Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter
The California-based EV maker Mullen Automotive is about to have a relevant period of time for its future with several announcements in the upcoming weeks/ months. The U.S. EV maker is now working on the announcement deal with a Fortune 500 company for its Class 1 vehicles but is also in negotiations with “major OEMs” to use Mullen‘s battery technology, as recently confirmed by the CEO, David Michery.
While these negotiations do not have a specific date for conclusions, the announcement of the deal with the F500 company and its details will be revealed before the end of the second quarter, i.e. in the next two weeks.
June 27 | Russell 2000 and 3000 Indexes Listing
As initially reported by EV, Mullen will join Russell 3000 and Russell 2000 Indexes in late June. CEO David Michery said that the inclusion in the Russell Indexes “will bring great visibility within the institutional investment community”.
“I believe that our inclusion in the Russell Indexes will bring Mullen Automotive great visibility within the institutional investment community. This is an excellent milestone for our Company, which will provide increased liquidity and investor awareness.”
June 30 (or before) | F500 Company
On the last day of June (or even before), the electric vehicle maker will release a fully detailed of the deal with the unknown Fortune 500 company that will buy “a lot of” Mullen‘s Vans: “We plan on announcing that it is a very large company that is going to buy a lot of these vehicles. We feel that we have a great product that is going to be very competitive”, Michery added on March 30.
“I can say that we initiated that program — meaning we made the delivery — on May 12 and the customer put the van in its pilot program and reported to us that they were pleased with the performance to date and we expect to share details of the pilot program with our investors in the coming weeks so we’re excited about it. Everything has been going exactly as planned”.
In late March, during an interview with Benzinga, Mullen‘s CEO said the company will deliver its Class 1 vehicle in the second quarter: “We released a public information not too long ago that we’re going to be delivering our Class 1 vehicle in Q2 2022. We’re excited about that. We can’t disclose to who that hasn’t made it public yet but we plan on doing it shortly”, he said.
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? | Update on the negotiations with OEMs
On June 3, Michery was interviewed on Benzinga’s All Access Series where he gave additional information on the battery testing results and unveiled that the EV maker had started negotiations with major OEMs naming it as a “major transaction”.
“I do wanna add one thing but I think is…very important about things that happened recently because of our amazing test results on the battery. Earlier this week, we started negotiations with a couple of major OEMs regarding our battery technology and we commenced preliminary discussions with these parties, so… I thought this was a good piece of information that we could share”, Michery said.
“I’ve been working hard on this and along with the major transaction that is happening at the same time… there’s so much stuff going on,” Mullen’s CEO added.
According to what Mullen said when sharing the results, “it is expected that with this technology, when scaled to the vehicle pack level, a 150-kilowatt hour solid-state battery can deliver over 600 miles of range on a full charge for the Mullen FIVE”.
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July 26 | Mullen Shareholders Meeting
Last Friday evening, the company filed a form with SEC inviting shareholders for its Annual Meeting to be held at Nasdaq Building in New York on July 26. Among the themes to discuss in the meeting, the shareholders will vote to approve the increase the aggregate number of authorized shares to 2,250,000,000 shares.
“To approve an amendment to the Company’s Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the authorized number of shares of common stock to 1,750,000,000, the authorized number of shares of preferred stock to 500,000,000 and in conjunction therewith, to increase the aggregate number of authorized shares to 2,250,000,000 shares,” the company stated.
In a previously interview, Mullen’s CEO said that the company “believes that our [Mullen’s] plan is the most efficient, we have a facility already and if we obviously, like the most companies in our position today, raise capital is through the sale of their security. And that’s the reason for being public. We will raise additional capital, we have to like everybody else has to, like Tesla and they are a $800b market cap company”.
“As time goes on and as your stock strengthens you can make better deals and each deal to be better than the next deal but that’s a part of being able to execute your plan. One of the concerns that a lot of the investors had in the past looking at their balance sheet was how do they’re going to fund this plan? Obviously now there’s a solution for us as we get more activity, as the company deliveries product and as the company expands its operations so the ability to raise additional capital for favourable rates to execute on its plan. Ultimately, our plan is the most efficient plan out there,” he added.
August | ATVM Loan
On May 2, Mullen announced the filing of its ATVM loan application for the Mullen ONE EV Cargo Van Program with the U.S. Department of Energy on April 29. As said by the CEO during the last interview, these processes usually take 12 to 18 months so the company has still no news but Michery added that expects to get an update from the U.S. Department of Energy in August. The Mullen ONE EV is a Class 1 light commercial cargo van rated under 6,000 pounds GVRW and will be one of the first electric commercial vehicle offerings in this category.
In early June, Michery talked about the entire process to these kind of applications: “There’s a process that you got to go through. You submit your application, you hope to get to what they call “substantially complete” and then to the “conditional commitment” and usually it can take from 12 to 18 months. And that’s the process”.
When announcing the filing for the loan, the CEO said “We began our ATVM loan journey in 2019, and the DOE has been following our progress since then. I want to thank the entire Mullen Automotive team for working diligently on this submission. I also want to thank the DOE for their continued support of our initiative to put Americans back to work. This is a huge milestone for us, with many more to follow.”
October | Start of the US Test Drive Tour
On May 3, Mullen Automotive announced a 19-city national test drive tour for the Mullen FIVE starting in October to provide FIVE reservation holders with the opportunity to test drive the model. A couple days later, the company unveiled a second leg for the tour in March 2023 and also the opportunity to have a ride in the Mullen FIVE RS model with Formula E professional drivers. Initially, Mullen will start the national tour in October 2022 and embark on a 19-city journey across the U.S. over six weeks.
The Mullen FIVE RS version is a high-performance EV featuring close to 1,100 horsepower, 0-60 mph in just 1.95 seconds, and a top speed of almost 200 mph.
The tour will start in Mullen’s home base, Southern California, and will cover major U.S. cities including: Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas, Memphis, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. This will be the first opportunity for Mullen investors and enthusiasts (that have a reservation for the FIVE model) to test the vehicle and its technology.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter
