Cash-strapped EV Startup Arrival is Laying Off Half Its Workforce

Arrival, an electric vehicle startup based in the UK, said it was laying off 50 percent of its employees in a bid to reduce costs. The company also named a new CEO, Igor Torgov, who previously served as executive vice president of digital at the company. From a report: Arrival, which announced last year that it was winding down its UK operations in favor of refocusing its business in the US, became a publicly traded company in March 2021 after merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Founded in 2015, Arrival was developing electric delivery vans for UPS as a customer, as well as ridehailing cars for Uber and public buses. It also has backing from Hyundai and Kia. Arrival's layoffs will bring the company down to a workforce of 800 employees. The company claims that it expects to halve its ongoing cost of operating the business to approximately $30 million per quarter when accounting for reductions in real estate and other third-party costs. Arrival says it currently has $205 million in cash on hand.

So, Brexit

[r1348]

How is it going?

Re:

[Tablizer]

While it would be nice to see the USA split in half so that blue states don't have to live with archaic evangelistic and conspiracy-based laws, the economies of both halves would probably take a Brexit-like hit. The US dollar could also risk stop being the world's reserve currency. While such would possibly improve our export trade, it has potentially significant financial downsides.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much the same as non-Brexit would be going.

Apart from the significant real-terms dip in exports that might have been avoided if the UK had remained in the Single Market as promised?

Same Old Song

[rotorbudd]

Another One Bites the Dust

Re:

[Tablizer]

I thought car demand is still strong in general because of pandemic-related factory shutdowns and supply problems. Why is the car shortage not giving them a boost?

Re:Same Old Song

[mspohr]

Mass producing anything in a cost effective manner is very difficult.
Tesla is the only company that has been a successful auto startup in more than 100 years and they went through some very rough times and near bankruptcy several times.
Even the legacy auto manufacturers are having a great amount of difficulty producing EVs in spite of their supposed years of manufacturing prowess.
The transition to EVs will cause great disruption of the largest manufacturing sector in the world.
Get out the popcorn.

They're not having a hard time manufacturing them

[rsilvergun]

They're dragging their feet because they're money losers. Tesla has lost money making cars every year since they started with the only exception a brief period of time this last year because severe shortages of automobiles meant they could jack up their prices to the point where they're finally profitable. Those shortages are over and Tesla is having to cut prices.

Now there's been a lot of advancements and research done in the last several years much of which was done in public universities meaning the

Re:

[timeOday]

It's even possible Tesla will be able to start selling cars at a profit without the heavy government subsidies they've been relying on.

Humorous.

Tesla's profit per vehicle beat the world's most valuable car brand eightfold

Tesla is earning about US$10,000 per car. Toyota made about US$1,200 per vehicle sold last quarter, and Tesla made eight times that, beating Toyota's net profit margin for the first time since it went public. Teslas cost about US$36,000 to make but sell for US$10,000 more on average, p

Re:

[mspohr]

Legacy auto haven't figured out how to make EVs at a profit so they continue to push their ICE cars.
OTOH, Tesla has been profitable since 2019. In 2022 they made $12 billion profit. They have the highest profit margin in the industry (25% to 30%).

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Mass producing anything in a cost effective manner is very difficult. Tesla is the only company that has been a successful auto startup in more than 100 years

Kia, 1944. Toyota, 1937, Datsun, 1933, Daihstsu, 1951, Isuzu, 1934.

Re:

[wonkavader]

The product is not really the car/van -- it's the build process. And their build process ("MicroFactories!") would be interesting if robots were faster, safety wasn't such a concern, and process development were easier.

As is, it's taken them a long time to develop a process which makes vehicles very slowly.

And so they cannot really build the vehicles.

The vehicles seem REALLY NICE. But in order get them made they'd have to admit their original idea was wrong/not doable.

It's a huge shame. Their designs are

Just me?

[RedMage]

Is it just me, or does it seem like a problem they are putting a digital marketing person in charge of a car company?
Sounds like they will be dead within the year.

Re:

[earl pottinger]

Yes, I never understand why companies hire people who do not understand the very things the company makes.

Re:

[Pravetz-82]

Is it just me, or does it seem like a problem they are putting a digital marketing person in charge of a car company? Sounds like they will be dead within the year.

Where does it say "marketing" ?!
It just says VP of "digital", which while not entirely clear as a term, it is not usually associated with marketing first.
Couple of links deep, we can find the following [gcs-web.com]:

Igor joined Arrival in February 2020 and has led the development of multiple divisions at Arrival including Fintech, Commercialization, Business Systems, IT and Digital products over the last nearly three years. Prior to Arrival, Igor held numerous COO, CEO, and leadership positions at Atol, Bitfury, Yota, Columbus IT and Microsoft.

There is not a single mention of "marketing" in the summary or the article.

Did they ever actually release any cars?

[Narcocide]

I've never heard of this company.

Re:

[Slashdot Junky]

The do not design and manufacture cars. They have a scaleable inverted skateboard like EV platform ideal for cargo vans and buses. They build at least the van and do so in different sizes.

in related news...

[0xG]

The president and CEO are taking early retirement with $15M packages...