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A conceptual vehicle from Via Motors.
Courtesy of Via
Electric vehicles for commercial use are ready for prime time. One sign is the roughly $ 80 billion valuation that electric truck maker Rivian is looking for when it goes public soon. Another is simply the eruption of emerging electric truck and van companies competing for a piece of the EV pie.
And another electric truck company appeared on investors’ radar on Monday. Via Motors agreed to be bought by the EV conglomerate
Ideanomics
(ticker: IDEX) in a total $ 600 million deal yet to be approved by shareholders.
The agreement has shares of
Ideanomics
(ticker: IDEX) in motion. Shares rose 4.4% in the afternoon trading. He
S&P 500
increased by 0.6%. He
Dow Jones industrial average
it was flat.
Via Motors focuses on producing class 2 to class 5 electric trucks and vans. A class 2 can be a full-size pickup or delivery van; a class 5 can be a big moving truck. By comparison, a car is a class 1 and a semi is a class 8.
Other EV startups working in commercial vehicles include Rivian,
Battle horse
(WKHS),
Lordstown Motors
(RIDE),
Arrival
(ARVL) i
Canoe
(GOEV).
With $ 600 million, the Via-Ideanomics deal is one of the least expensive commercial electric vehicle works. Lordstown’s market capitalization is about $ 1 billion.
Canoe
comes with a market capitalization of $ 1.7 billion. The arrivals market cap is well above, at about $ 7.2 billion.
One of the reasons Via is less expensive is that it is not yet ready to ship trucks; production is scheduled for 2023.
But Via has an ace up his sleeve: CEO Bob Purcell, who led
General Motors
(GM) electric vehicle business in the 1990s. It is the father of the legendary GM EV1, the first mass-produced EV and the first that GM designed to be a complement from the start.
“We were the car that started it all … I was very proud of my group,” Purcell said De Barron after Via and Ideanomics announced their agreement. “We invented this technology … things like vector torque control for engines, battery management systems … none of that existed before EV1.”
Now, Purcell has been dedicated to commercial electric vehicles. Via could have pursued a traditional initial public offering or a merger with a special purpose procurement company or SPAC. Instead, the launch went with Ideanomics, which focuses on charging, storing and producing electric vehicles.
“It simply came to our notice then [electrical] increased network, load capacity … we have component and subcomponent manufacturers, ”explained Alf Poor, CEO of Ideanomics De Barron. “This is one of the key pieces to approach the main operators of commercial fleets like the
Amazon
‘s [and]
Walmart
“.
Ideanomics shareholders have yet to sign the deal. But according to the reaction of the stock market on Monday, the deal should be received with enthusiasm.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]