Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Lion Electric Annual Meeting of Shareholders. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Isabelle Adjahi. Please go ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing. Welcome to Lion Electric Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Welcome to the annual general assembly of Lion Electric. This meeting will be held in French. However, you may choose to hear it in English by selecting the appropriate tab in the window above the presentation on the right side of your screen. As such, questions may be submitted in either French or English. This meeting will be conducted in French. However, you can choose to listen to it in English by selecting the appropriate tab in the window above the presentation on the right side of the screen. Questions may be submitted in either French or English. This year we are holding this meeting as a virtual meeting in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 and to put the well-being of our shareholders and colleagues and anyone else attending this meeting first and foremost as the most important matter. Thank you so much for being with us today. The proxy statement, the notice of annual meeting, and other documents in connection with the meeting, and the Form 20-F, the annual report for the year ended December 31, 2021, including Lion Electric's audited and consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2021, are available on Lion's website in the Investor section. These documents have also been filed on SEDAR at sedar.com and on EDGAR at sec.gov. You can also access the meeting materials by clicking on the Document icon in the navigation bar at the top left of your screen. I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Pierre Larochelle, Lion's Chairman of the Board. Mr. Larochelle, you have the floor. Thank you, Isabelle. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, dear shareholders. I am Pierre Larochelle, Chairman of the Board and Director of Lion Electric. Welcome to the 2022 annual meeting of shareholders. Now let me introduce the people who are joining us today. Mr. Marc Bédard, President and Founder of Lion Electric. Nicolas Brunet, Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer, and François Duquette, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary. François will act as Secretary of the meeting to ensure that procedures are properly followed and implemented. Also, I would like to mention the other board members. Before I will start the formal parts of the assembly, I would like to tell you that I am proud to be Chairman of the Board of this agile and successful company, Lion Electric. I would like to express my thanks, appreciation to Lion's management and employees for all their unwavering efforts since Lion's inception, but especially over the past year in this COVID pandemic environment. The board has been working closely with management teams to deliver on our growth strategy. As we are starting our second year as a public company, 2021 has demonstrated that the electrification of transportation is no longer an option but a necessity for our company. Lion Electric is uniquely positioned to be a major player in this industry. At the same time, our team has also laid the groundwork for our own sustainability strategy. While our commitment to a sustainable company is in several parts of our DNA, we want to contribute to building a sustainable society, and we will be implementing in 2022 a policy that will have long-term impact on climate change, on the socioeconomic environment, and on our governance practices. I would like to thank our customers and shareholders for their support throughout the year. We will begin the formal part of the meeting and address the items on the agenda. Marc will then give a brief presentation, followed by the Q&A session. I would encourage you to wait until the Q&A session if you have any questions about the items other than those of the agenda. If there is a technical glitch, if the meeting stops, please be aware that the notice of the annual meeting of the shareholders has been properly given. A quorum is present and all matters to be voted on are deemed to have been properly brought before the meeting and the meeting will be adjourned. 3 items are on today's agenda. First, approval of the audited consolidated financial statements of Lion Electric for the year ended December 31, 2021, and the independent auditor's report. 2, the election of the directors named and those of others to hold office until the end of the next annual meeting of the shareholders or until their successors' appointment. Third, appointment of Lion Electric's independent auditor for the next 2 years and authorizing the directors to fix his or her compensation. As this meeting is virtual through a live webcast, I would like to go over a few points to ensure the smooth running of this meeting. First, only people registered as holders of common stock of record at the close of business on March 25th, 2022, or their duly appointed proxies who have registered with our transfer agent, TSX Trust, and obtained a control number prior to this meeting are entitled to attend, ask questions, and vote at this meeting. All other proxies are entitled to attend this meeting as guests. Second, registered shareholders and duly appointed proxies who have registered with our transfer agent and obtained a control number will be able to vote on each item of business through the formal portion of the meeting by making their vote on the left side of their screen. Once we have completed the formal business to be transacted at the meeting, we will close the polls. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxies who have already voted are not required to vote again unless if they wish to change their vote. Fourth, only registered shareholders and duly appointed proxies who have registered with our transfer agent and obtained a control number may submit questions at any time by clicking on the tab on the left of their screen. Questions relating to agenda items will be read aloud at the end of this formal portion. Any other general questions will be addressed during the Q&A session. If we receive similar questions via the portal, we will combine them into one single question. Questions that have already been answered will not be asked again. Finally, we will not respond to questions or comments that contain inappropriate language or otherwise disrupt the orderly conduct of the meeting for all shareholders. That being said, on the next slide, I would like to draw your attention on the text on the current slide and advise you all that some of the comments you will hear today are forward-looking statements with the meaning of securities laws that involve assumptions and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results or operations to differ materially from those expressed and by such forward-looking statements. The prospective statements are only applicable today, and we are not obligated to update or revise such statements. We also refer you to our discussions regarding prospective statements contained in our Form 20-F, which is available on SEDAR filings on our website and in all of the other documents as well filed before the Canadian Securities Administrators and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Now to the formal proceedings for this meeting, I will be the chairman and Monsieur Duquette will be the secretary. For your information, Miss Catherine Osero and Mr. Matthias Folari, representatives of Posi-Plus Company, the transfer agents and registrar of Lion Electric, will act as scrutineers at this meeting. Their role is to count the votes cast by proxy and those voted during the meeting. I will now ask François Duquette, secretary of the meeting, to confirm that all required procedures have been followed to declare this meeting fully constituted to transact all business for which it was called. Monsieur Duquette? I have received confirmation from the scrutineers, from the stockholders entitled to receive a copy of the Notice of Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Lion Electric and the Notice of Availability of Proxy Material and Proxy Form dated March 25, 2022. Shareholders of record have received them. The audited consolidated financial statements of Lion Electric for the year ending December 31, 2021, have been made available to all shareholders via SEDAR filings and our website. I would like to point out that this annual meeting of stakeholders has been called to transact the business specified in the notice of meeting. The notice contains information on how to obtain the proxy statement and meeting material, including the audited consolidated financial statements of Lion Electric, as well as how to request a printed copy in accordance with the notice and access procedures submitted by the Canadian Securities Administrators. To access the notice of meeting and the proxy circular for this meeting, clicking on the appropriate tab at the top left of your screen. In addition, a copy of all these three documents as well as the affidavit confirming the meeting to shareholders can be found online at Lion Electric. Prior to beginning the meeting, scrutineers have accounted for the number of shareholder registrations and proxies received to confirm that there's a quorum at this present meeting. The scrutineers report will also be included in the minutes. I declare that this meeting has been duly convened and is fully constituted to transact all business for which it was called. Thank you, François. I will now file the audited annual consolidated financial statements of Lion Electric for the year ending December 31, 2021. These financial statements are accompanied by the independent auditor's report, and these documents have been sent in accordance with the provisions of the law to all shareholders who have requested them and have been made available to all stockholders in accordance with the notice and access procedures submitted by the Canadian Securities Administrators. I will dispense Monsieur Duquette reading of them. I would ask the secretary to attach the minutes of this meeting, Form 20-F, in lieu of an annual report, including the consolidated financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2021, together with the independent auditor's report thereon. Let's move on to the issues that require a vote at this meeting. Before proceeding to the adoption of the resolutions, I would like to comment briefly on the voting procedure. Each share of Lion Electric stock gives shareholders one vote on all matters to be acted upon at the meeting. The outcome of the matters to be voted upon will be determined by a majority of the votes cast at the meeting by proxy or at the meeting by the shareholders. As indicated in the notice of meeting, the deadline for submitting proxies was May 4, 2022 at 11 A.M. The scrutineers have informed me that based on the proxies received prior to the meeting, approximately 38% of the shares entitled to vote at the meeting will be voted today. A majority will be in favor of each of the items to be voted upon. In order to simplify and expedite the proceedings at the meeting, we have asked shareholders participating in our webcast to introduce and second each of the proposed votes today. Let's move on to the election of directors. The board has set the number of 8 directors to be selected at the assembly. All of the current board members previously nominated are standing for re-election. We are also pleased to nominate Ms. Ann L. Payne, who, if elected, will serve as an independent candidate. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Ms. Payne, who is with us today. Please note the background of each of the nominees is described in more detail in the proxy statement, which contains a list of nominees for election as directors of the board. The nominees are Ms. Sheila C. Bair, Mr. Marc Bédard, Ms. Ann L. Payne, Mr. Pierre-Olivier Perras, Mr. Michel Ringuet, Mr. Lorenzo Roccia, Mr. Pierre Wilkie and myself, Pierre Larochelle. I confirm that each of the nominees has confirmed his or her willingness to serve as a director, and each of these persons is eligible to be a director under the provisions of the Business Corporations Act (Quebec). Nathalie Giroux, a shareholder of the corporation, is willing to nominate these individuals for election as directors of the corporation. Thank you, Mr. Larochelle. My name is Nathalie Giroux. I am a shareholder of the company. I hereby nominate Sheila Bair, Marc Bédard, Pierre Larochelle, Ann L. Payne, Pierre-Olivier Perras, Michel Ringuet, Lorenzo Roccia, and Pierre Wilkie as directors of the company. Thank you, Ms. Giroux. Maxime Gauvin, shareholder of the company, is willing to support the proposal. Thank you, Mr. Larochelle. I am Maxime Gauvin, shareholder of the company. I support the proposal. Thank you. I now declare the nomination period closed. The motion having been fully made and seconded, we invite you to vote through the virtual platform. Voting is open until the end of the formal parts of the meeting on the left side of your screen. We will close the poll once we have completed the formal business to be conducted at the meeting. I remind you that if you have already submitted your vote, you do not need to resend your vote unless you wish to change it. The next item on the agenda was the appointment of the independent auditor for the current fiscal year and the authorization of the board of directors of Lion Electric to establish its compensation. Management and the board of directors of Lion Electric believe it appropriate to appoint the accounting firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton as Lion Electric's independent auditor until the next annual meeting. Nathalie Giroux, a shareholder of the company, is prepared to make the necessary proposal regarding the appointment of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton. Ms. Giroux? Thank you, Mr. Larochelle. My name is Nathalie Giroux. I am shareholder of the company. I hereby move that Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton be appointed as Lion Electric's independent auditor until the next annual meeting and that Lion Electric's board of directors be authorized to establish its compensation. Thank you, Ms. Giroux. Maxime Gauvin, a shareholder of the company, is willing to support this proposal. Maxime Gauvin, shareholder of the company. I support the proposal. Thank you, Mr. Gauvin. The motion has been made and seconded. We will now proceed to vote. Thank you for voting. We are coming to the end of the meeting, and we will close the poll and take a few moments before declaring the results of the vote. Based on the preliminary votes, I declare each of the proposals carried, namely, that each of the directors is duly elected and shall serve until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until his or her successor is elected or appointed. Second, that the accounting firm of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton is solely appointed as independent auditor of Lion Electric until the next annual meeting, and that the board of directors of Lion Electric is authorized to establish its compensation. Please note that the final voting results will be posted on SEDAR and EDGAR within the next 24 hours. There are no further items on the agenda for the meeting. Before we close the formal portion of the meeting, I would ask Isabelle to confirm if the questions related to the meeting have been solely submitted through the web platform. Mr. Pierre Larochelle, I confirm that no question related to the meeting has been submitted through the platform. Thank you, Ms. Isabelle. Ms. Nathalie Giroux, shareholder of the company, is willing to propose the adjournment of the formal portion of the meeting. If you have a question on the business of the company, we ask you to wait until after the management's presentation. Nathalie Giroux, shareholder of the company, I propose that the formal portion of the meeting be adjourned. Thank you. Mr. Maxime Gauvin, shareholder of the company, is willing to support the proposal. Maxime Gauvin, shareholder of the company, I support the proposal. I second. Thank you. Thank you. The motion to adjourn the formal portion of the meeting has been duly made and seconded. I declare the motion carried, and the formal portion of the 2022 Lion Electric stockholders' meeting adjourned. Mr. Larochelle, I would like to congratulate the members of the elected board of directors. Thank you for those that were elected. Before we move on, I would really like to officially welcome and thank our board of directors and thank our shareholders for putting their trust in us and re-electing us as a board for an additional year. We will spare no efforts in seeking to meet and exceed your expectations. Now, Mr. Marc Bédard, please. You have the floor. Thank you, Chair. Hello, everyone. Dear shareholders, welcome. It is a pleasure to host the first-ever annual meeting of Lion Electric as we celebrate our first anniversary as a public company. This really is an important step in the evolution of our company. Hello, Mr. Pierre Larochelle, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nicolas Brunet, Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. François Duquette, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary. Above all, I would like to thank you all, dear shareholders, for your confidence towards Lion. Lion has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange for a year now. The past year has brought many challenges, but it also brought many achievements and opportunities, and I'll come back to this in a few minutes. First, I would like to address several challenges we have faced over the past year. I'll start with the must-have, the COVID. COVID-19 has virtually crippled our operations for the past two years, and no one expected this crisis to last so long. This has led to significant impact on the global supply chain regarding the semiconductors and several other critical components to electric vehicles. Very important components. It also led to labor shortage of unbelievable proportions. In fact, regarding the supply chain situation and labor shortage, this is what has the greatest impact on manufacturing companies like Lion. However, I'm very proud of our agility that has allowed us to provide innovative solutions to very complex issues and our extensive experience in the electric vehicle industry and our robust supply chain of over 200 suppliers, which includes local providers, which has allowed us to continue delivering vehicles at a time when many other manufacturers have had to shut down or postpone production. I'm very proud of our achievements. However, the superstorm in the industry has had very important impacts on companies such as ours, and Lion has not been spared from this wave, and we had to deal and continue to deal even today with an extremely volatile stock market. Of course, the last months were difficult on the market and we can't say that we are happy. We are disappointed with our share price. That being said, we seek your understanding and discretion, and we assure that your interests and ours are perfectly aligned. We, too, are dissatisfied with the situation and we will be working hard. However, the good news is that many investors understand what we are doing and support us. Today, nine research analysts are following Lion stock, including seven with a buy recommendation. We've also been added to the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which is a very important milestone for Lion as the first year as a publicly traded company. This inclusion increases our potential and our visibility to a wider range of potential investors. This improves our liquidity. 2023 was a landmark year for Lion since that's including we are making every effort to deliver on all elements of our strategic plan. This is where we can have some control, and this is where we are completely focused. To this day, we work very hard to deliver our business plan. Many of you know, we've repeated this many times, we are one of the only manufacturers who currently have heavy-duty electric vehicles on the road, and we produce electric vehicles at the same time as we develop new models. Many people have discovered us over the past year because of the media coverage of our IPO. Some have even mentioned that Lion is an instant success that has been in the works for 14 years, but we have been existing for many years. This extensive experience means that we are first on the market, and this gives us significant advantages compared to our competitors. Now, regarding this, let me mention a few of our accomplishments over the past year. In 2021, we achieved the highest numbers in the form of vehicle sales, and now we have an order backlog of over 2,400 vehicles. This means that the model sales of our past year are not really the result of a lack of order, but rather a production challenge caused by supply chain issues, not only for Lion, but also at the world level. We have advanced two major projects that are the pillars of our long-term growth, and these two projects are going forward despite the pandemic. First of all, our Lion campus in Mirabel, as you can see on screen, which will house our battery plant. It has an annual battery production capacity of 5 GWh and will open in the next 6 months. This plant will allow us to significantly reduce the cost of our vehicles and will provide us an important advantage to counter the shortage of batteries. Our second major project, on this new slide, is our 100% electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Beauharnois, for which the construction of the building envelope is complete. We are currently focusing ourselves on finalizing the interior of the building, including the installation and production equipment. By the way, several of these equipment have been received, and we expect production to begin in the second half of the year according to the announced schedule. In parallel, we've already hired our management team, and hiring for the production team is underway. Our U.S. plant will be the largest medium and heavy-duty electric vehicle manufacturing facility in North America. This is a proud fact, and this will allow us to manufacture up to 20,000 Lion vehicles for the U.S. market. In addition to our current plant in Saint-Jérôme, which will have a capacity of 2,500 vehicles a year in Saint-Jérôme. We will have increased our batteries and other vehicles. Having production capacity on both sides of the border provides us with undeniable advantages. These are very important markets for us. This way we can also apply for all of the governmental incentives. Also, in many of our experienced partners, including the one of Thermo King, which is already a reference in our industry. We've launched Lion Capital Solutions, which provides financing to our customers for the purchase of their electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. Lion Capital Solutions adds to the ecosystem that Lion has built over the past several years. As you can see, not only our vehicles are specifically designed for electric purposes, but our whole ecosystem includes all of the services required to facilitate the transition of our customers towards the electrification of their fleet. Finally, let's talk about the employees. We've had an increase in the number of our employees in Quebec and in other Canadian provinces and American states. Today we are more than 1,100 employees, including 300 in research and development. Remember that in 2021 there were only 450 employees. Now, the technology is the foundation of our success, but the involvement of the employees and their resilience is how we are different and we stand out. The past year was very, very busy in terms of R&D. We've invested more than CAD 46 million to develop new platforms that will come complement our current 7 vehicle offering on the market. Starting, you see them on screen. LionD is a flat nose school bus. Lion8 Tractor, Lion5, Lion Ambulance, and Lion Parts to be launched by year's end. They will join what you see on the left side of your screen LionC, LionA, Lion6, Lion8, Refrigerated Lion8, the Lion8 Tractor and LionM, which are already on sale. In fact, no other manufacturer has such a complete range of products as complete as Lion's. We also collaborate with several partners to complete our product offering with applications specifically designed for electric, from dry boxes to refrigerated boxes and dumpsters. At this stage, here we see the ambulance. That was announced last October. This is our fully 100% electric ambulance with Demers Ambulance. This is designed by Demers mounted on a Lion5 truck, and together this forms the first-ever ambulance designed specifically for electric power. No need for conversion. We've also announced several other partnerships that will help us drive our sales with leaders in the specialty equipment industry, such as partnerships with Morgan Truck Body, Thermo King, CM Truck Beds, and transit vans. At the same time, during the past year, we have consolidated clearly our position as a leader in North America for 100% electric school buses. Today there are more than 600 Lion vehicles on the road every day, with more than 16 million miles of distance. This sets us apart from our competitors. Many of them are still working on their prototype, and as you've seen the results in the last few days, for Q1 of 2022, we see that once again, we've delivered a record number of vehicles, 84 vehicles in Q1 compared to 71 in the previous quarter and 24 in Q1 2021. This is a nice progression in only one year. Now let's talk about something that's really dear to us, our commitment to sustainable development. Today we are very proud to launch our first-ever sustainability report. We have been committed towards sustainable development. It's part of our DNA, and it's very important to build a foundation for growth based on sound environmental, social, and governance factors, so ESG. You might have heard BlackRock was saying, "Every company will be transformed by the transition to a net zero world. The question is, will you lead or will you be led?" You know, like we all know the answer. We decided to be leaders ourselves in this transition towards electrification. Today, the commitment that we have with this report that we've just shared, we are formalizing our approach to be a sustainable company on all of these levels. Environment, which is at the foundation of our company, but also social and governance. During the last year, we have met many important milestones. Let me mention a few of them. We've established our first ESG policy. We have taken an inventory on our GHG emissions for the year 2020, 2021. We've launched our first-ever employee diversity, inclusion, and ESG policy for employees. We have set two targets to achieve by our next annual meeting in 2023. The minimum of 30% women on our board of directors, 3% of women in our directors, and at least one minority director coming from a minority. This first report is just the beginning, and it's also an important step in our growth. Moreover, the future looks bright for Lion, and we see all of these government programs and goals on both sides of the border are becoming more ambitious and more generous on both sides of the border. Just remember the announcement of the U.S. government that talking about the first set of funds under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the U.S., which allocated $5 billion for school bus purchases. Lion, as a leader in this sector of electric school buses, is very well-positioned in order to take these new investments and transition more and more towards electric. This investment of the U.S. government is part of many other programs, both in the U.S. but also in Canada. This is going to speed up the electrification, and all of these incentives are going to favor the sales of our vehicles in 2023 and the next years. I really believe that we are very well-positioned and uniquely positioned in the industry of electric vehicles. We need to continue being this agent of change that we have become for several years and that everyone recognizes. Thank you so much for your attention and your support so that we can continue our mission. Thank you. Thank you, Marc. Good presentation. Thank you. Now we will open the line for questions. Feel free to ask your question in English or French. You can submit your questions by clicking on the tab on the left side of your screen. Any questions? Please don't hesitate to ask questions. We don't have any questions right now. We will still wait a few moments. Are there any questions? No questions. I confirm that no questions have been submitted. Okay. It's been quite simple. Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that there are no further questions. I would like to conclude by thanking you for your attendance this morning by reiterating that it is an honor for me and my fellow board members and the Lion Electric management team to lead this company through this most exciting phase of growth. Thank you again for being here this morning. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you and goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this call. You may now disconnect. Have a nice day.
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