Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Isabelle Adjahi, and I am Vice President, Investor Relations and Sustainable Development at Lion Electric. Welcome to our 2023 Annual General Meeting. This meeting will take place in French. This said, you can choose to listen in English if you select the appropriate window or the appropriate language from the upper right-hand side of your screen. Questions may be submitted in either French or English. This year, the meeting is a virtual format to make it more accessible to all shareholders, regardless of their geographic location, and in order to maximize their participation. The proxy circular and notice of annual meeting of shareholders, the company's audited annual statements for the year ended December 31st, 2022, the independent auditor's report thereon, and the related management's discussion and analysis, as well as the 2022 annual information form, are available on our website under the section Investors. These documents have also been filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on EDGAR at edgar.gov. You can also access the meeting's documents by clicking on the document icon in the navigation bar at the top left of your screen. I'd now like to hand the floor over to Mr. Pierre Larochelle, Chairman of Lion's Board of Directors. Mr. Larochelle? Thank you, Isabelle. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. My name is Pierre Larochelle, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Lion Electric. Welcome to our 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Allow me now to introduce you to the people who are joining me here today: Mr. Marc Bédard, member of the board, Nicolas Brunet, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Audrey Tardif, Legal Advisor, who will act as Secretary of the meeting and who will ensure that all procedures are followed adequately, correctly, and well documented. We also have other members of the board of Lion Electric, who are all designated members of the board for this AGM. Before beginning the formal portion of the meeting, on behalf of the board of directors, I would like to express my recognition very sincerely to Lion's management and employees for their unwavering efforts over the past year. In an uncertain economic context, the team has continued to supply vehicles constantly and gradually, quarter after quarter. They also achieved important milestones for both plants, with the assembly of the first LionC at our U.S. plant in Joliet, Illinois, and the first battery pack at the Mirabel plant. Marc will be able to talk to you about this in just a few moments. We'd now like to begin the formal portion of our meeting and deal with items on the agenda. Marc will do a brief presentation, followed by a question period. To be transacted at the meeting, we will close the polls. Thirdly, registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have already voted, are not required to vote again unless they wish to change their vote. Following this, only registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have registered with our transfer agent and obtained a control number, may submit questions at any time by clicking on the tab to the left of their screen. Questions related to agenda items will be read aloud at the end of this formal portion. Any other general question will be dealt with during the question period. If we receive similar questions via the portal, we'll group them together into one single question, and any questions we'll already answered will not be answered 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. For our forward-looking statements, I'd like to draw your attention to the text on the current slide and advise you all that some of the comments you will hear today are forward-looking statements within the meaning of application securities laws that involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results or activities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. The forward-looking statements made today speak only as of the date hereof, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise such statements. We also refer you to our notices regarding forward-looking statements contained in our management's discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31st, 2022, which is available on SEDAR, EDGAR, and on our website as well, and with the filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Let's now move on to the formal proceedings of the meeting, during which I will act as chairman. Audrey Tardif will be the secretary. The appointment of scrutineers. For your information, Ms. Francine Beausséjour and Ms. Isabelle Vachon, representatives of TSX Trust Company, Lion Electric's transfer agent and registrar, will act as scrutineers for the purpose of this meeting. Their role is to count the proxies and votes cast at this meeting. I will now ask Audrey Tardif, Secretary of the Meeting, to confirm whether all required procedures have been followed to declare this meeting duly constituted, to transact all business for which it was convened. Thank you, Mr. Larochelle. I have received a confirmation from the scrutineers that the shareholders entitled to receive a copy of the notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Lion Electric and the notice of availability of proxy materials and form of proxy, dated April 19th, 2023, the record date, have received them. The audited consolidated financial statements of Lion Electric for the year ended December 31st, 2022, have been sent to the beneficial owners of common shares who have specifically requested them and have been made available to all shareholders via SEDAR, EDGAR, and our website. I'd also like to point out that this annual meeting of shareholders has been convened to transact the business specified in the notice of meeting. The notice of meeting contains information on how to obtain an online copy of the proxy circular and meeting materials, as well as how to request a printed copy, in accordance with the notice and access procedures permitted by the Canadian Securities Administrators. You can access the notice of meeting and proxy circular by clicking on the appropriate tab at the top left of your screen. In addition, a copy of all these documents, as well as the affidavit confirming the mailing to shareholders, will be kept in Lion Electric's records. Before beginning the meeting, the scrutineers informed me of the number of shareholders registered and proxy holders, as received. On the basis, I confirm that a quorum is present for the meeting. The scrutineers' report will also be included in the minutes. I declare that this meeting has been duly convened and duly constituted to transact all business for which it has been convened. Thank you, Audrey. I will now file Lion Electric's audited consolidated annual financial statements for the year ended December 31st, 2022. These financial statements are accompanied by the independent auditor's report. As 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 other shareholders in accordance with the notification and access procedures permitted by the Canadian Securities Administrators, I'll dispense with their reading by Ms. Tardif. I'd also like to ask the secretary to attach to the minutes of this meeting, the company's audited annual consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31st, 2022, the independent auditor's report thereon, and the related management's discussion and analysis. Let's now move on to questions requiring a vote. Before proceeding with the adoption of the resolutions, I'd like to comment briefly on the voting procedure. Each share of Lion Electric entitles the shareholder to one vote on all matters to be acted upon at the meeting. The outcome of the matters to be voted on 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 11:00 A.M. on May 26th, 2023. The scrutineers have informed me that based on the proxies received prior to the meeting, approximately 58% of shares entitled to vote at the meeting will be voted on today. The majority of them will be in favor of each of the items put to the vote. In order to simplify and speed up proceedings at the meeting, we have asked two shareholders participating in our webcast to present and second each of the proposals. Election of directors. Let's move on to the election of directors. Sorry, the board has set the number of directors to be elected at the meeting at 10. All current board members previously nominated are standing for re-election. The background of each nominee is described in greater detail in the proxy circular, which contains a list of nominees for election as directors. The nominees are Latasha Akoma, Sheila Bair, Marc Bédard, Dane Parker, Ann Payne, Pierre-Olivier Perras, Michel Ringuet, Lorenzo Roccia, Pierre Wilkie, and myself, Pierre Larochelle. I confirm that each of the persons nominated has confirmed his or her willingness to serve on the board of directors, and that each is eligible to serve as a director under the provisions of the Canada Business Corporations Act. Vince Spadafora, a shareholder of the company, is willing to nominate these individuals for election as directors of the company. Hello, my name is Vince Spadafora. I'm a shareholder of the company. I hereby nominate Latasha Akoma, Sheila Bair, Marc Bédard, Pierre Larochelle, Dane Parker, Ann Payne, Pierre-Olivier Perras, Michel Ringuet, Lorenzo Roccia, and Pierre Wilkie as directors of the company. Thank you. Maxime Gauvin, a shareholder of the company, is prepared to support this motion. My name is Maxime Gauvin, shareholder of the company. I support this motion. Thank you. Thank you, Maxime. I now declare the nomination period closed. The motion, having been duly made and seconded, we invite you to vote via the virtual platform. Voting is now open until the end of the formal portion of this meeting on the left-hand side of your screen. We will close the polls once we have completed the formal business to be transacted at the meeting. I'll remind you that if you have already submitted your vote, you no longer need to submit it again unless you wish to change your vote. Now for the appointment of independent auditor. The next item on the agenda concerns the appointment of the independent auditor for the current fiscal year and the authorization granted to Lion Electric's Board of Directors to set its remuneration. Lion Electric's management and board of directors believe it is appropriate to appoint the accounting firm, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, as Lion Electric's independent auditor until the next annual meeting. Mr. Vince Spadafora is prepared to make the necessary motion regarding the appointment of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton. I hereby move that Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton be appointed as Lion Electric's independent auditor until the next annual meeting. Maxime Gauvin is willing to support this motion. "I support the motion," said Mr. Gauvin. Thank you, sir. The motion, having been duly made and seconded, we will now proceed with a vote. Thank you for voting. As we come to the end of the meeting, we will close the polls and take a few moments to declare the results of the vote. Based on the preliminary votes, I declare each of the proposals adopted, namely, that each director is duly elected and shall hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders, or until the election or appointment of his or her successor. I also confirm that the accounting firm, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, is duly appointed as Lion Electric's independent auditor until the next annual meeting, and that Lion Electric's board of directors is authorized to establish its remuneration. 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 our agenda. Before closing the formal portion of the meeting, I'd like to ask Isabelle to confirm whether questions relating to the meeting have been duly submitted via the web platform. Larochelle, I can confirm that no questions relating to the meeting have been submitted via the platform. Thank you, Isabelle. Mr. Spadafora is prepared to propose, move the adjournment of the formal portion of the meeting. If you have any questions with regards to company business, we would like to ask you to wait until after the management's presentation. I hereby move that the formal portion of the meeting be adjourned. Thank you, Mr. Spadafora. Maxime Gauvin, is willing to support this motion? Yes, I support this motion. Thank you. The motion to adjourn the formal portion of the meeting, having been duly made and seconded, I declare this motion carried and the formal portion of the 2023 meeting of the shareholders of Lion Electric adjourned. Before continuing, I would like to thank our shareholders for their trust in us and for helping us re-elect the board of directors for an additional year. We will spare no effort in meeting your expectations. I now have the pleasure of asking Mr. Marc Bédard to address the meeting. Marc? Thank you, Pierre. Hello to all dear shareholders. It's a pleasure to hold Lion Electric's annual meeting today as we celebrate our second anniversary as a publicly traded company. I'd like to greet my colleagues, Pierre Larochelle, Chairman of the Board, Nicolas Brunet, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Audrey Tardif, our Meeting Secretary today. I would also like to thank you, our shareholders, for your confidence in Lion. Lion has been listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges for two years now. It is now time to take stock of our achievements over the past year, the challenges that we've faced, and the opportunities that we've seized. It's also a time to look forward to what the future has in store for us, as it looks very promising. Lion is following its business plan. It's paying off. We're proud of our performance in 2022. Once again, despite external challenges, we delivered a record number of electric vehicles while making significant progress on our growth projects. First of all, let's remember that our first electric school bus rolled out of the Saint-Jérôme plant in 2016. Since then, Lion has delivered more than 1,100 electric vehicles, covering over 16 million kilometers. In fiscal year 2022, we delivered 519 vehicles. This represents an increase of 323 vehicles compared to 2021. Of these 519 vehicles, we delivered 174 in the fourth quarter alone. In fact, we've increased our delivery rate in each of the last six quarters. To give you an idea, in the first quarter of 2023 alone, 220 vehicles were delivered. Lion is therefore sticking to its game plan and stepping up the pace of vehicle production and deliveries. We are, this said, aware that we face a very volatile stock market, very honestly, we're not happy with the current valuation. Last year was difficult for the markets in general, as everyone knows, due in part to rising interest rates, high inflation, and global economic uncertainty. Challenges in the stock market have been particularly severe in the zero-emissions vehicle sector. Lion is no exception to this rule. For those who have expressed their dissatisfaction, we assure you that you are being heard. We'd like to reassure you that your interests and ours remain the same. We are well aligned. In fact, we're gonna keep up our efforts and continue to work hard to achieve our plan, because that is what we can control. That is what we firmly believe in. Over the past two years, we've been building our foundations. They are very solid foundations, strategically established and specifically adapted to the particularities of our industry. Now, from quarter to quarter, we continue to grow while completing the implementation of our foundations. Our overriding objective is to ensure the profitability of our operations. The dynamic is simple: As we produce and sell more vehicles and develop our vertical integration strategy, such as the production of our Lion batteries, we are convinced that the Lion model is efficient and should generate attractive margins. Even more importantly, at the end of the year, the majority of capital expenditures required to increase our production capacity to 5,000 vehicles a year, including expenditures related to the production of our batteries have been made. This signifies that as of 2024 and onwards, capital expenditures on the Joliet plant in the U.S. and the Lion campus in Quebec will be drastically reduced. If we take all of these elements into consideration, achieving profitability is well within sight, and achieving this goal will be a turning point in Lion's history. We are a growing company, we are growing in an organized manner with profitable, achievable possibilities and modest volumes. Over the past year, we worked very hard to deliver on our commitments. One of these important commitments was the opening of our Mirabel battery plant last December. If you recall, we manufactured our first lithium-ion battery pack in our plant. Last April, we officially inaugurated our plant. This plant is the first of its kind in Canada. By the end of the year, our annual production capacity will reach 1.7 gigawatt hours, enough to power around 5,000 electric vehicles assembled by Lion at its plants in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, and Joliet, Illinois. This is a model of innovation with state-of-the-art battery production equipment. Much of this equipment has already been installed, more will continue to be installed over the coming months, enabling us to gradually increase our output to the 1.7 gigawatt hours that I just mentioned. After that, we'll cut capital expenditures drastically and only resume it when the demand warrants. Essentially, this plant reinforces the vertical integration strategy that we put into place several years ago and that we have been fine-tuning as technology evolves. Our second major project is our 100% electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Joliet, Illinois. In Q4 2022, we announced the production of our first school bus manufactured at our Joliet plant in the U.S. Our U.S. plant is one of the largest manufacturers of medium and heavy-duty electric vehicles in North America. Between now and the end of the year, we expect to have an annual production capacity of 2,500 buses. In total, our two plants will have a production capacity of 5,000 electric vehicles a year, 3,500 buses and 1,500 trucks. Having such production capacity on both sides of the border provides us with important, huge advantages, such as being a local player in these two huge markets, present in a very important market for Lion, while complying with the many current and future government incentives in both Canada and in the U.S. As you can see, programs supporting the electrification of transportation are increasingly ambitious and generous on both sides of the border. Allow me to name just a few. On the U.S. side, we have the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, which focuses on clean technologies and for which Lion's vehicles qualify. There's also the Clean School Bus Program by the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. This is a 5-year plan dedicating $5 billion to the electrification of school buses. In 2022 alone, the EPA allocated nearly $1 billion under this program and has just announced an additional $400 million for 2023. In California, we have the ACF, the Advanced Clean Fleets, which, when coupled with other measures in place, should result in more than 500,000 Zero-Emission vehicles on the road in 2025 and more than 1.5 million in 2050, according to CARB. We must also think about the signature of a global memorandum of understanding by the Biden administration to support the complete electrification of sales in favor of zero emissions, medium and heavy-duty vehicles by 2040. It also aims to electrify 30% of medium and heavy-duty vehicles sales by 2030. In Canada, let's mention a couple of examples. The federal government's 2023 budget, which put forward the importance of a green economy by proposing various measures, including a new tax credit for investment in clean technology manufacturing. We also have the Zero Emission Transit Fund, through which the federal government is investing nearly CAD 2.75 billion over five years in bus electrification. Let's also mention the School Transportation Electrification Program in Quebec, under which all new school buses registered in Quebec must be electric. To support this transition, the government offers operators and school boards a subsidy for the acquisition of electric buses. The Quebec Government's Écocamionnage Assistance Program is also a very important program, as it aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector by dedicating an envelope of over CAD 245 million to the purchase of electric trucks through financial assistance to truck owners. These various initiatives create an extremely favorable business environment for Lion Electric. Our order book is also growing nicely. At the beginning of May, this order book stood at around 2,500 vehicles, including over 2,200 school buses. It's important to say a word about our customers. These companies are choosing to electrify their bus and truck fleets, therefore or thereby reducing their GHG emissions. They have chosen to rely on clean technologies offered by Lion. Their feedback is invaluable, and it's thanks to them that we're constantly improving our products. We would like to thank them sincerely for their trust. There's a general craze for electric vehicles, and we feel it in the field, and it is becoming very, very much a reality. As you all know, the purchase of an electric bus or truck represents a significant initial investment. That's why Lion offers its customers turnkey services, anchoring them in a 360-degree vision to support them every step of the way. We offer our customers a comprehensive support service to help them integrate electric vehicles into their fleets. To achieve this, we have a total of 12 experience centers operating in the USA and Canada. We are also launching Lion Capital Solutions. We launched that last year to offer our customers flexible financing for the purchase of their electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. As part of this 360-degree vision, we are offering various services, including LionEnergy for charging infrastructure, LionBeat for the telematics system, Lion Subventions, Grants to identify funding opportunities, LionAssistance for parts and services, Lion Academy to oversee training. Essentially, we're offering a complete vision, focused on the client, the client being always at the center of everything that we do. To carry out our project, we rely on a remarkable workforce of 1,400 employees spread across Canada and the U.S. Our employees are the hearts, the brains, and the arms of Lion, we would like to pay tribute to their exceptional work. It is thanks to them that we are able to have our business plan come to fruition. As partners for this team and to this team, we can also count on a large number of suppliers, many of whom are located close to our factories in order to promote local economy. In conclusion, as you can see, we're building on growth and laying the groundwork for long-term growth. In 2023, we will continue to focus on production growth at each of our plants and on our order book, with the aim of achieving profitability. Once again, by 2024, we expect our major capital expenditures to be a thing of the past. We will be very proud of what we will have achieved, and we assess and assure you that Lion will continue to do everything in its power to be amongst the big leaders in this historic revolution that is happening before our very eyes. Thank you. Thank you, Marc. We will now turn to questions. Anyone asking questions on the line may. Please do not hesitate to ask your questions in either English or French. You can submit your questions by clicking on the tab on the left of your screen. Mr. Larochelle, I confirm that no question has been submitted through the platform. Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that there are no questions. I'd now like to conclude. Thank you for your presence here today. Thank you, and have a good day. This is the end of the call. You can now disconnect. Have a good day.
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