Lightning eMotors Sees Supply Chain Slowing Growth ‘For the Next Few Quarters’

March 30, 2022

After working through battery issues last year, the EV builder now faces worsening chassis shortages as OEMs wrestle with semiconductor supplies.

Geert De Lombaerde

The leaders of Lightning eMotors say supply chain hang-ups, some ongoing and others relatively new, are pushing a share of the commercial electric vehicle builder’s revenues into future quarters. To help manage that shift, they say they are focusing more on repowering existing chassis—including for Forest River Bus, which has expanded its partnership with Lightning.

Boosted by a $40 million accounting gain on the fair value of an earnout liability, Colorado-based Lightning posted a profit of $22.2 million in the fourth quarter on sales of $4.2 million. The company’s adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was negative $15.9 million, about three times its late-2020 equivalent.

Lightning sold 36 vehicles in the last three months of 2021, down from 43 in the third quarter, and hurt by major original equipment manufacturers such as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., pausing production for lack of parts, especially semiconductors. Earlier last year, the company had addressed battery bottlenecks by signing supply agreements with Proterra Inc. and Coulomb Solutions Inc.

For more details on Lightning's production plans and backlogs, visit our partner brand FleetOwner.

About the Author

Geert De Lombaerde | Senior Editor

A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has been in business journalism since the mid-1990s and writes about public companies, markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications, focusing on IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal, T&D World and Healthcare Innovation. He also curates the twice-monthly Market Moves Strategy newsletter that showcases Endeavor stories on strategy, leadership and investment and contributes to other Market Moves newsletters.

With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati in 1997, initially covering retail and the courts before shifting to banking, insurance and investing. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal before being named editor of the Nashville Post in early 2008. He led a team that helped grow the Post's online traffic more than fivefold before joining Endeavor in September 2021.