In a press release, the parties said that the proposed transaction is intended to accelerate their combined ability to capture the growing opportunity in commercial electric trucks.
The plan is for Tevva’s existing 110,000-square-foot EV manufacturing facility in Tilbury, United Kingdom, to be complemented by ElectraMeccanica’s recently-commissioned 235,000-square-foot facility in Mesa, Arizona.
This is expected to enable the combined company to scale its production to serve the U.K., European and U.S. markets.
Commenting on the deal, David Roberts, current Director of Tevva and anticipated incoming Executive Chairman upon the closing of the proposed transaction, said:
“Since Tevva’s founding more than ten years ago, we have focused our engineering and product development capabilities on developing a portfolio of zero-emission commercial vehicles that have generated significant customer interest. Our vehicles have undertaken more than 300,000 miles of testing and operating experience in real-world conditions by demanding fleet operators. We are excited to merge with ElectraMeccanica and accelerate the growth of the combined company. Throughout the process, we have been impressed with ElectraMeccanica’s management team and strongly believe that ElectraMeccanica’s complementary assets, skills and capital will further enhance our advantages in this large and rapidly growing market.”
Susan Docherty, Chief Executive Officer of ElectraMeccanica, added:
“We are incredibly excited to partner with Tevva given their unique engineering expertise in an essential segment of a large and growing market. We believe this is the right time and Tevva is the right partner with which to pivot from consumer vehicles to commercial vehicles and respond to commercial fleet customer demand for superior, reliable and cost-efficient trucks. The complementary operations of the two companies and our similar values and mission give me complete confidence we can jointly create significant shareholder value. Tevva is extremely well positioned in the U.K. and European market and our world-class manufacturing facilities, combined experienced senior executive team and balance sheet will help take our combined company to the next level.”
According to the Daily Telegraph, the merger comes after Tevva has had to make some staff redundant and also faced “legal demands from suppliers as its cash reserves dwindled”.
The newspaper adds that ElectraMeccanica has had its challenges too, having launched a three-wheeled electric car called the Solo that was subject to a product recall.
