Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Lion's second quarter 2021 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Isabelle Adjahi, Vice President, Investor Relations and Sustainable Development. Please go ahead, Ms. Adjahi. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Lion's second quarter 2021 results conference call. While today's call will take place in English, we would, of course, be delighted to answer any question in French during the Q&A session. With me today are Marc Bédard, our CEO Founder, and Nicolas Brunet, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to mention that during the call, we will make certain forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations, which involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and certain material factors and assumptions, and as a result, are subject to risk and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements on this call. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to materially differ from forward-looking statements, please refer to our filings made today and to the risk factors contained in our final prospectus dated May 5, 2021, filed with the Autorité des marchés financiers, and to the registration statement on Form F-1, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and declared effective on June 14th, 2021. You can also consult other documents publicly filed with the AMF and the SEC. Forward-looking statements only speak as of the date they are made. You are cautioned not to put any reliance on forward-looking statements, and we undertake no duty to update this information unless required by law. Finally, please note that we report in US dollars and under IFRS. Comments today may refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA and certain performance metrics, such as the company's order book, which are defined, further described, and in certain cases, reconciled in our earnings release and MD&A issued this morning. With that, I will now hand the call over to Marc Bédard. Marc? Thank you, Isabelle. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us this morning. If I had to provide a title for our Q2 conference call, it will be, Despite the Pandemic, Lion is Delivering Strong Results and is Executing its Strategic Plan in a Very Organized and Timely Manner. Let me first remind you who Lion is. We manufacture 100% electric trucks and buses, no hybrids. We are solely focused on electric technology. No fuel cells, no CNG, no propane. Our vehicles are purpose-built for electric. We don't do retrofits. There are mainly three key elements that I would like you to remember from today's Q2 results announcement. Number one, we continue to see great momentum in client dialogue, which is translating into accelerated purchase orders and deliveries. Lion is one of the very few companies in the EV industry that is currently delivering vehicles and charging infrastructures while executing its growth plan. Our list of Tier 1 customers, such as Amazon, IKEA, Canadian National Railway, Sobeys, Con Edison, Heritage, First Student, National Express, FTA, L.A. Unified School District, keeps growing and continue to validate our unrivaled leadership in the market. Number two, we continue to advance the development and commercialization of new platforms, and we are planning to launch eight new models by the end of 2022, for a total of 15 all-electric models, the largest product line-up in the industry. Number three, we continue to achieve important milestones on our strategic plan, namely the construction of our Joliet, Illinois, manufacturing facility with a capacity of 20,000 vehicles per year, the construction of our battery plant and innovation center, as well as multiple hirings across the company. All this within our announced timeline despite the pandemic. In a nutshell, we are building up the entire organization to continue to execute on our strategic plan. All this while benefiting from an unprecedented favorable legislative backdrop, both in the U.S. and in Canada. I will now provide an update on each of these items, and I will then pass it on to Nicolas, who will discuss our financial performance for the second quarter. Let me start by discussing our deliveries and purchase order book. During Q2, we delivered 61 vehicles as compared to 22 last year, an increase of 177%. These deliveries consisted of 13 trucks and 48 buses. 41 of these vehicles were delivered in Canada, and 20 were delivered in the U.S. I am pleased to see continued momentum in deliveries despite the impact of the pandemic. As important to us as deliveries are purchase orders, as they give an indication of upcoming deliveries and related revenues. As of today, our order book totals 965 all-electric vehicles consisting of 703 buses and 262 trucks, representing a combined total order value of over CAD 280 million. We expect that the majority of these vehicles will be delivered within the next 12 months. Great new client wins in the order book include customers such as Green Mountain Power, Day & Ross, Zum, and Casella Waste Systems, just to name a few. The order book also includes a new order from Amazon for 15 Lion8 tractor trucks. It also includes a repeat purchase order for 35 LionC buses from the Prince Edward Island provincial government, positioning Lion as the lead electrical OEM in this province with a total of 47 electric school buses. Let me be very clear. This is an order book, not a pipeline or a backlog. The continued momentum in our order book stems directly from our ability to leverage the full Lion ecosystem that is tailored to electric vehicle fleet operators, as we have now been doing for many years. This includes a direct sales force that is highly specialized in EVs, complete infrastructure sales and support through LionEnergy, as well as leveraging our Experience Center network and our Grant team. Speaking of grants, we continue to see an unprecedented favorable legislative backdrop to promote EV adoption, both in the U.S. and in Canada, with a true desire by government officials to support a cleaner environment through tangible EV grant programs. Our order book includes numerous school bus orders for which customers have benefited from the CAD 250 million subsidy program launched by Quebec MTQ last April. In fact, 16 buses have already been delivered under this revised program. As a reminder, under this program, customer benefits from a subsidy amounting from CAD 100,000-CAD 150,000 per vehicle. What matters to us even more than the amount of the subsidy is the objective set by the government. They committed to having 2,600 new electric school buses on the road within the next three years and to electrifying 65% of Quebec's school bus fleet by 2030. Additionally, starting on November 1st, 2021, every new school bus registered in the province of Quebec will have to be an all-electric school bus. We are convinced that the subsidy program approach favored by the Quebec government is the right one to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, and that it will have a major impact on many other province and state legislations with respect to accelerated EV adoption. We also believe that Lion is uniquely positioned to deploy school buses as part of this program. Another notable EV incentive program you have all heard about is the California HVIP 1, which opened to new voucher requests lately with CAD 96 million for the purchase of commercial electric vehicles to be registered and operated in California. Lion is one of the leading applicants into the HVIP program. Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which includes CAD 5 billion of funding towards the replacement of existing school buses with clean and zero-emission school buses. With this vote, we are getting one step closer to unprecedented funding for initiatives targeting reduction in transportation emissions and charging infrastructures, which is very good news for our industry. Shortly after the end of the quarter, the California Legislature and Governor Newsom signed a budget bill to further promote the adoption of zero-emission vehicles. Under this new bill, the allocation of CAD 2.7 billion for zero-emission vehicles and their infrastructure in the state budget in 2021 and 2022 was authorized. This CAD 2.7 billion in funding is intended to put 1,000 new zero-emission trucks, 1,000 new zero-emission school buses, and 1,000 new zero-emission transit buses on the state's road and will support the rapid growth of charging stations across California. Lion, being the electric school bus leader in California and in North America, and also adding an unparalleled lineup of electric trucks available now for delivery, is very well positioned to tap into this program and continue to deploy electric vehicles in California in a timely manner. Last, only three days ago, the Canadian government further clarified the terms of its previously announced program and confirmed that through the Zero Emission Transit Fund, it will be investing CAD 2.75 billion over five years to support public transit and school bus operators' plan for electrification. This much-awaited announcement will support, among other initiatives, the purchase of 5,000 zero-emission buses. Navigating this grant environment requires a clear and thorough understanding of all the programs available. Over the years, our Lion Grant team has established lines of communication with key governmental bodies providing grants and subsidies, including the MTQ, the California Energy Commission, and CARB, to name a few. Being able to support our clients throughout the whole process with our Lion Grant team is one of the items that sets Lion apart from competition. Let me now spend a minute on other elements of the Lion ecosystem. Our Lion Energy division, which assists customers with selecting, purchasing, project managing, and deploying charging infrastructure ahead of vehicle delivery, also continues to gain momentum. In less than a year of operation, it has already generated revenues of more than CAD 500,000. As of today, the LionEnergy order book stood at 73 charging stations and related services, representing a total order value of approximately CAD 1 million. This includes an order for 35 charging stations from the government of PEI, which we announced earlier this week. As a reminder, we are agnostic when advising customers on their infrastructure needs, we are a reseller for different types of charging stations, including from ABB, ChargePoint, Flo AddEnergie, Blink, and Nuvve, with a full lineup of level two and three charging solutions. Finally, a word on our experience centers, which are dedicated spaces where customers, policymakers, and other transportation industry stakeholders can drive our electric trucks and buses, learn about their specifications and advantages, meet Lion sales representatives, discuss grants and subsidy assistance, receive vehicle training, and have existing vehicles serviced. We currently have eight Lion Experience Centers in operation across North America and expect four new ones to be in operation in Virginia, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Vermont by the end of the year. We are also simultaneously working at securing additional facilities to continue to expand our experience center network. Let me now provide an update on the execution of our strategic plan. First, our Joliet, Illinois manufacturing plant. I am pleased to report that the shell building of our 900,000 sq ft facility is approximately 80% completed. We have pictures showing the plant in our Q2 2021 results slide deck that you can find on our website. Completion of the construction of the building is still planned before the end of this year. We have retained Colliers International as construction project manager and Mercer as advisors to assist us with global project planning, as well as for the selection and commissioning of production equipment. As a reminder, our highly automated production facility will have a production capacity of 20,000 vehicles per year in full operation. It will be the largest dedicated production plant for zero-emission medium and heavy-duty vehicles in North America and Lion's biggest footprint in the United States. It will give us the ability to meet increasing demand in the marketplace for made-in-America zero-emission vehicles. Everything is going as planned, and the initial vehicle production is expected to begin in the second half of 2022. Now, turning to our battery plant and innovation center. During the quarter, we officially announced that our battery plant and innovation center will be located at the YMX International Aero City of Mirabel, which is about 20 mi from our current manufacturing site near Montreal. This project is well underway. Work such as geotechnical work, environmental studies, and permitting are currently being performed while on-site construction has already begun. We have retained Pomerleau, a flagship corporation in the Canadian construction industry, as project manager and general contractor for the construction of the battery plant and innovation center. In parallel, we have also retained JR Automation, a Hitachi company, for battery manufacturing automation, and equipment selection. Here again, I want to confirm that we are on track with the previously announced timeline and that the initial production of battery modules and packs is planned for the second half of 2022. Once fully operational, we expect an annual battery production capacity of 5 GWh, enough to electrify approximately 14,000 of Lion's electric trucks and buses. Producing our own battery modules and packs will be a key strategic differentiator, and it should result in significant cost savings, provide full control over battery specs and dimensions, and remove key supplier dependency. The third element of our strategic plan relates to the Lion team. We continued to improve our team on all fronts during Q2. As of today, our total head count amounts to approximately 900 employees, of which approximately 270 in engineering and R&D. We also recently started the hiring process for the Joliet manufacturing plant, and we'll update you on that process in the quarters to come. In our management team, Brian Piern joined us as our Chief Commercial Officer, François Beaulieu as our Vice President Chief Information Officer, Nathalie Giroux joined our leadership team as our Vice President Chief People Officer. Last, I would officially like to welcome Mr. Lorenzo Roccia, who recently joined Lion's Board of Directors. Lorenzo is the Chairman of Transatlantic Holdings. An international financial holding company. He also co-founded Transatlantic Power and Skyline Renewables, one of the largest energy renewable companies in the United States. We are looking forward to benefiting from Lorenzo's expertise. Before turning it to Nicolas to comment on our financial performance, I would like to briefly discuss our supply chain. Like many other automated OEMs, we are currently being impacted by an increase in the cost of certain components required to build our vehicles. This cost increase is mostly due to higher costs in the steel parts and harnesses, and also in the freight costs in general. This increase has had a marginal impact on our bill of materials as of today. We are also impacted by longer lead times on several components. Our approach to minimize delays and limit any cost increases is to overstock several key components, and we are grateful we adopted this philosophy even before the pandemic, thanks to our long-term experience in EVs and to our vertical integration strategy. For instance, we currently have inventory on hand of over 1,000 battery packs, with numerous additional shipments already scheduled for the rest of 2021, and additional significant quantities reserved for 2022 and also 2023. Additionally, our inventory of battery modules is sufficient to build approximately 240 additional Lion batteries. We also have several long-term agreements with other key suppliers, and in most cases, we have supplier redundancy for critical components. Our strategy of working in two markets, buses and trucks, serves us very well in this regard, given the commonality of many components that can be used on most, if not all, of our models. Altogether, we have been able so far to maintain a good production rate with few production delays while experiencing a slight increase in our material and freight costs. We are confident in our ability to significantly reduce our cost base when the global supply chain situation returns to normal. With that, let me now turn the call over to Nicolas, who will comment on our financial performance. Thank you, Marc. Despite a volatile economic environment, I am pleased with the progress our team continues to make. There are a few elements I would like to highlight before I comment on our Q2 2021 financial performance. First, as we close the transaction with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp on May 6, results presented for the second quarter consolidate those of NGA and are on a post-transaction basis. Second, the closing of the transaction has resulted or will result in the elimination of certain liabilities on our balance sheet and certain non-cash items on our P&L, namely as it relates to retractable common shares, convertible debt, and share-based compensation. I will further address these items in a moment. Let's now go into the details of our Q2 2021 performance. As mentioned by Marc, we delivered 61 vehicles in Q2 2021, including 48 school buses and 13 trucks. 41 of these deliveries took place in Canada, 20 in the U.S. This compares to 22 school buses delivered in Q2 2020. As a result, revenues for Q2 2021 were at CAD 16.7 million, compared to CAD 6.1 million in Q2 2020. Our gross profit was at 5% of sales, or CAD 0.9 million, down CAD 0.1 million as compared to CAD 1 million in Q2 2020. The decrease is primarily due to the impact of increased fixed manufacturing costs related to the ramp-up of production capacity for future quarters and, to a lesser extent, to an increase in raw material costs. It is of course partially offset by the positive gross profit impact of increased sales volume. Let me provide more granular information on this, as we believe that over the long term, once we are ramped up to run rate production, this will be a key indicator to look at. As previously explained, we are significantly investing and preparing for sustainable long-term growth and profitability. Consequently, salary, benefits, and other overhead costs have and will continue to have an impact on our gross profits and related margin as we work to increase our capacity. This will be the case until we reach production levels that are commensurate with our cost base in anticipation of recurring and increasing demand over the long term. To give you a better idea, we estimate that our overhead and direct labor costs on a per vehicle basis are currently four to five times higher than the cost per vehicle that we expect to incur once we reach run rate production. Nicolas, please let me chime in here with a comment on our gross margin. We have shown our ability to achieve healthy gross margins in the past, with our gross margins amounting to more than 30% in 2019. We are confident that we will return to industry-leading gross margins once our production reaches the targeted levels we are currently investing for. Thanks, Marc. Continuing with administrative expenses, they have increased by CAD 48.9 million to CAD 50 million, primarily because of a significant increase in non-cash share-based compensation of CAD 44.5 million and in expenses reflecting Lion's transition to being a public company. Last, costs related to the expansion of Lion's head office capabilities in anticipation of an expected increase in business also had an impact. Net of share-based compensation, administrative expenses were CAD 5.2 million. Selling expenses increased to CAD 13.3 million, up CAD 12.5 million as compared to Q2 2020. Primarily because of a significant increase in non-cash share-based compensation of CAD 10 million, expansion of Lion's sales force, as well as an increase in expenses associated with Lion Experience Centers. Net of share-based compensation, selling expenses were CAD 3.3 million. Net loss for Q2 amounted to CAD 178.5 million, inclusive of CAD 99 million in non-cash change in fair value of warrant obligation, CAD 55 million in non-cash share-based compensation, and close to CAD 14 million of transaction costs related to our combination with NGA and related public. Adjusted EBITDA was negative CAD 5.5 million compared to negative CAD 0.1 million in 2020. Adjusted EBITDA includes adjustments for certain non-cash and non-recurring items, which I just discussed, namely change in fair value of share warrant obligation and share-based compensation, as well as transaction and other non-recurring costs. As I alluded to at the beginning of my remarks, the closing of the combination with NGA and related public listing has resulted in a number of changes in our financials going forward, which for the most part will simplify our reporting. Let me take a few minutes to explain these changes. The 18 million shares, which were previously treated as a liability due to a put right by one shareholder, were reclassified to equity as the put right was eliminated upon closing of the transaction. In relation with this, the accretion expense related to this, which was included in financing costs up to this quarter, will no longer be incurred. With the cash settlement option and the company stock option plan removed at closing, the liability for share-based compensation was remeasured to fair value at May 6th, 2021, with changes in fair value recognized in net earnings this quarter. The resulting fair value was transferred to contributed surplus within shareholders' equity. Going forward, share-based compensation expense for existing options will no longer vary with the share price, and we therefore expect a significant reduction in such non-cash expense over the coming quarters. With all convertible debt and all credit facilities repaid, other than an CAD 11 million loan backed by government subsidies for vehicles ordered, we expect financing costs to decrease significantly in the next few quarters. Let's now discuss cash flow. Cash flow from operations for Q2 stood at negative CAD 40.7 million, inclusive of CAD 19.7 million of changes in working capital as we continue to scale the business and overstock to mitigate any potential supply chain issues, as Marc mentioned earlier, as well as CAD 13.7 million of transaction costs related to the combination with NGA and related public. During the quarter, acquisition of intangible assets, which mainly consists of R&D activity, amounted to CAD 10.7 million, up CAD 8.2 million as compared to CAD2.5 million last year. CapEx remained low at CAD 3.3 million as compared to CAD 0.4 million last year. We expect CapEx to increase significantly over the coming quarters as we start purchasing equipment for the Joliet vehicle plant and the battery facility. Let me now speak to select balance sheet items. First, we ended the quarter with CAD 364 million in cash and approximately CAD 11 million in debt facilities. As previously announced, we entered after the end of the quarter into an agreement for a revolving credit facility of up to CAD 100 million. Although we do not have immediate need for it, this credit facility is available for working capital expenditure requirements, and general corporate purposes if and when needed. We continue to feel confident about our ability to realize our growth projects with the liquidity currently on hand. Separately, we have added on our balance sheet the liabilities related to the NGA warrants, which were converted to Lion warrants. Altogether, the warrant liability stood at CAD 297 million on our balance sheet. This liability is expected to fluctuate from quarter to quarter based on Lion's share price, with the change in valuation going through the P&L as a non-cash gain or loss. My last comment before turning the microphone over to Marc will be a brief one pertaining to our long-term financing solutions program. We believe that the ability to secure financing from our customers' purchase of our electric vehicles is an important aspect to ease the transition to EV for our customers, as it significantly smoothens the cash flow profile, and in many cases, allows the customer to benefit from a favorable TCO from day one. We currently have attractive financing options tailored to EVs that we offer clients via partnerships with third parties. We are continuing to work on a more programmatic approach, not only for vehicle financing, but also for the monetization of credit on behalf of our clients. We are in dialogue with both the private and public sectors on both sides of the border to that effect. We will update you as we progress towards building this Lion financing solution, which will ultimately aim to further accelerate our purchase order book and pace of delivery. In conclusion, we are pleased by Lion's second quarter results and expect continued growth in purchase orders, production, and delivery. Thank you, Nicolas. Before we open the line for questions, I would like to insist on the fact that we are very excited by the trend we are seeing in orders and deliveries, as well as in the timely execution of our strategic plan. We have been able to achieve all of this while working in a very challenging environment because of the pandemic, and while becoming a public company. As previously mentioned, in the next few months, we will first continue to focus on our customers and on working with fleet owners to provide them a turnkey solution and help them navigate the transition to electric in full confidence. Second, we will keep executing our strategic plan in a timely manner. We will finalize the construction of our Joliet, Illinois plant, and we will continue to advance the construction of our 5 GWh per year battery assembly plant and innovation center. Third, we will keep attracting the best talent, make strategic hires, and strengthen the team to successfully execute on our plan to always be better and always go faster. With that, let's now open the lines for questions. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Benoit Poirier with Desjardins. Hi. Good morning, Marc. Good morning, Nicolas. Congratulations for the good quarter and also the ramp up. Good morning, Benoit. Good to talk to you, man. Yes. Looking at the current pipeline of deliveries ahead, would it be fair to expect more deliveries in Q3 and Q4 versus Q2? Is there some seasonality to take into consideration? That's certainly what we're aiming for Ben, and we're expecting a continued ramp up in POs, and deliveries as well. No seasonality to think of right now. We're focused on continuing to grow. Okay, perfect. Could you talk about the reliability or feedback on the truck delivered so far in first half? Obviously the Amazon follow-on order, very positive sign, but just curious to get the feedback on the truck so far. Hey, Ben, it's Nick again. With relates to Amazon, we're going to stick to disclosing the purchase orders and the deliveries. We'll keep the dialogue on the trucks between them and ourselves. Obviously, it's an important relationship and their operations, it will be about them to disclose. Obviously, we're pleased to announce the new order for the YAT. Yeah. Ben, with respect to the other deliveries, we're getting very good feedback. It's obviously a new product, but with a technology we've been using for many, many years. You probably remember the commonality we have between our platforms, and I think this is serving us very, very well right now. Okay. That's great. Then, last one for me. In terms of working cap, Nicolas, how should we expect the working cap evolution to evolve in the second half? Yeah, Ben, we should expect a continued investment in working cap as Marc mentioned previously. The way for us to mitigate the current supply chain issues has been to overstock. We've been doing that for a while, and this will continue. We're pleased to invest in working cap to allow for more deliveries and to result in more sales. We do expect an increase there in the coming quarters. A continued increase. Okay, perfect. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for the time. I'll pass the line. Thank you, Thank you, Benoit. Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Lamers with BMO Capital Markets. Good morning. Hey, Jonathan. Good morning, Jonathan. Yeah. On the recent U.S. state-funded awards, including the California HVIP, how have Lion's win rates been so far? Is that something you can comment on? Yeah, look, certainly. We'll keep the comment high level, Jonathan. There were two additional rounds of HVIP applications, one in June and one in August. I think they publish eventually the applications, so we'll let them speak to the numbers. I would say we had a very good two rounds of application. We're very pleased, and lots of client demand, and it's a program that we think works very well, very efficient. Yeah, I'm very pleased with the applications. When do you expect to learn the results of your partners' applications? In some cases we have, some of them have already been approved. Yeah, it's an ongoing process, and like I said, HVIP does publish the vouchers, we want to respect their doing that in their timing. Yeah, pleased with the applications. Thanks. In the U.S. Go ahead. Oh, sorry. How you expect orders to build ahead of the new Joliet assembly facilities ramp? Second part to this question, have you had any feedback from customers on the U.S. Senate infrastructure bill? Will customers be waiting until the funds are available before placing second orders? Yeah. Great questions, Jonathan. With respect to the POs ramp, we've hired a few months ago Brian Piern as our Chief Commercial Officer. It's going very well. You see the purchase. Well, you see the order book right now at 965 units, which is quite good. With sales over CAD 280 million. That's very good right now, despite everything that happened in the last year. With respect to the orders for the trucks. For example, the people will see more and more of those trucks. On the streets. This is really helping us. This is what happened with the school buses as well. It started slowly, then there was a major ramp up. We see a very serious dialogue with the customers, and we see customers that are also very sophisticated in terms of total cost of ownership analysis. We've been doing this for many years, and we understand that going electric and having a smooth transition goes with making money with those trucks and buses. Our customers, they get that. We are seeing a great momentum in those discussions. Really looking forward to build this order book even quicker than we've been doing in the past. Nick, do you want to take the second part of the question? Yes. The second question was about the infrastructure bill, Jonathan. Just if you have any feedback from customers on the bill. I'm curious whether customers will wait until those funds are available before placing follow-up orders. Well, I don't have any specific customer feedback on the bill. I think everyone that's in the school bus space and everyone in the public sector around this, it's very clear that there will be very significant amounts deployed towards school bus electrification. We're pleased. It's not just the bill, it's the general support and the mission to electrify school buses. Overall, it's a very positive bill and program. I'd say that we're seeing dialogue for electrification now, and you can't just turn the dial and make it happen at the snap of fingers. The movement's happening and parties are engaged now on electrification. Thanks. I have one last topic, if I can. Just on the battery pack and the new battery plant that's ramping- Yeah Marc, could you compare Lion's current small-scale battery pack assembly operations to the more automated operations you're planning for the large new battery plant? Some investors are concerned about the potential challenges you might face as you ramp that new plant. Sure. Yeah. We've been doing battery packs, Jonathan, as you know, for the last six, seven years. I think, again, this is serving us very well. Many of the key components within the battery pack we've been mastering for many years. One of those is the BMS, the battery management system, which is like the brain of the battery pack. We have our own. We've been using our own BMS for many years, and this is what we will keep doing. Obviously, manufacturing our own battery packs using our own BMS is kind of the same thing we will be using, but at a very high scale. The big difference, obviously, it will be the number of units we will be manufacturing. That's one of the reason we partner with JR Automation, Hitachi Corporation. If you look at what they've been doing, most of the major battery plants, the biggest in the world, they were involved. At some point, they were doing the project management of those plants. We decided to partner with the best people in the industry, and we've been at this for a while now, and this is why we feel so good about the timing of that. It will be something like, probably a bigger challenge if we will just start doing battery packs, as some people might be thinking of doing at some point. Since we've been doing this for six, seven years, we feel great about that. Thanks for your comments. Thank you. Your next question comes to the line of Michael Glen with Raymond James. Hey, good morning. I just want to come back to the battery plant discussion because you see news flow regarding some of the investments that are going in right now. You're talking about billion-dollar investments being made by large companies to build battery manufacturing plants at scale. How do you think about the cost profile of your facility once it's up and running? Do you feel confident that you're going to be able to continue producing at a competitive cost versus some of the new investments that are going in? No, we do, Michael. It's a good question. We've had that question a few times in the past, and I think there's a little bit of confusion between what we're doing and what some other companies are doing. When you're talking about billions of dollars of investments, we're talking about companies investing in the cells. They will be manufacturing their own cells, which we will not be doing. We are buying the cells and, as you know, putting them into modules and then modules into battery packs, which is quite different. The budget we have for the automation of this battery facility is quite significant. As I said just earlier, we're doing business with the best and state-of-the-art technologies, and many of those technologies are proprietary components of Lion. Yeah, our cost will be very good and obviously will be impacted by the cost of the cell. The cell is a major part of the overall cost. Of the battery pack at the end of the day. We really enjoy what we've been hearing and some of the investments in the U.S. in this regard. That's going to cut on the freight end cost as well, that this is also going to increase the U.S. content into what we are doing, and we are pleased about that. Have you indicated at all what type of cost savings, have you quantified that at all? What type of cost savings you expect to achieve once the facility is at run rate capacity? Yeah. No, absolutely we did. We did in the past, Michael, we're thinking about cost saving of about 50%. Major cost saving, if we do compare with the battery pack that we've been buying from third-party suppliers. Okay. Just circling in on Illinois, the facility. You've highlighted some of the supply chain shortages taking place. We read about these supply chain shortages right now across so many areas. How do you prepare yourself? Getting this plant up and running is obviously critically important for you. Do you have any concerns regarding your ability to take possession of the equipment necessary to get that plant up and running in that time? It is a tight timeline that you're talking about, so I just wanted to get some insight into that. Yeah, no, good question, Michael. Again, we've been manufacturing electric vehicles for about almost six years now. I think, again, this is helping us a lot. A new OEM trying to get into the market and make all the processes to do the EV vehicles, that will not be easy. Since we've been doing this for many, many years, and since we are doing this, and we are also in a relationship with all of those suppliers, including all the Tier 1 suppliers. I will not say it's like almost a slam dunk, but obviously those suppliers are really looking for a Lion running at full scale, and that will be great. Now what we're looking at doing to cut in the freight end as well, and also to be more and more local is to build the local procurement. This is what we're doing now at the Montreal factory, and this is what we will be doing in Illinois as well. We started that already. We started doing some hires in Illinois. We will take the occupancy of the building before the end of the year, this year. This is great, and we are building the workforce at the same time that we are looking at local suppliers. Obviously, it's always a challenge that we don't want to, let's say, underestimate. This is something we are doing on the daily basis and we've been doing for many, many years. Okay. Just some insight into the experience centers. You are talking about four additional. What exactly will these look like? How many square feet will they be? Will they include things like service bays? Are these strictly sales centers? Just trying to get a sense of what they will look like. Yeah. Absolutely, Jonathan. We are expanding quite quickly right now. We have eight, we will be to 12, before the end of the year, and we're looking at many, many other states as well. We're basically following our customers. We're doing B2B, not B2C. A lot of the work, the maintenance work at the customer's request is being done by the mechanics of the customers. Any specialized work, we're doing this at the experience center. All the experience centers are EV-focused only. That the first thing with all the technicians and the mechanics having experience in EV, we are doing ride-and-drives at the experience centers. We are doing the service as well. We're doing the kind of specialized service also. Let's say, if anything happens with the battery packs or a specialized component, we are doing this as well. It's also a place where you can see all the models. You can ride a Lion8 truck, a Lion6 truck. You can ride the buses as well. Even if you are in there, to buy a bus, but you're looking at the trucks, this is the kind of momentum we are building. When you're going into those places, it's really a place where you can drive all those EVs. Obviously, when you are putting a truck and a bus on the road, you need to do some specialized maintenance at some point. Especially with EV, you need to take care of that if anything happens at some point. We want to make sure that this bus and truck will be back on the road within a few hours. This is what we have been doing for many years right now, and this is what we will keep doing. Okay. Thanks for the insights. I'll leave it there. Okay. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Rupert Merer with National Bank. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. The order book grew this quarter and could sustain a higher rate of deliveries. Can you comment on what drove the pace of deliveries in Q2? Is it customer schedule, or is it your production capacity? If it's production capacity, how do you see that changing over the next few quarters, and what's going to pace the increase in your capacity? Let's talk about that. In terms of production capacity, we have a manufacturing capacity in Montreal of 2,500 units per year right now. Well, you know that there are mainly two things driving the manufacturing capacity. It's a good thing. It's a great thing, I think, that we can manufacture 2,500 units per year. In terms of equipment, there's two things. It's really equipment and all of the infrastructure, and also the labor needed to do that. Obviously, we are ramping up the labor as need be with the orders coming in and the schedule of deliveries, with the dialogue we have with our customers, we're ramping up the number of people we need to do that. You probably remember at the beginning of the year, we had 450 people at Lion. Right now, we're at 900 people. We are ramping up pretty fast right now, 10- 30 people a week, basically. With the number of people that we have right now working in manufacturing, we're two third of the way to reach the goal of 2,500 units. I'm very pleased to say that we can manufacture those vehicles and that we have two third of the labor force to get to that 2,500 units capacity. I think it's a great news. I think that I don't know any other OEMs that can say something like that. Now, in terms of deliveries, there have been a couple of challenges as you guys have been seeing everywhere in the marketplace. To give you an idea, we have about 2,000 components on an electric bus. You need all of those components to deliver the buses and trucks. The good thing is that what we've been doing for many years, is that we've been overstocking inventory because EV is still at the early stage. We've suffered a little bit from that, but it's very well under control. Now, everything else we're doing around manufacturing those buses is key, and this is why we call it the Lion Ecosystem, because we need to make sure also that the charging infrastructure will be in place. The pandemic had an impact on all of that, not only on the supply chain, but also on the charging infrastructure manufacturing. Well, the good thing is that we are also overstocking the charging infrastructure so we can deliver in a timely manner. Once you are controlling all of that, obviously the client dialogue and making sure this is the right timing for the customer. Everybody knows that a lot of the school districts were still closed in the last few months, so I'd say we had to deal with that. I think we were able to do very well, having a very close communication with our customers. Despite this pandemic, despite all of the issues I've been talking about, we've been able to deliver those 61 units despite probably the worst crisis of the last 50 years. Great. Thank you. You talked about your gross margins. They improved quarter-over-quarter, and you are going to look to drive those much higher in the future, of course. I realize the company is going to look very different in a few years, but I'm wondering if you can comment on your cost structure today. How much of your cost of goods sold is fixed operating costs? How much is variable? What does the trajectory look like from here to get to your target margins? Do we see step changes, or is this going to be more of a gradual evolution? Yeah. I can comment on this, Rupert. Thanks. Definitely gradual changes that we see. The biggest cost items in the COGS is obviously the material, but there's quite a bit of overhead in there. As I mentioned before, we're on a per-vehicle basis. The overhead and labor is much higher than where it will be at run rate, gradually that's because we're investing in the future, of course. At the detriment of current margins, we're ramping up for future production, which is the end goal for us, right? Future production and much higher deliveries. Yeah, expect gradual changes, and just a better absorption of our fixed cost base as we go over time. About what percentage of your cost today would be fixed versus variable? Just roughly. Yeah. On a sort of a yearly basis, we pointed to that in the past. We talked about 25%. The thing to keep in mind is obviously we're growing the fixed cost portion right now in investing in the people and the overhead. It's a mix of both growing the fixed cost base and at the same time growing the deliveries. Ultimately, we expect that this will result in a much better absorption. Great. Just one more quick one. You talked about momentum in your client dialogue, and we have seen the order book grow, of course, but you mentioned that the backlog and the pipeline is also evolving. I'm wondering if you can give us some color on how the backlog and pipeline is evolving, and any numbers you can give us maybe on how that is growing relative to the order book? Yeah, Rupert, as you know, we cannot give any specific numbers. I can tell you, the momentum is very good. You saw probably the list of the Tier 1 customers we are dealing with, and it's great customers that have a major impact on other customers as well. We cannot give that number. We like to give real numbers. As I said at the beginning, this is really an order book. A pipeline or a backlog could happen or could never happen. What we like about the order book is that this is confirmed, we will be making those deliveries. This is a real number. Every time we were talking about pipelines and backlog, you never know. That might happen. That might happen in a few years. Basically, our job is to convert that discussion with the customer into a purchase order and report this in the order book that we can communicate with you on a quarterly basis. All right. Very good. I'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Nauman Satti with Laurentian Bank. Hi, good morning, everyone. Good morning. My first question is, it is more like a clarification question with regards to your order book. Marc, did you say that this is going to get delivered over the next 12 months, or is that going to take longer than to fill this order book up? I said that most of the order book will be delivered within the next 12 months. Okay. The majority of it. Yeah. Okay. That's perfect. Secondly, just going back to the supply chain and delays in pricing question. I'm just wondering, the new plan that you're coming up with in Illinois and in Quebec, has any pricing or your cost estimates changed when you guys were getting into it and how sort of the market is evolving, or is that something that you are protected with your partners? Well, let me maybe start with this. I think, Nauman, the fact that we've been stocking a lot of the major components have been really helping us in terms of cost. Not only being able to make the deliveries to customers, but also in terms of cost, because we were kind of protected from some of this crisis right now. We do have a long-term relationship with those Tier 1 suppliers. They have an idea of where we are going. We are securing prices and pricing for the future as well. We see our Tier 1 suppliers as being very good partners of us. Okay. That's fair. Just maybe a last one that's on the cost side. I know there is an element of operating leverage that's going to come in eventually, but just on the product side, when you guys are investing in R&D, has there been any progress apart from battery within your trucks where you've sort of reduced the cost, or they're pretty much going to come from operating leverage only? No, you're absolutely right, Nauman. Obviously, it comes from scaling up, but it also comes from the R&D we're doing. I think the number of people we have right now, like 270 over the 900 people we have, and we will keep growing that. What they're doing, obviously, we're doing some product development, but most of the components we're using, even on the new products, are taking the benefit of what we've been doing in the last few years, but also always improving quality and always bringing down the cost. Those costs will be going down because of all the R&D that we are doing and using state-of-the-art technology that we are developing. You are absolutely right. Also, it's going to be coming from what we're doing in the battery plant. The battery plant we will be opening next year will be a major cost saving, as we said earlier, because basically, we're taking control over the module. There's a lot of cost within the cell in the module. We're taking control over the module. Not only is it better quality, but also we're bringing down the cost, and we are managing the shortage of cells as well because, as you know, we're going to the 21700 cylindrical cells. We're getting right now into long-term supply agreements in this regard. It's really a mix of all of that, securing the supply, getting better products, but also shaving the cost. This is what we're doing on a daily basis, and this is what we've been doing for many years. Okay. No, that's great. Maybe I'll just ask one more. This is about LionEnergy. You guys are reselling some of these chargeRs. I'm wondering if when you think of that part of the business, is that just to build up your order book and fasten that sort of transition to EV, or is that a business where you guys are making some profits as well? It's a mix of both because we're making profit. We are definitely making profit in this division, no doubt. You're also right. The first goal of LionEnergy is to smoothen the transition for the customer. It's to make sure that the charging infrastructure will be the right one, first of all, at the right price for the customer and also installed in a timely manner. For any new coming OEM or dealer in the marketplace, that's a huge challenge. Getting the charging infrastructure in time is a major challenge. At Lion, we've been able to secure A lot of stock from many of the key suppliers for our customers. Our customers are pleased with that. We do have the stock. We do have also the charging infrastructure to secure the deliveries, to make sure we will be able to deliver in the next 12 months as well. This is making a huge difference. Lion Energy, yeah, we're making profit, but also we're smoothing the transition. Okay. Makes sense. That's it from me, and congrats on the good work that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nauman. Your next question comes from the line of Jon Lopez with Vertical Group. Hi. Good morning. Thanks very much for taking the questions. Good morning, Jon. Hi. I just had a couple of quick ones, if I could. The first one, your CapEx was quite meaningfully below our model. It sounded, in your prepared remarks, like some of this is perhaps timing related. Excuse me, could you just speak to CapEx needs in the second half of this calendar year and then in 2022 as you ramp Joliet and as you ramp the battery factory in Quebec? Jon. We were reiterating the same figures we put out before. $130 million for the Joliet plant and CAD 185 for the battery plant here. Recall that out of this CAD 185, CAD 100 is to come from the government debt that we secured here. Call it, on a net basis, $70 million here, net of that debt in that quarter for the plant. Now the CapEx has been low. Yes, it is a timing issue. The CapEx you see there is really around the plant here in Saint-Jerome. We expect that in Q3, Q4, the CapEx will start on both plants. It'll be a mix of deposits and commitments and expect that to be obviously lumpy given the type of equipment that we buy, but those will be the big picture needs. Okay. Thanks very much. Sorry, just is it conceptually right to assume that CAD 200 million will be spent between now and the end of 2022, just given the factory timings? Yeah, that's definitely right. Yeah. Okay. That helps. Secondly, and I guess somewhat relatedly, it sounds like in the filings that most of the costs, like in Joliet in particular, are not yet flowing through your financial statements. How do we think about that as the OpEx profile changes, perhaps in the second half of the calendar year? What are the line items we should look for, and what kind of relative increases would you expect? Not much of it relates to Joliet, because this will be CapEx. What you're going to see on the balance sheet is an asset and a liability related to the lease engagement that we have there. We don't expect that it will be OpEx until the plant is operating. Don't expect much by way of OpEx this year. Okay. Understood. The last one, I just wanted to come back to the gross margin quickly. I apologize because I know you've talked through this a little bit, but I want to ask it this way, and perhaps you could help us tease it apart. Deliveries were up like 3x year-over-year. Gross profit is down a couple of hundred thousand dollars year-on-year. Even if we assume 25% is fixed, and that is up a lot, it seems sort of tough to square. Just perhaps could you tease those various factors apart again, and what do you think is just the fixed cost side, perhaps anything on the inflation side? And then is there perhaps, on a per vehicle basis, are there any pressures that you would call out to us as we think about this period versus a year ago? A couple of things. Yeah, the 25% that we talk about is really on a full year basis. As I mentioned, we're rolling that fixed cost component. Last year, we were not in the growth investment mode, and so it really is in big part the fixed component and the absorption of both overhead and labor. I'd say, Jon, as well, you talked about inflation, so does it have an impact? Yes, but it's qualified as a marginal impact. It's not very significant. I'd also say that what has an impact is the ASP and the mix of vehicles that we're selling, where we tend to sell more garnished and more onboard energy vehicles in the U.S. than we do in Canada. We had a more Canadian mix in this quarter relative to last year. There's improvement potential at the ASP level and then at the volume level. By and large, the biggest aspect right now is this investment in capacity that's affecting gross margin, both overhead and the quantity and the bill related to the labor. Okay. Understood. Thank you very much for all the thoughts. Thank you, Jon. Thank you, Jon Your next question comes on line of Benoit Poirier with Desjardins. Yeah. Just looking at the product launches, you intend to introduce eight new models to be commercialized by the end of 2022. Could you maybe talk about the timing for those product launches, whether it's more skewed toward the back half of 2022? Yeah. Thank you, Benoit. We've always said that we will be launching three additional models this year and five models in 2022. We're still online with this timing. We're talking about the Lion8 bucket truck. For the end of the year, the Lion6 utility and also the Lion8 tractor. We are still looking at this timing to start delivering those trucks. That's great news. We're working full scale on this. You probably remember also that in 2022, we're talking about the Lion5, the Lion 7, the Lion Z, the boom truck, the ambulance as well. It's going very well. Some of them will be available earlier in the year. I can report that we've made significant progress on the Lion5 and also on the ambulance, which is very good. Well, in fact, on all of them. Some of them will be launched at the beginning of next year, and some of them will be mostly in the second half of 2022. Despite everything else that happened and the pandemic and everything, we're still online with the timing we've announced earlier. Okay. Marc, could you maybe provide additional details on the refuse truck venture? I know you're having a competitive advantage. It's a pretty strong market as well. Maybe just color on the refuse truck market and the pipeline of opportunities. That would be great. We're getting good orders, Benoit. We had some lately with Casella, that we've announced also this morning. As you know, this is an electric body that is installed on our electric truck. Many OEMs are finding this right now. The challenge for the upfitters is quite significant to integrate the current technology on the electric truck. We've been working on this for many years, and it makes a huge difference because you can do the full day of operation on a single charge, and also with the same energy system. This is what the operators are looking for. They're not looking to have two charging stations to operate their refuse truck or any other truck as well. They only want to plug in with one charging station, and they want to make sure that when they start in the morning, they can do the full day of operation with the energy that they do have on board. The electric battery operation on our electric truck is very efficient, and that's one of the reasons why the operators can do over 1,000 stops in one day, and then they can do the full day of operation on this. It's going very well. Those trucks, we will begin delivering those trucks very shortly. Okay. Thanks again. Thank you, Benoit. Your last question will come from the line of Jonathan Lamers with BMO Capital Markets. Thanks. A follow-up on the near term order trends and the school bus business. Marc, you mentioned a lot of school bus districts have been closed over the past two months. Has that had an impact on school bus orders? Do you expect school bus orders to trend up sequentially over the next couple of quarters? Is there any seasonality on the order side there that we should be aware of over the coming quarters? Not really, Jonathan. The impact was more on the delivery side, because at some point there was nobody at the school district, really. We need to be respectful of the customer needs with this crisis. The priority was really safety of the people. It was more an impact on delivery. On the order side, not a lot of impact. It's doing well. Everything you see in Canada and the U.S. right now, the whole market is going electric. You saw what happened in Quebec. Starting in November of 2021, you will not be able to register a bus that is not an electric bus, and we feel this is going to have major impacts everywhere. You probably heard also the announcement from Trudeau this week, with the amount of money they are investing in buses and in school buses. Same thing on the U.S. side with Mr. Biden. Very promising. There's a lot of money out there. For those who were still thinking at some point that electric might not happen, we're not hearing this anymore. It seems like we have a consensus that this is absolutely happening, and now we have a dialogue with the customers on the timing of those orders, deliveries. No, it's very promising. We're proud and we're glad that we made that decision of starting our business with the electric buses five, six years ago. We felt that was a pretty smart choice back then. Okay, thanks for your comments. Thank you, Jonathan. This is all the time we have for questions. I will turn it back over to Isabelle Adjahi for closing comments. Well, thanks everyone for joining the call today. This is all the time we have, but we are really looking forward to continuing the discussion, and I invite you to get in touch with me for any follow-up questions that you may have. Have a nice day. Thank you.