The process saves a fortune on traditional processes like stamping, welding and painting, but it’s difficult to master, Mike Abelson, CEO of Arrival’s U.S. operations, tells Axios.
- “It’s a Catch-22, …”
For full text read Electric vehicle startups face an uphill climb
So the Royal Mail trial was a total bust. Glad that we finally have some indirect acknowledgement of that. Moving the plant is just another delay in shutting this company down. I don’t see any positive sides to the story.
The Royal Mail story was over years ago. It was only ever a mock up & a hope, never had a trial.
UPS are a much much bigger client… Just hope Arrival manages to keep the UPS interest.
Royal Mail never trialed them, they withdrew long before a viable vehicle even appeared.
I can see their logic behind the decision to concentrate on America, the market there is huge and with the EV grants available next year it could be a gold mine
Whether they make it work or not is the big question
20% (was 25) in a day is no need to be glum. Unlike some I think this might be clever positioning from a tech unicorn in the UK to a new PM who has more of a clue about tech plus a move to access the US bill money. Playing both sides is smart if they can hold out. Looking forward to the next EC even if it’s a non event.
Does anyone have thoughts on what to do with Arrival stock now? I’m fairly new to trading and am down 88% on my Arrival stock.
I could sell and just take the loss on the chin, (ouch) but I was wondering if anyone has any positivity to share about the company now? Can anyone still see any success on the horizon?
Is there a chance I could lose the lot due to something I read about the share price being below a dollar for more than a specific time. I am not sure what happens if a delisting happens. I hold several hundred shares which was a fairly large punt for me on a company I honestly thought would do well. Now it all seems a bit gloomy. Any advice greatly welcome.
I’m only 86% down so you must have invested before me 
…
Holding here personally, if you scroll up the thread you’ll see more info re delisting etc…
Thanks I will have a scroll and see what I can find.
Pay-walled, will have to screen grab for the gist of not a subscriber.
‘It is now valued at $444mn’.
Plenty to scope for that valuation to come down in the near future.
The main thing that I learnt from the article is
Its European van, shown by the company at motor shows internationally, is not suitable for the US market.
The point is that it will take quite some time to develop something for the US market. This is supposedly three years - including time to pass the appropriate certification tests. That would mean no money coming in for three years (presumably?)
It seems that some people peeved about the redundancies in Bicester (perhaps their own redundancies), are not happy that a recently moved US based software team has remained intact. The criticism of
The axe on jobs has also fallen unevenly
is made by them. Which I on the face of it I would not think is a problem. After all a business needs to focus on the ‘right roles’ to make it succesful. Isn’t that the point of redundancies?
So to sum up, there has been a lot of bad mouthing of the company. I am not an insider. I have no idea about the merits or validity of any of the criticism.
The other thing that the article says is that
plan was to make a commercial cargo plane or passenger vehicle, with a dedicated team based out of a business park in Feltham in west London and staffed in part by former executives from electric plane start-up Lilium
You can take a half empty or half full approach to that information. 
I think is the same article somewhere else (without paywall)
This is ridiculous. They already changed the van’s design and it is still not ok for the US market. This is a failure of management surely. If the current design doesn’t work in the US, then this company is dead. No way investors and buyers want to wait another 3 years.
This thing about the van not being suitable for the US market is complete rubbish, it’ll need some changes to meet regulations but not a lot. Ford sell the European Transit in the US, Mercedes sell the European Sprinter, Dodge sell the European Fiat Ducato, these are all vehicles modified to meet the US regulations, they’re not completely redesigned for the market, in fact if the steering wheel was on the same side then you wouldn’t even notice.
Audi, BMW, Mercedes etc all sell plenty of cars, they’re not designed any different, they have different lighting, some have different bumpers and a few other things, all easily changeable items
I’m with you. Strange stuff isn’t it? Some very peeved people. Another reason I find it strange is because I had read that the original plans were to ship from the U.K. to the USA. So one would assume that they must have been thinking about and designing-in US regulations.
But as I said I am an outsider, with negligible knowledge of both mechanical engineering and the auto industry.
Hopefully it does not need a lot of changes but this had to be thought well before. How come that in all these years they did not anticipate US regulations?
Unless I am mistaken, I thought the whole deal with Arrival was that their vehicles and microfactories were modular and could be customised depending on local needs? If so, they are probably pretty well equipped to deal with localising their vehicles to different markets.