UK-based self-driving electric car startup Arrival has announced that its unique microfactory in southern England has started manufacturing its first electric van. This news comes as the company wants to raise money so that it can build and sell its electric vehicles in the US.
The electric van uses bespoke in-house technologies including composite materials, autonomous mobile robots and in-house components and software-defined factories. This also ratifies Arrival’s unique microfactory concept which goes against the grain of the Gigafactory idea that Tesla has popularised.
“This is the first time a vehicle has ever been built in our Microfactory, using a new method that does not use a traditional assembly line,” said Denis Sverdlov, founder and CEO at Arrival, in a statement.
“Although we have not yet achieved serial production, we are focused on making it happen. We will continue to produce vehicles in our Microfactory in order to master at-scale production,” he added.
Arrival became publicly traded in March 2021 after merging with SPAC. It was founded in 2015. It is already developing electric delivery vans for UPS and also a car for Uber which is specialised for its ride-sharing needs. It will also be creating an electric bus.
Arrival also has the backing of the Hyundai motor group and its subsidiary Kia. It plans on making a series of micro-factories in the US as it wants to comply with the recently EV tax credits that require vehicles to be produced in North America.
Sverdlov estimates that Arrival will need $50 million for developing the micro-factories in the US and another $50 million in working capital.
