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arvl

2022-08-22

I can't stop talking about Arrival. It's at the point where I feel compelled to tell friends and family about it, so that they can benefit from buying some shares of their stock.

Their stock looks terrible right now. But it's not. I'm writing this page to explain why.

Also, I have no interest in reddit/wallstreetbets or crypto. I just know a lot about technology companies, and have a feel for whether startups will do well.

note

Do your research. This isn't financial advice. Don't sue me.

Here is my strategy:​

  1. I am going to buy a few thousand shares. Anything under $2 is good.
  2. I am going to forget about these shares until next year. The price is unstable right now, and will probably go lower, but I am not going to stare at them.
  3. I am going to sell them in the 10-$20 range.

Arrival​

Arrival is an electric vehicle startup. It's in the last stages of R&D for version 1 of their vehicle platform, before they start fulfilling their first contracts

These contracts include:

  • Delivery vehicles for UPS.
  • Cars for Uber.
  • Public transit buses for the EU and US.

Why Arrival?​

At this stage, since they're a startup, you need to focus on two questions:

1.) Do they have innovations that will give them a competitive advantage?

2.) Will they actually capitalize on this competitive advantage, and sell their product better than their competitors?

1. Innovations and competitive advantage?​

The main two innovations are:

Microfactories​

They build lots of small-scale factories, rather than a few giant factories.

These factories fit inside existing, medium-sized warehouses.

This will allow Arrial to scale up quicker than other companies — like Tesla — so that they can sell vehicles in more countries and at lower costs.

Modular Construction + Composite Materials = High-Density Factories​

They use a proprietary composite material and bolt-together contruction, so that their vechicles need far less manufacturing processes than other companies:

  • No painting: Instead, the composite material is dyed. Brown for UPS trucks.

  • No welding: The components are bolted and fastened together.

The composite material is inexpensive since it's recyclable.

The modules are easy to fix if damaged — for example, fender benders are fixed by unbolting and swapping out the fender.

The vehicles are upgradeable, since you can swap out the parts, which is new for EVs.

2. Will they capitalize?​

This question is a lot less clear.

I look at these:

  • Investors: 100M from Hyundai, 118M from BlackRock.

  • Coherence of vision, design, and brand.

  • Abilty to overcome engineering challenges.