LFP-based technology, or other technologies, as sufficient or superior for their purposes, and may demand that we shift to LFP-based technology or decide to partner with other service providers who employ such technologies. In addition, it is possible that the performance, safety features or characteristics, reliability or cost-effectiveness of LFP batteries, or another form of battery, could improve in the future such that our current lithium-ion cell based offerings would become, or be perceived as, inferior or obsolete. In addition, it is possible that new forms of batteries or electrification technologies, such as solid state batteries, could emerge as a more cost effective or safer alternative to the batteries we currently offer. In the event that LFP or a new form of battery emerges or is deemed to exhibit better performance, operate at lower cost or exhibit better safety features, we could be compelled to attempt to integrate those new types of batteries into our platform, which may not be possible or feasible at a price that would be attractive to our customers or potential partners. Any developments with respect to LFP or new battery technology, or new electrification technologies that are based on unforeseen developments in fuel cell technology, or the perception that they may occur, may prompt us to invest heavily in additional research to compete effectively with these advances, which research and development may not be effective. Any failure by us to successfully react to changes in existing technologies could adversely affect our competitive position and growth prospects.
Our business could be adversely affected from an accident or safety incident involving our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses or defects in the materials or workmanship of our composite bus bodies or other components.
An accident or safety incident involving one of our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems or electric transit buses could expose us to significant liability and a public perception that our electric transit buses and products are unsafe or unreliable. Our agreements with customers contain broad indemnification provisions, and in the event of a major accident, we could be subject to significant personal injury and property claims that could subject us to substantial liability. While we maintain liability insurance in amounts and of the type generally consistent with industry practice, the amount of such coverage may not be adequate to cover fully all claims, and we may be forced to bear substantial losses from an accident or safety incident. In addition, any accident or safety incident involving one of our buses, even if fully insured, could harm our reputation and result in a loss of future customer demand if it creates a public perception that our electric transit buses are unsafe or unreliable as compared to those offered by other transit bus manufacturers or other means of transportation. While we have not experienced significant accident or safety incidents involving our electric transit buses, we have experienced malfunctions, such as the overhead single blade charger thermal events and a bus fire related to low voltage wiring. Moreover, the public may be more sensitive to incidents involving transit buses and school buses, thereby compounding the effects of such incidents on the public and customer perception of our electric transit buses. As a result, any accident or safety incident involving our buses, or the buses of our competitors could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our work with government customers exposes us to unique risks inherent in government contracting.
We must comply with and are affected by laws and regulations relating to the award, administration, and performance of government contracts. Government contract laws and regulations affect how we do business with
our customers and impose certain risks and costs on our business. A violation of specific laws and regulations by us, our employees, or others working on our behalf could harm our reputation and result in the imposition of fines and penalties, the termination of our contracts, suspension or debarment from bidding on or being awarded contracts, and civil or criminal investigations or proceedings.
Our performance under our contracts with government entities and our compliance with the terms of those contracts and applicable laws and regulations are subject to periodic audit, review, and investigation by various agencies of the government. If such an audit, review, or investigation uncovers a violation of a law or regulation or improper or illegal activities relating to our government contracts, we may be subject to civil or criminal penalties or administrative sanctions, including the termination of contracts, forfeiture of profits, the triggering of price reduction clauses, withholding of payments, suspension of payments, fines, and suspension or debarment from contracting with government agencies. There is inherent uncertainty as to the outcome of any audit, review, or investigation. If we incur a material penalty or administrative sanction or otherwise suffer harm to our reputation, our business, prospects, financial condition, or operating results could be adversely affected.
Further, if a government regulatory authority were to initiate suspension or debarment proceedings against us as a result of a conviction or indictment for illegal activities, we may lose our ability to be awarded contracts in the future or receive renewals of existing contracts for a period of time. We could also suffer harm to our reputation if allegations of impropriety were made against us, which would impair our ability to win awards of contracts in the future or receive renewals of existing contracts. Inability to be awarded contracts in the future or receive renewal of existing contacts could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
A portion of our business is dependent upon U.S. government contracts and grants, which are highly regulated and subject to oversight audits by U.S. government representatives and subject to cancellations. Such audits could result in adverse findings and negatively impact our business.
Our U.S. government business is subject to specific procurement regulations with numerous compliance requirements. These requirements, although customary in government contracting in the United States, increase our performance and compliance costs. These costs may increase in the future, thereby reducing our margins, which could have an adverse effect on our financial condition. Failure to comply with these regulations or other compliance requirements could lead to suspension or debarment from U.S. government contracting or subcontracting for a period. Among the causes for debarment are violations of various laws or policies, including those related to procurement integrity, export control, U.S. government security regulations, employment practices, protection of criminal justice data, protection of the environment, accuracy of records, proper recording of costs, foreign corruption, Trade Agreements Act, Buy America Act, and the False Claims Act.
Generally, in the United States, government contracts and grants are subject to oversight audits by government representatives. For example, in December 2020, the FTA released an audit of our and other manufacturers compliance with Buy America requirements. Such audits could result in adjustments to our contracts. For contracts covered by the Cost Accounting Standards, any costs found to be improperly allocated to a specific contract may not be allowed, and such costs already reimbursed may have to be refunded. Future audits and adjustments, if required, may materially reduce our revenues or profits upon completion and final negotiation of audits. Negative audit findings could also result in investigations, termination of a contract or grant, forfeiture of profits or reimbursements, suspension of payments, fines and suspension or prohibition from doing business with the U.S. government. All contracts with the U.S. government can be terminated for convenience by the government at any time.
In addition, contacts with government officials and participation in political activities are areas that are tightly controlled by federal, state, local and international laws. Failure to comply with these laws could cost us opportunities to seek certain government sales opportunities or even result in fines, prosecution, or debarment.
We may not be able to obtain, or comply with terms and conditions for, government grants, loans, and other incentives for which we have applied and may apply for in the future, which may limit our opportunities to expand our business.
We have in the past applied for and received state grants and tax incentives designed to promote the manufacturing of electric vehicles and related technologies, including charging solutions. In April 2015, the California Energy Commission awarded us $3.0 million based on our investment of approximately $8.4 million in our manufacturing facilities in California through December 31, 2018. In April 2017, California’s Office of Business and Economic Development entered into a California Competes Tax Credit Allocation Agreement with us for an award of a California Competes Tax Credit in the amount of $7.5 million if certain conditions in that agreement are met in the prescribed time periods. In April 2019, the California Energy Commission awarded us a $1.8 million grant based on our expected investment of approximately $4.3 million in our manufacturing facility in City of Industry, California.
We anticipate that in the future there will be new opportunities for us to apply for grants, loans, and other federal and state incentives. Our ability to obtain funds or incentives from government sources is subject to the availability of funds under applicable government programs and approval of our applications to participate in such programs. The application process for these funds and other incentives is and will remain highly competitive. We may not be successful in obtaining any of these additional grants, loans, and other incentives. We have in the past failed and may also in the future fail to comply with the conditions of these incentives, which could cause us to lose funding or negotiate with governmental entities to revise such conditions. For example, we received a grant in South Carolina in 2010 that was subject to certain performance criteria, including a condition that we create no fewer than 400 new full- time jobs. We were unable to meet the original deadline but negotiated with the South Carolina Coordinating Council for Economic Development (the “Council”) for an extension on the date of job creation and we have since fulfilled the revised condition to the Council’s satisfaction. Our estimates of job growth under our California Competes Tax Credit have also not come to fruition for certain fiscal years. We may be unable to find alternative sources of funding to meet our planned capital needs, in which case, our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results could be adversely affected.
We may become subject to product liability claims, which could harm our financial condition and liquidity if we are not able to successfully defend or insure against such claims.
We provide indemnification to our customers who may be sued for product liability related to our electric transit buses and electric powertrain solutions, and we may otherwise be subject to product liability claims, including with respect to our charging solutions. The commercial vehicle market experiences significant product liability claims and we face inherent risk of exposure to claims in the event our electric transit buses or components do not perform as expected. Commercial vehicles including public transit buses have been involved and may in the future be involved in crashes resulting in death or personal injury, and in some cases catastrophic crashes resulting in the death and injury to many passengers.
While we carry insurance for product liability, it is possible that our insurance coverage may not cover the full exposure on a product liability claim of significant magnitude. A successful product liability claim against us could require us to pay a substantial monetary award. A product liability claim could also generate substantial negative publicity about our products and business and could have an adverse effect on our brand, business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Changes to U.S. trade policies, including new tariffs or the renegotiation or termination of existing trade agreements or treaties, may adversely affect our financial performance.
We currently manufacture our products in the United States, but may consider other international locations, including locations in Canada. Although many of our suppliers are in the United States, we rely on a number of suppliers in other countries for key components. We are subject to risks and uncertainties associated with changing economic, political, and other conditions in foreign countries where our vendors are located, such as increased import duties, tariffs, trade restrictions, and quotas or other government regulations, work stoppages, fluctuations of foreign currencies, natural disasters, political unrest, and customs delays. Unavailability or delay of imports from our foreign vendors would likely cause interruptions in our supply chain and could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Moreover, the U.S. federal government may alter U.S. international trade policy and to renegotiate or terminate certain existing trade agreements and treaties with foreign governments. The U.S. federal government renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, renamed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was signed on November 30, 2018. The U.S. federal government’s potential decision to re-enter, withdraw or modify other existing trade agreements or treaties could adversely impact our business, customers, and suppliers by disrupting trade and commercial transactions and adversely affecting the U.S. economy.
In addition, the U.S. federal government has imposed, tariffs on certain foreign goods. For example, in 2018, the U.S. federal government imposed additional tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended, on many products including certain aluminum products imported into the United States, which may impact the commercial vehicle market and our supply chain. Moreover, these tariffs, as well as country-specific or product-specific exemptions, may also lead to retaliatory actions from foreign governments that could adversely affect our business. Certain foreign governments, including China and the European Union, have instituted or may consider imposing additional tariffs on certain U.S. goods. Restrictions on trade with foreign countries, imposition of customs duties, or further modifications to U.S. international trade policy have the potential to disrupt our supply chain or the supply chains of our suppliers and to adversely impact our costs, customers, suppliers, and the economy, which could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
We are subject to various environmental and safety laws and regulations that could impose substantial costs upon us and negatively impact our ability to operate our manufacturing facilities if we fail in our efforts to abide by these laws and regulations.
As a manufacturer, producer and seller of battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies, we are subject to numerous environmental, health, and safety laws and regulations in the United States, including laws relating to exposure to, use, handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials, and the building, testing and use of batteries and high-voltage systems, and other components, such as HVAC systems. Moreover, we may be subject to additional regulations as we expand our operations internationally. The costs of compliance, including assessing changes to our operations and notices required in our facilities and on our electric transit buses regarding potential hazards could be substantial. In addition, we may be required to manufacture product with alternative technologies and materials that require changes to our engineering, supply and product development programs that could result in significant cost and delays in product introduction. We also may not be successful in complying with such laws and regulations which could impact our ability to sell our products in certain locations, or result in substantial fines and penalties if our products in service are found to be non-compliant with certain laws and regulations. We also expect regulation of electric powertrains will increase over time, and result in increased compliance costs. For example, beginning in 2023, we will need to receive a zero emission powertrain certification in California. In addition, we have indemnified certain of our landlords for any hazardous waste that may be found on or about property that we lease. Furthermore, delays in achieving required certifications may prevent us from selling product in certain markets, and, any violations of applicable environmental and safety laws and regulations may result in substantial fines and penalties, remediation costs, third-party damages, a suspension or cessation of our sales of product or operations, and negative publicity that could harm our business, reputation, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our future success depends on the continuing efforts of our key employees and on our ability to hire, retain, and motivate additional key employees and scale our workforce.
Our future success depends upon the continuing services of our key employees and on our ability to attract and retain members of our management team and other highly skilled employees, including battery and high voltage systems engineers, electric powertrain designers and engineers, vehicle systems and integration engineers, supply chain and quality control employees, sales personnel, service personnel, and software engineers and manufacturing talent. In our key areas of operations, including California, there is increasing competition for individuals with skill sets needed for our business, including specialized knowledge of batteries, electric vehicles, software engineering, and manufacturing engineering and quality control. This competition affects both our ability to retain key employees and hire new ones. Moreover, none of our key employees has an employment agreement for a specific term and any of our employees may terminate his or her employment with us at any time. Our continued success depends upon our continued ability to retain current employees and hire
new employees in a timely manner, especially to support our expansion plans and to continue to ramp up our suite of offerings related to commercial vehicle electrification. For example, we started production at our Powered 1 factory in Greer, South Carolina in January 2023, and have needed and will continue to need to hire many people to achieve maximum production there. We are also adding additional production shifts at existing facilities. If we cannot find sufficiently trained staff in a timely manner, our launch of production at this facility could be delayed and adversely impact our business. Additionally, we compete for talent with both large and established companies that have far greater financial resources than we do and start-ups and emerging companies that may promise more attractive growth opportunities.
Furthermore, the reduction in workforce that we implemented in the first quarter of 2023 may yield unintended consequences and costs, such as the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise, employee attrition beyond our intended reduction in force, a reduction in morale among our remaining employees, greater-than-anticipated costs incurred in connection with implementing the restructuring, and the risk that we may not achieve the benefits from the restructuring to the extent or as quickly as we anticipate, all of which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition. These restructuring initiatives could place substantial demands on our management and employees, which could lead to the diversion of our management’s and employees’ attention from other business priorities. In addition, we may discover that the workforce reduction and other restructuring efforts will make it difficult for us to pursue new opportunities and initiatives and require us to hire qualified replacement personnel, which may require us to incur additional and unanticipated costs and expenses.
In addition, new employees often require significant training and, in many cases, take significant time before they achieve full productivity. As a result, we may incur significant costs to attract and retain new employees, including significant expenditures related to salaries and benefits and compensation expenses related to equity awards, and we may lose new employees to our competitors or other companies before we realize the benefit of our investment in recruiting and training them. Moreover, new employees may not be or become as productive as we expect, as we may face challenges in adequately or appropriately integrating them into our workforce and culture. Difficulties in retaining current employees or recruiting new ones could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our businesses rely heavily on our specialized sales personnel and technical sales support to market and sell our products. If we are unable to effectively hire, train, manage, and retain our sales personnel, our business may be adversely impacted.
The success of our businesses largely depends on our ability to hire, train, and manage our sales personnel who have experience with and connections to the public and other transit agencies and commercial vehicle OEMs that are our current and potential customers. Because we employ a small and specialized sales force, the loss of any member of our sales team or technical sales support professionals could weaken our sales expertise and our customer reach, and adversely affect our business, and we may not be able to find adequate replacements on a timely basis, or at all. Moreover, there are no assurances that we will be able to maintain a sufficient level of sales personnel to effectively meet our needs as our business continues to grow, particularly with respect to Proterra Powered and Proterra Energy.
Competition for sales personnel who are familiar with and trained to sell our products and services continues to be strong. We train our sales personnel to better understand our existing and new product technologies and how they can be positioned against our competitors’ products. We also train our sales personnel to be adept at working with long sales cycles characteristic of public agency customers and commercial vehicle manufacturers, as well as the special requirements attendant to each.
These initiatives are intended to improve the productivity of our sales personnel and our revenue and profitability. It takes time for the sales professionals to become productive following their hiring and training and there can be no assurance that sales representatives will reach adequate levels of productivity, or that we will not experience significant levels of attrition in the future. Measures we implement to improve the productivity may not be successful and may instead contribute to instability in our operations, departures from our sales and technical support organizations, or reduce our revenue, profitability, and harm our business.
If we are unable to obtain bid bonds, performance bonds, or letters of credit required by public transit agencies or other customers, our ability to obtain future projects could be negatively affected.
We have in the past been, and may in the future be, required to provide bid bonds or performance bonds to secure our performance under customer contracts or, in some cases, as a prerequisite to submitting a bid on a potential project. Our continued ability to obtain these bonds will depend primarily upon our capitalization, working capital, past performance, management expertise, reputation and certain external factors, including the overall capacity of the surety market. Surety companies consider these factors in relation to the amount of our awards and their underwriting standards, which may change from time to time. Surety companies also require that we collateralize a percentage of the bond with cash or other form of credit enhancement. With a decreasing number of insurance providers in that market, it may be difficult to find sureties who will continue to provide contract-required bonding on acceptable terms and conditions, or at all. Furthermore, events that affect surety markets generally may result in bonding becoming more difficult to obtain in the future or being available only at a significantly greater cost.
In addition, some of our Proterra Transit and Proterra Energy customers also require collateral guarantees in the form of letters of credit to secure performance or to fund possible damages in the event of default under our contracts with them. If we enter agreements that require the issuance of letters of credit, our liquidity could be negatively impacted. Our inability to obtain adequate bonding or letters of credit and, as a result, to bid or enter into agreements, could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
We may experience outages and disruptions of our services if we fail to maintain adequate security and supporting infrastructure as we scale our information technology systems.
As we grow our business, we expect to continue to invest in our existing information technology systems, including data centers, network services, data storage, and database technologies, and cybersecurity technologies both to assist us in our business and to better provide our fleet-scale, high-power charging solutions and software services to our customers. Creating the appropriate information technology support systems for our business is time intensive, expensive, and complex. Our implementation, maintenance, and improvement of these systems may create inefficiencies, operational failures and increased vulnerability to cyber-attacks. Moreover, there are inherent risks associated with developing, improving, and implementing new information technology systems, including the disruption of our current data management, procurement, manufacturing, execution, finance, supply chain, sales, and service processes. As we continue to grow our services that rely on collecting and analyzing customer telematics and charging data, our exposure to information technology risks will increase. These risks may affect our ability to manage our data and inventory, procure parts or supplies or manufacture, sell, deliver, and service electric transit buses, or achieve and maintain compliance with applicable regulations.
We also maintain information technology measures designed to protect us against system security risks, data breaches, and cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks could include denial-of-service attacks impacting customer service availability and reliability, the exploitation of software vulnerabilities in internet facing applications, social engineering of system administrators (for example, tricking company employees into releasing control of their systems to a hacker), or the introduction of computer viruses or malware into our systems to steal confidential or proprietary data. In 2020, we were the victim of a successful social engineering attack that resulted in the diversion of significant funds we intended to pay a supplier to a fraudulent account. In the third quarter of 2021, human error also resulted in a server for our Valence platform being accessible to the public for a short period of time, allowing unauthorized access to telematics data and, resulting in the deletion of a limited amount of data used by employees and customers for report functionality. Cyber-attacks of increasing sophistication may be difficult to detect and could result in the theft of our funds, intellectual property and data. In addition, we are vulnerable to unintentional errors or malicious actions by persons who have authorized access to our systems but exceed the scope of their access rights, or unintentionally or intentionally alter parameters or otherwise interfere with the intended operations of our technology services. The steps we take to increase the reliability, integrity, and security of our systems as they scale may be expensive and may not prevent system failures or unintended vulnerabilities resulting from the increasing number of persons with access to our systems, complex interactions within our technology platform and the increasing number of connections with third-party partners’ and vendors’ technology. Operational errors or failures or successful cyber-attacks could compromise our proprietary information, the quality of our services, and our ability to perform for our customers, resulting in damage to our
reputation, which could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results. In addition, these events could increase the risk of claims alleging that we do not comply with applicable laws and regulations, subjecting us to potential liability and regulatory penalties under privacy laws protecting personal information.
If we update our manufacturing equipment more quickly than expected, we may have to shorten the useful lives of any equipment to be retired as a result of any such update, and the resulting acceleration in our depreciation could negatively affect our financial results.
We have invested and expect to continue to invest significantly in what we believe is state-of-the-art tooling, machinery, and other manufacturing equipment for production of our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies. We depreciate the cost of such equipment and electric transit buses over their expected useful lives. However, manufacturing and commercial vehicle technology may evolve rapidly, and we may decide to update our manufacturing process with more advanced equipment or tooling. Moreover, as our engineering and manufacturing expertise and efficiency increase, we may be able to manufacture our products using less of our installed equipment. The useful life of any equipment that would be retired early as a result would be shortened, causing the depreciation on such equipment to be accelerated, and our operating results could be negatively impacted.
Our business may be adversely affected by workforce disruptions.
Our production employees in our City of Industry facility are represented by a union and we are party to a collective bargaining agreement that will expire in 2023 as we exit the City of Industry facility and no longer employ the employees that constitute the bargaining unit. Our other employees are not represented by a union, though it is common throughout the commercial vehicle industry for employees to belong to a union, and if more of our employees decide to join or form a labor union, we may become party to additional collective bargaining agreements, which could result in higher employee costs, higher administrative and legal costs, and increased risk of work stoppages. It is also possible that a union seeking to organize our facilities may mount a corporate campaign, resulting in negative publicity or other actions that require attention by our management team and our employees. Negative publicity, work stoppages, or strikes by unions could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Moreover, some of our suppliers and vendors, including freight companies, have workforces represented by unions and are subject to collective bargaining agreements. The failure of our suppliers and vendors to successfully negotiate collective bargaining agreements could result in disruptions to our supply chain, manufacturing, and sale of our electric transit buses. Such delays could have an adverse impact on our business, prospects, financial condition, or operating results.
We may acquire or invest in additional companies, or undertake other strategic transactions or other business relationships which may divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders, consume resources that are necessary to sustain our business, and which we may not be able to integrate successfully.
In 2022, we made a strategic equity investment in a privately held entity that we expect to produce lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells in the United States in the coming years to provide us with development opportunities for battery packs with another cell chemistry to address additional segments of the commercial vehicle market. We may never be able to capitalize on the opportunity that we anticipated with this investment, for a number of reasons including our own future strategic decisions or the entity’s failure, which may result in no return on our investment. Although we have not made any acquisitions to date, our business strategy in the future may include acquiring other complementary products, technologies, or businesses or making further investments in companies that the management team believes are important to our supply chain or other strategic business interests. We also may enter relationships with other businesses to expand our domestic and international operations and to create services networks to support our products, such as a joint venture or other strategic partnerships. An acquisition, investment, or other strategic transaction or business relationship may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. We may encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, services, personnel, or operations of the acquired companies particularly if the key personnel of the acquired companies choose not to work for us. Acquisitions or other strategic
transactions may also disrupt our business, divert our resources, and require significant management attention that would otherwise be available for the development of our business. Moreover, the anticipated benefits of any acquisition, investment, or other strategic transaction or business relationship may not be realized or we may be exposed to unknown liabilities.
Negotiating these types of transactions can be time consuming, difficult, and expensive, and our ability to close these transactions may often be subject to approvals that are beyond our control. Consequently, these transactions, even if undertaken and announced, may not close. Even if we do successfully complete transactions, we may not ultimately strengthen our competitive position or achieve our goals, and any transactions we complete could be viewed negatively by our customers, securities analysts, and investors.
Any potential future international expansion will subject us to additional costs and risks that could harm our business, including unfavorable regulatory, political, tax, and labor conditions, and our potential future efforts to expand internationally may not be successful.
Should we choose to expand our business internationally in the future and establish business relationships with new international partners, we may be subject to legal, political, and regulatory requirements and social and economic conditions that may be very different from those affecting us domestically. For example, we have expanded our transit business into Canada. As we expanded into Canada, our electric transit buses were required to comply with Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, which differ from the FMVSS. Funding for transit bus procurement from certain provincial governments in Canada also requires compliance with Canadian Content requirements, which will require different supply chain partners than those that we rely on for our electric transit buses sold in the U.S. market and assembly of certain components or subcomponents in Canada. In addition, we are providing products and services to OEMs in Australia and Western Europe, and as we expand our Proterra Powered or Proterra Energy business internationally, or should we choose to further expand our Proterra Transit business outside the United States and Canada, we may face a number of risks associated with international business activities that may increase our costs, impact our ability to sell our electric transit buses, and require significant management attention. These risks include:
•conforming our products to various international regulatory and safety requirements as well as charging and other electric infrastructures;
•difficulty in establishing, staffing, and managing foreign operations and service networks;
•challenges in attracting international customers;
•preferences of foreign nations for domestically manufactured products;
•our ability to enforce our contractual rights;
•longer sales and collection cycles in some countries;
•weaker intellectual property protection in some countries;
•compliance with multiple, potentially conflicting and changing governmental laws, regulations and permitting processes, including environmental, product safety, banking, employment, and tax;
•compliance with U.S. and foreign anti-bribery laws including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended (the “FCPA”), and the UK Bribery Act of 2010;
•currency exchange rate fluctuations;
•regional economic and political instability, including as a result of acts of war or terrorism in countries where we may operate;
•restrictions on repatriations of earnings;
•trade restrictions, customs regulations, tariffs, and price or exchange controls;
•increased competition from local providers of similar products;
•increased costs to establish and maintain effective controls at foreign locations; and
•overall higher costs of doing business internationally.
As a result of these risks, any potential future international expansion efforts that we may undertake may not be successful and may incur significant operational expenses. Our failure to manage these risks and challenges successfully could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.
We may be limited in the portion of net operating loss (“NOL”) carryforwards that we can use in the future to offset taxable income for U.S. federal and state income tax purposes. As of December 31, 2022, we had U.S. federal NOL carryforwards and state NOL carryforwards of approximately $729.5 million and $531.1 million, respectively, which if not utilized will begin to expire for federal and state tax purposes beginning in 2030 and 2023, respectively. Federal NOLs generated after December 31, 2017 have an indefinite carryover period, and may be utilized to offset no more than 80% of taxable income annually. Realization of NOL carryforwards that expire beginning in 2030 and 2023, respectively, depends on future income, and there is a risk that these carryforwards could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities, which could adversely affect our operating results.
In addition, under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” generally defined as a greater than 50% change (by value) in its equity ownership over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change NOL carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes, such as research tax credits, to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. We may experience ownership changes in the future, including as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership, some of which may be outside of our control. As a result, if we earn net taxable income, our ability to use our pre-change NOL carry-forwards and other tax attributes to offset U.S. federal taxable income or taxes may be subject to limitations, which could potentially result in increased future tax liability to us.
New tax laws or unanticipated changes in existing tax laws and regulations could adversely affect us.
New legislation or regulations that could affect our tax burden could be enacted by any governmental authority. United States federal legislation affecting the tax laws was enacted in December 2017 (the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” or “TCJA”), March 2020 (the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act”), March 2020 (the “CARES Act”), December 2020 (“Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021”) and August 2022 (the “Inflation Reduction Act” or “IRA”).
We continue to examine the impact that this federal tax legislation may have on our business. The TCJA is a far- reaching and complex revision to the U.S. federal income tax laws with disparate and, in some cases, countervailing impacts on different categories of taxpayers and industries, and will require subsequent rulemaking and interpretation in a number of areas. The long-term impact of the TCJA on the overall economy, the industries in which we operate and our and our partners’ businesses cannot be reliably predicted. For example, beginning in 2022, the TCJA eliminates the option to deduct research and development expenditures in the year they were incurred and instead requires taxpayers to capitalize and amortize these expenditures over five or fifteen years pursuant to Section 174 of the Code. Although there has been proposed legislation that would repeal or defer the capitalization requirement to later years, we have no assurance that the provision will be repealed or otherwise modified. There can be no assurance that the TCJA will not negatively impact our operating results, financial condition, and future business operations. The estimated impact of the TCJA is based on our management’s current knowledge and assumptions, following consultation with our tax advisors. Because of our valuation allowance in the United States, ongoing tax effects of the Act are not expected to materially change our effective tax rate in future periods.
On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the IRA, which became effective beginning in 2023. The IRA includes implementation of a new alternative minimum tax, an excise tax on stock buybacks, significant tax incentives for energy and climate initiatives and other provisions. These new incentives may increase competition.
The IRA contains certain expanded tax credits and other financial incentives designed to promote the development of certain domestic clean energy projects. We continue to evaluate the extent of benefits available to us, which we expect will favorably impact our results of operations in future periods. For example, we currently expect to qualify for the advanced manufacturing production credit under Section 45X of the Code, which provides certain specified benefits for domestic production and sale of qualifying solar, wind, inverter, and battery components. Such credits may be refundable or transferable to third parties and are available from 2023 to 2032, subject to phase down beginning in 2030. In order to receive the full value of such credits and incentives, we must satisfy a number of requirements. If we fail to satisfy these requirements, the value of the credits may be limited, and we may become subject to penalties. Additionally, there are currently several critical and complex aspects of the IRA with respect to which technical guidance and regulations from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) and U.S. Treasury Department are needed, including, but not limited to, eligibility for and calculation of the amount of such tax credits. If the IRS and U.S. Treasury Department issue additional guidance that limits the availability of such credits, we may not be able to take full advantage of the tax benefits of the IRA as expected. There is also uncertainty if IRA incentives may be reduced or modified in the future.
We use our best judgment in attempting to quantify and reserve for these tax obligations. However, a challenge by a taxing authority, our ability to utilize tax benefits such as NOL carryforwards or tax credits, or a deviation from other tax-related assumptions may cause actual financial results to be different from previous estimates. For example, there are various provisions of the IRA that remain subject to further guidance from the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”). We have invested resources to interpret the IRA and used our best judgment to determine its application to our business, but our interpretation may prove to be incorrect or change. Though we regularly assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes from such examinations and the adequacy of our provision for income taxes and tax reserves, there can be no assurance that such provision is sufficient and that a determination by a taxing authority will not have an adverse effect on our net income.
Our business is subject to the risk of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods, and other catastrophic events and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism.
We maintain production facilities in Northern and Southern California and South Carolina. Any of our facilities may be harmed or rendered inoperable by disasters, including earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, nuclear disasters, geopolitical events, acts of terrorism or other criminal activities, infectious disease outbreaks (such as COVID-19), and power outages. In the event of natural disaster or other catastrophic event, we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure production interruptions, reputational harm, delays in manufacturing, development and testing of our battery systems, electrification and charging solutions, fleet and energy management systems, electric transit buses, and related technologies, and loss of critical data, all of which could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results. Moreover, our corporate headquarters and one of our current battery production facilities are in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we have facilities in Los Angeles County, regions known for seismic activity and potentially subject to catastrophic fires. If our facilities are damaged by such natural disasters or catastrophic events, our repair or replacement would likely be costly and any such efforts would likely require substantial time that may affect our ability to produce and deliver our products. For example, in July 2015, we experienced a fire in our Greenville, South Carolina manufacturing facility and then-headquarters, in which substantially all of our computer equipment, furniture and fixtures, leasehold improvements, work in progress, raw material, and finished goods inventories were damaged or destroyed. While we were insured for our losses and resumed manufacturing shortly thereafter, the disruption temporarily impacted our business. Similarly, any future disruptions in our operations could negatively impact our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results and harm our reputation. In addition, we may not carry enough insurance to compensate for the losses that may occur.
Risks Related to Regulation
Failure to comply with anti-corruption, anti-money laundering laws, and sanctions laws,import and export controls, including the FCPA and similar laws associated with our activities outside of the United States, could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences.
We are subject to the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, the UK Bribery Act of 2010, U.S. and foreign laws relating to import and export controls, economic sanctions, including the laws and regulations administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and may be subject to other anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, and sanctions laws in countries in which we conduct activities. We face significant risks if we fail to comply with the FCPA and other anti-corruption laws that prohibit companies and their employees and third-party intermediaries from promising, authorizing, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or benefits to foreign government officials, political parties, and private sector recipients for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business, directing business to any person, or securing any advantage. In many foreign countries, particularly in countries with developing economies, it may be a local custom that businesses engage in practices that are prohibited by the FCPA or other applicable laws and regulations. We may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state- owned or affiliated entities and we can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third- party intermediaries, our employees, representatives, contractors, partners, and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities. We have implemented an anti-corruption compliance program but cannot assure you that all of our employees and agents, as well as those companies to which we outsource certain of our business operations, will not take actions in violation of our policies and applicable law, for which we may be ultimately held responsible.
Our products and solutions are subject to export control and import laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations, and the economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls, as well as similar laws in other countries in which we conduct business. Exports of our products, services, and technology must be made in compliance with these laws and regulations. In addition, these laws may restrict or prohibit altogether the sale or supply of certain of our products, services, and technologies to certain governments, persons, entities, countries, and territories, including those that are the target of comprehensive sanctions, unless there are license exceptions that apply or specific licenses are obtained. Any future changes in export control, import, or economic sanctions laws and regulations may adversely impact our ability to sell our products, services, and technologies in certain markets or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our products, services, and technologies to or from certain countries, governments, or persons altogether, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and growth prospects.
Any violation of the FCPA, other applicable anti-corruption laws, anti-money laundering, import and export controls, economic sanctions laws and other applicable laws could result in whistleblower complaints, adverse media coverage, investigations, loss of export privileges, or severe criminal or civil sanctions, which could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results. In addition, responding to any enforcement action may result in a significant diversion of management’s attention and resources, significant defense costs, and other professional fees.
The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain additional executive management and qualified board members.
We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”), the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (the “Dodd-Frank Act”), the listing requirements of Nasdaq and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming, or costly, and increase demand on our systems and resources, particularly after we are no longer an emerging growth company. The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly, and current reports with respect to our business and operating results. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight
may be required. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could adversely affect our business and operating results. Although we have already hired additional employees to comply with these requirements, we may need to hire more employees in the future or engage outside consultants, which would increase our costs and expenses.
In addition, changing laws, regulations, and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs, and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations, and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve or otherwise change over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations, and standards (or changing interpretations of them), and this investment may result in increased selling, general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations, and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to their application and practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us, and our business may be adversely affected. We also expect that being a public company and the associated rules and regulations will make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our audit committee, compensation committee, and nominating and governance committee, and qualified executive officers.
As a result of disclosure of information in the filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition is more visible, which may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors. If such claims are successful, our business and operating results could be adversely affected, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and adversely affect our business and operating results. In addition, as a result of our disclosure obligations as a public company, we have reduced flexibility and are under pressure to focus on short-term results, which may adversely affect our ability to achieve long-term profitability.
Regulations related to “conflict minerals” may force us to incur additional expenses, may make our supply chain more complex and may result in damage to our reputation with customers.
Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC has adopted requirements for companies that use certain minerals and metals, known as conflict minerals, in their products, whether or not these products are manufactured by third parties. These requirements require companies to perform due diligence, disclose, and report whether such minerals originate from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries, or come from recycled or scrap sources. These requirements could adversely affect the sourcing, availability, and pricing of minerals used in the manufacture of heavy-duty electric vehicles, including our products. While these requirements continue to be subject to administrative uncertainty, we will incur additional costs to comply with the disclosure requirements, including costs related to determining the source of any of the relevant minerals and metals used in our products. Since our supply chain is complex, we may not be able to sufficiently verify the origins for these minerals and metals used in our products through the due diligence procedures that we implement, which may harm our reputation. In such event, we may also face difficulties in satisfying customers who require that all of the components of our products are certified as conflict mineral free.
Risks Related to our Intellectual Property
Failure to protect our intellectual property could adversely affect our business.
Our success depends in large part on our proprietary technology, software and data. We rely on various intellectual property rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, as well as confidentiality provisions and contractual arrangements, and other forms of statutory protection to protect our proprietary rights. If we do not protect and enforce our intellectual property rights adequately and successfully, our competitive position may suffer, which could adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Our pending patent or trademark applications may not be approved, or competitors or others may challenge the validity, enforceability, or scope of our patents, the scope of our copyrights, the registrability of our trademarks or the trade secret status of our proprietary information. There can be no assurance that additional patents will be issued or that any issued patents will provide significant protection for our intellectual property or for those portions of our proprietary technology and software that are the most key to our competitive positions in the marketplace. In addition, our patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and other intellectual property rights may not provide us a significant competitive advantage. There is no assurance that the forms of intellectual property protection that we seek, including business decisions about when and where to file patents and when and how to maintain and protect copyrights, trade secrets, license and other contractual rights will be adequate to protect our business.
Moreover, recent amendments to developing jurisprudence regarding and current and possible future changes to intellectual property laws and regulations, including U.S. and foreign patent, copyright, trade secret and other statutory law, may affect our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights and to protect our proprietary technology, software and data. In addition, the laws of some countries do not provide the same level of protection for our intellectual property as do the laws of the United States. As we expand our international activities, our exposure to unauthorized copying and use of our technology and proprietary information will likely increase. Despite our precautions, our intellectual property is vulnerable to unauthorized access and copying through employee or third-party error or actions, including malicious state or state-sponsored actors, theft, hacking, cybersecurity incidents, and other security breaches and incidents, and such incidents may be difficult to detect or unknown for a significant period of time. It is possible for third parties to infringe upon or misappropriate our intellectual property, to copy or reverse engineer our bus and battery pack designs, and to use information that we regard as proprietary to create products and services that compete with ours. Effective intellectual property protection may not be available to us in every country in which we may sell our electric transit buses and related or other products and services. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against certain third parties, including government agencies or government contractors, or make patents subject to compulsory licenses to third parties under certain circumstances. In these countries, patents may provide limited or no benefit.
Intellectual property laws, procedures, and restrictions provide only limited protection and any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged, invalidated, circumvented, infringed, or misappropriated. Further, the laws of certain countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and, therefore, in certain jurisdictions, we may be unable to protect our proprietary technology.
We enter into confidentiality and invention assignment or intellectual property ownership agreements with our employees and contractors and enter into confidentiality agreements with other third parties. We cannot ensure that these agreements, or all the terms thereof, will be enforceable or compliant with applicable law, or otherwise effective in controlling access to, use of, reverse engineering, and distribution of our proprietary information or in effectively securing exclusive ownership of intellectual property developed by our current or former employees and contractors. Further, these agreements with our employees, contractors, and other parties may not prevent other parties from independently developing technologies, products and services that are substantially equivalent or superior to our technologies, products and services.
We may need to spend significant resources securing and monitoring our intellectual property rights, and we may or may not be able to detect infringement by third parties. Our competitive position may be adversely impacted if we cannot detect infringement or enforce our intellectual property rights quickly or at all. In some circumstances, we may choose not to pursue enforcement because an infringer has a dominant intellectual property position, because of uncertainty relating to the scope of our intellectual property or the outcome of an enforcement action, or for other business reasons. In addition, competitors might avoid infringement by designing around our intellectual property rights or by developing non-infringing competing technologies. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming, and distracting to management and our development teams and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property. Further, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims attacking the scope, validity, and enforceability of our intellectual property rights, or with counterclaims and countersuits asserting infringement by us of third-party intellectual property rights. Our failure to secure, protect, and enforce our intellectual property rights could adversely affect our brand and our business, any of which could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
We may be subject to intellectual property rights claims or other litigation by third parties, which could be costly to defend, could require us to pay significant damages and could limit our ability to use certain technologies.
Third parties may assert claims of infringement of intellectual property rights or violation of other statutory, license or contractual rights in technology, software or data against us or against our customers for which we may be liable or have an indemnification obligation. Any such claim by a third party, even if without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against such claim and could distract our management and our development teams from our business.
Although third parties may offer a license to their technology, software or data, the terms of any offered license may not be acceptable and the failure to obtain a license or the costs associated with any license could cause our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results to be adversely affected. In addition, some licenses may be non-exclusive, and therefore our competitors may have access to the same technology, software or data licensed to us. Alternatively, we may be required to develop non-infringing technology, software or data which could require significant effort and expense and ultimately may not be successful. Furthermore, a successful claimant could secure a judgment or we may agree to a settlement that prevents us from selling certain products or performing certain services or that requires us to pay substantial damages, including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed such claimant’s patents, copyrights, trade secrets or other statutory rights, royalties or other fees. Any of these events could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Adverse litigation judgments or settlements resulting from legal proceedings in which we may be involved could expose us to monetary damages or limit our ability to operate our business.
We have in the past and may in the future become involved in private actions, collective actions, investigations, and various other legal proceedings by customers, employees, suppliers, competitors, government agencies, or others. The results of any such litigation, investigations, and other legal proceedings are inherently unpredictable and expensive. Any claims against us, whether meritorious or not, could be time consuming, result in costly litigation, damage our reputation, require significant management time, and divert significant resources. If any of these legal proceedings were to be determined adversely to us, or we were to enter into a settlement arrangement, we could be exposed to monetary damages or limits on our ability to operate our business, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and operating results.
Risks Related to our Common Stock
The price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile.
From January 3, 2022 through December 30, 2022, our common stock price has ranged from a low of $3.51 to a high of $10.90. For the period from January 1, 2023 through May 5, 2023, our common stock price has ranged from a low of $1.00 to a high of $5.62. As a result of this volatility, investors in our common stock may not be able to sell their shares at or above the prices they paid. Further, as a result of this volatility it may be difficult for us to attract new investments, including additional offerings of our securities, on terms we consider reasonable, or at all. The price of our common stock has fluctuated and may fluctuate in the future due to a variety of factors, including:
•changes in the industries in which we and our customers operate;
•variations in our operating performance and the performance of our competitors in general;
•material and adverse impact of the macro- and micro-economic conditions on the markets and the broader global economy;
•actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly or annual operating results;
•the public’s reaction to our press releases, our other public announcements and our filings with the SEC;
•negative publicity regarding our company or products;
•our failure or the failure of our competitors to meet analysts’ projections or guidance that we or our competitors may give to the market;
•additions and departures of key personnel;
•changes in laws and regulations affecting its business;
•commencement of, or involvement in, litigation involving us;
•changes in our capital structure, such as future issuances of securities or the incurrence of additional debt;
•publication of research reports by securities analysts about us or our competitors or our industry;
•sales of shares of common stock by the PIPE Investors;
•dilution, or expected or potential dilution, related to the issuance of additional shares of common stock to satisfy conversion under the Convertible Notes or otherwise;
•the volume of shares of our common stock available for public sale, including as a result of the conversion of the Convertible Notes into shares of common stock; and
•general economic and political conditions such as recessions, changes in interest rates, an increased rate of inflation, disruptions to banking systems, increased costs of goods, supply chain disruptions, fuel price fluctuations, foreign currency fluctuations, international tariffs, social, political and economic risks, geopolitical conflicts (including the current conflict in Ukraine), and acts of war or terrorism.
These market and industry factors may materially reduce the market price of our common stock regardless of our operating performance.
Companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have frequently been the subject of securities class action and shareholder derivative litigation. We could be the target of such litigation in the future. Class action and derivative lawsuits, whether successful or not, could result in substantial costs, damage or settlement awards and a diversion of our management’s resources and attention from running our business, which could materially harm our reputation, financial condition and results of operations.
Conversion of the Convertible Notes will dilute the ownership interest of existing stockholders or may otherwise depress our stock price.
In August 2020, Legacy Proterra issued $200.0 million in original aggregate principal amount of Convertible Notes. Certain holders of Convertible Notes with aggregate original principal amounts of $46.5 million elected to convert their Convertible Notes, including accrued PIK interest and cash interest, at the Closing resulting in the issuance of 7.4 million shares of common stock. As of March 31, 2023, the amendment to the Convertible Notes Facility was entered into, which includes an increase in the annual interest rate of the Convertible Notes to 12.0% per annum, consisting of 5.0% in cash and 7.0% PIK with the PIK default rate proportionally increased to 9.0%. As of March 31, 2023, the outstanding balance of the Convertible Notes was $172.7 million inclusive of PIK interest of $19.4 million. To the extent the remaining outstanding Convertible Notes are converted pursuant to their conversion provisions, including any adjustments to the conversion price, the balance under the Convertible Notes will grow and the number of shares that may be issued upon conversion will increase accordingly. The issuance of shares of our common stock upon conversion of the Convertible Notes will dilute the ownership interests of existing stockholders. Any sales in the public market of the common stock issuable upon such conversion could adversely affect prevailing market prices of our common stock. In addition, the existence of the Convertible Notes may encourage hedging and short selling by market participants because the anticipated conversion of the Convertible Notes into shares of common stock could depress our stock price.
Because the number of shares of our common stock that may be issued to the holders of the Convertible Notes pursuant to the Convertible Notes is determined based on the price of our common stock, provided, however, that conversions may occur at any time or from time to time on or after March 31, 2024 at a conversion price equal to a 25% discount to the lowest issuance price of an equity-linked instrument from March 31, 2023 to the date of conversion, subject to a $1.016 floor price, the exact magnitude of the dilutive effect cannot be conclusively determined. However, the dilutive effect may be material to our existing stockholders. Pursuant to the terms of the Convertible Notes, we will be obligated to reserve such number of shares of our common stock that shall be sufficient to effect the conversion of the Convertible Notes. We cannot predict the price of our common stock at any future date, and therefore cannot predict the number of shares of our common stock to be issued under the Convertible Notes. Accordingly, assuming we obtain the stockholder approvals as described in “We may not have the ability to, or a sufficient number of authorized shares to, convert all of the Convertible Notes into shares of our common stock, and if we are unable to obtain certain stockholder approvals, we may need to use our cash resources to settle such conversions.”, the number of shares of our common stock that may be issuable to a holder or affiliated holders of the Convertible Notes upon conversion of the Convertible Notes may represent a relatively high percentage of our outstanding shares of common stock, up to 40% of our then outstanding shares of common stock. In this regard, it should be noted that note holders affiliated with the Cowen Parties held substantially all of the Convertible Notes as of March 31, 2023. If any stockholder and its affiliates beneficially owns a relatively high percentage of our common stock, it would be able to exercise a significant level of influence over matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions.
See the Risk Factor entitled “We may not have the ability to, or have a sufficient number of authorized shares to, convert all of the Convertible Notes into shares of our common stock, and if we are unable to obtain certain stockholder approvals, we may need to use our cash resources to settle such conversion.”
Future resale of our common stock may cause the market price of our common stock to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of common stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our common stock. We have filed a registration statement related to the offer and sale from time to time by the selling securityholders named in the prospectus that forms a part of the registration statement of up to 125,389,111 shares of common stock, which registration statement has been declared effective by the SEC. In addition, as of June 17, 2022, Rule 144 became available for the resale of any shares that are restricted or control securities, subject to volume and other restrictions as applicable under Rule 144. To the extent shares are sold into the market pursuant to a registration statement that has been declared effective by the SEC, under Rule 144 or otherwise, particularly in substantial quantities, the market price of our common stock could decline.
Our management team has limited experience managing a public company.
Most members of our management team have limited experience managing a publicly traded company, interacting with public company investors, and complying with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to public companies. Our management team may not successfully or efficiently manage our transition to a public company subject to significant regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under the federal securities laws and the continuous scrutiny of securities analysts and investors. These obligations and constituents will require significant attention from our senior management and could divert their attention away from the day-to-day management of our business, which could have an adverse effect our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Reports published by analysts, including projections in those reports that differ from our actual results, could adversely affect the price and trading volume of our common stock.
Securities research analysts may establish and publish their own periodic projections for us. These projections may vary widely and may not accurately predict the results we actually achieve. Our share price may decline if our actual results do not match the projections of these securities research analysts. Similarly, if one or more of the analysts who write reports on us downgrades our stock or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable
research about our business or cease coverage, our share price could decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to publish reports on us regularly, our share price or trading volume could decline. While we expect research analyst coverage, if no analysts provide coverage of us, the market price and volume for our common stock could be adversely affected.
We are subject to changing law and regulations regarding regulatory matters, corporate governance and public disclosure that will increase our costs and the risk of non-compliance.
We are subject to rules and regulations by various governing bodies, including, for example, the SEC, which are charged with the protection of investors and the oversight of companies whose securities are publicly traded, and to new and evolving regulatory measures under applicable law. Our efforts to comply with new and changing laws and regulations will result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management time and attention.
Moreover, because these laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance becomes available. This evolution may result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and additional costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to our disclosure and governance practices. If we fail to address and comply with these regulations and any subsequent changes, we may be subject to penalty and our business may be harmed.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Additionally, our ability to pay dividends on our common stock is limited by restrictions under the terms of our Loan Agreements. We anticipate that for the foreseeable future we will retain all our future earnings to service our indebtedness, maintain compliance with the covenants under our debt agreements, for use in the development of our business and for general corporate purposes. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of our company more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management, limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees, and limit the market price of our common stock.
Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and restated bylaws that are in effect may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. Our certificate of incorporation and restated bylaws include provisions that:
•provide that our board of directors will be classified into three classes of directors with staggered three-year terms;
•permit the board of directors to establish the number of directors and fill any vacancies and newly created directorships;
•require super-majority voting (or if two-thirds of the board of directors approves, a majority) to amend some provisions in our certificate of incorporation and restated bylaws;
•authorize the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock that our board of directors could use to implement a stockholder rights plan;
•provide that only a majority of our board of directors will be authorized to call a special meeting of stockholders;
•prohibit stockholder action by written consent, which requires all stockholder actions to be taken at a meeting of our stockholders;
•provide that the board of directors is expressly authorized to make, alter, or repeal our bylaws; and
•establish advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at annual stockholder meetings.
In addition, our certificate of incorporation provides the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, to the fullest extent permitted by law, will be the exclusive forum for any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty, any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”), our certificate of incorporation, or our restated bylaws, or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine. The provision will not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act. Our restated bylaws provide that the federal district courts of the United States of America will, to the fullest extent permitted by law, be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act, which we refer to as a Federal Forum Provision. Our decision to adopt a Federal Forum Provision followed a decision by the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware holding that such provisions are facially valid under Delaware law. While there can be no assurance that federal courts or state courts will follow the holding of the Delaware Supreme Court or determine that the Federal Forum Provision should be enforced in a particular case, application of the Federal Forum Provision means that suits brought by our stockholders to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act or the Exchange Act must be brought in federal court and cannot be brought in state court. These choice of forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or any of our directors, officers, or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, and other employees.
Moreover, Section 203 of the DGCL may discourage, delay, or prevent a change of control of our company. Section 203 imposes certain restrictions on mergers, business combinations, and other transactions between us and holders of 15% or more of our common stock. See the section titled “Description of Capital Stock” for additional information.