Q3 2023 Lion Electric Co Earnings Call

Participants

Isabelle Adjahi; VP of IR & Sustainable Development; The Lion Electric Company

Marc Bedard; Founder, CEO & Director; The Lion Electric Company

Nicolas Brunet; President; The Lion Electric Company

Richard Coulombe; CFO; The Lion Electric Company

Abhishek Sinha; MD & Senior Research Analyst; Northland Capital Markets, Research Division

Benoit Poirier; VP and Industrials, Transportation, Aerospace, Industrial Products & Special Situation Analyst; Desjardins Securities Inc., Research Division

Christopher Curran Souther; Research Analyst; B. Riley Securities, Inc., Research Division

Josh Conner; Head of Global Transportation Investment Banking; Barclays Corporate and Investment Bank

Michael Shlisky; MD & Senior Research Analyst; D.A. Davidson & Co., Research Division

Rupert M. Merer; MD and Research Analyst; National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division

Tamy Chen; Cannabis Analyst; BMO Capital Markets Equity Research

Unidentified Analyst

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Lion Electric's Third Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call.
(Operator Instructions) 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.

Isabelle Adjahi

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Lion's Third Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. (foreign language) Today, I am here with Marc Bedard, our CEO, Founder; Nicolas Brunet, our President; and Richard Coulombe, our Chief Financial Officer.
Please note that our discussion may include estimates and other forward-looking information and that our actual results could differ materially from those implied in any such statements. We invite you to review the cautionary language in this morning's press release and in our MD&A, which contains important information regarding various factors, assumptions and risks that could impact our actual results.
With that, let me turn it over to Marc to begin. Marc?

Marc Bedard

Thank you, Isabelle. Good morning, everyone. Today, we are pleased to report that in Q3, we achieved record deliveries, revenues and gross margins, clearly showing that our focus remains our goal to profitability. Compared to Q3 2022, we basically doubled our revenues with approximately the same SG&A expenses, and our gross margin went from negative 9% to a positive gross margin of over 6%, mostly driven by higher volume, favorable average selling price and continued cost control.
We had a significant EBITDA improvement as well, increasing from negative $15.1 million in Q3 2022 to negative $3.9 million in Q3 of this year. Also, we now have more than 1,600 vehicles on the road, with more than 19 million miles driven or 30 million kilometers, a significant achievement, demonstrating our leadership position in the EV space.
It is also my pleasure to acknowledge recent leadership appointments. Nicolas, who got deeply acquainted with Lion's products, customers and operations over the past 4 years was named President and works with me on the elaboration and execution of all strategic aspects of the business. His main focus being our commercial operations and the acceleration of sales across the United States and Canada.
Richard, who has been instrumental in driving our growth projects with a lot of success for the last 2 years, was appointed Chief Financial Officer. Richard will leverage his 25 years in executive finance roles to support our objectives of profitability and positive free cash flow.
I will now provide an update on several key decisions we have made to focus on our profitability objectives and optimize capital usage. On the bus side, we will postpone the commercial production of the Lion8 school bus to prioritize the commercial production of our high-demand products and the timely integration of our Lion Batteries on our existing platforms.
On the truck side, the litigation with Nikola Motors and their decision not to supply us with the Romeo Power batteries will result in us using our own Lion batteries on our Lion8 tractor truck, thus postponing its market entry to mid-2024. And finally, we have great news with respect to both the Lion5 truck and the LionD school bus as we started commercial production for both of these vehicles and will soon begin customer deliveries.
Now turning to our manufacturing plants and operations. In Joliet, we now have the infrastructure in place to reach a production capacity of 2,500 school buses per year. During Q3, we continued to ramp up the production of LionC buses. And as I just mentioned, we have also started the commercial production of LionD units.
At our battery plant, we continue to ramp up production of Lion battery packs during the quarter. The current production line allows us to reach production capacity of 1.7-gigawatt hour per year and up to power over 5,000 of our vehicles. The certification process for the Lion packs is progressing well, and we expect final certification to occur before the end of the year.
With respect to our innovation center. The building is currently being used as a testing and certification center for our vehicles and batteries, as a predelivery inspection site and as a warehouse for inventory. This allows us to leverage space available and optimize operational efficiency. Additionally, we will soon start using the innovation center as a showroom and delivery center for our customers to see and test our vehicles on our test track and take delivery.
In a nutshell, we have been able to expand our manufacturing capacity to our targeted levels and the CapEx investments for our 2 growth projects will be completed by the end of this year.
On that note, I will now ask Nicolas to dive into our commercial operations performance before turning it to Richard will discuss the financial highlights of our Q3 results.

Nicolas Brunet

Thank you, Marc. We delivered 245 vehicles in Q3, consisting of 220 school buses and 25 trucks. 132 vehicles were delivered in Canada and 113 in the U.S. This is a record number of overall quarterly deliveries but also a record for deliveries in the U.S. where we delivered purpose-built EV school buses to several new customers. The vast majority of those U.S. deliveries were part of the EPA's clean school bus program. We are pleased to make prompt deliveries under the EPA program demonstrated Lion's leadership in U.S. EV school buses. Cumulatively, for the first 9 months of the year, we delivered a total of 664 vehicles, almost twice the 345 vehicles delivered over the same time same last year.
With respect to the order book, it currently stands at 2,232 vehicles, that's 268 trucks and 1,964 buses, totaling $525 million with the Lion Energy book at 129 charging stations, representing $4 million. Worth mentioning is a conditional order from Highland Electric for 50 LionC school buses, which we announced this past Friday.
This quarter's vehicle order book was affected by various factors, including the removal of 140 units from the deferral of the LionA platform discussed earlier as well as purchase order delays and cancellations related to subsidy programs mostly stemming from clients awaiting funding decisions. We anticipate a positive momentum in all electric school buses as a result of attractive funding programs including awards under the $400 million 2023 EPA grant program, which drove significant customer interest ahead of applications in August and for which customer awards are expected in Q1 2024.
Potential orders under the 2023 EPA rebate program with a budget of $500 million, requiring applications by January 2024, with award announcement scheduled for April 2024. Several appealing programs in states such as Texas, Colorado, New York, Michigan and California, which could drive school bus demand beyond the set of the EPA program, and momentum in the Quebec school bus market, where the subsidy program was recently renewed (inaudible) with an increase of available funding from $125,000 per bus to $175,000 per bus, depending on battery capacity.
This momentum in the school bus space is further supported by an increasing number of states passing laws to accelerate the electrification of the transportation sector. Separately, we are in ongoing dialogue with the Canadian federal government, the satisfactory approval of sizable applications for school bus deployments placed under the ZETF program. Successful completion of this process would enable timely equal deliveries and could generate further applications for potential new purchase orders.
On the truck side, while this market is still at a very early stage with electrification just commencing, we remain very enthusiastic about our prospects in the Class 5 to 8 market. Leveraging our purpose-built truck platform, Lion stands out as one of the few players of critical massive vehicle on road, and we expect the upcoming deployments of Lion5 units to generate significant customer interest. Like in the school bus sector, we are closely monitoring billions in existing and upcoming subsidy programs aimed at accelerating fleet electrification.
To conclude, we continue to experience strong customer engagement on fleet electrification underpinned by [special] desire to transition to EV as well as emerging regulation and attractive subsidy programs and we believe Lion is very well positioned to address this upcoming demand.
On that note, Richard will now discuss our financial performance. Richard?

Richard Coulombe

Thank you, Nicolas. I will start by commenting on Q3 results, including an update on CapEx. I will then discuss our liquidity position. In Q3, we delivered 245 vehicles, resulting in record revenue of $80 million. This represents revenue growth of almost 100% compared to the same period last year and close to 40% versus Q2 2023. This increase in sales volume, coupled with favorable product mix and average selling prices as well as continued cost discipline led to gross margins of 6.7% compared to negative 9.3% in the previous year.
For the quarter, SG&A before noncash share-based compensation was $17 million. As a percentage of revenue, SG&A before noncash share-based compensation decreased from 36% to 21% over the last year due to disciplined cost containment efforts. This is a trend we are looking at maintaining as we continue to focus on reaching our profitability and positive free cash flow objectives.
Adjusted EBITDA improved to negative $3.9 million from negative $15.1 million in Q3 2022. Additions to net intangible assets, mostly related to R&D amounted to $15 million, a decrease of $3 million when compared to $18 million in Q3 2022.
Capital expenditures amounted to $16 million, including $4 million for Joliet and $8 million for the Lion campus, a significant decrease as compared to $29 million last year. We anticipate combined CapEx spend of approximately $12 million in Q4 for the Joliet plant and the Lion Campus, leading us to the conclusion of our main initial investment on these projects. We, therefore, continue to expect minimal capital expenditures in the foreseeable future, mostly maintenance CapEx as our growth projects have reached their targeted capacity level.
Now turning to liquidity and capital resources. In Q3, we successfully closed financings resulting in $142 million of gross proceeds or $136 million net, which provides us with additional flexibility to continue to execute our plan. As of September 30, 2023, our immediate liquidity stood at $132 million, consisting of $36 million in cash and $96 million in immediate borrowing capacity on our revolver. At the end of the quarter, our debt balance stood at $176 million.
Finally, as we move forward with our 2024 budgetary process, we continue to focus on decreasing product costs, optimizing working capital management and improving our internal cost structure.
Back to you, Marc.

Marc Bedard

Thank you, Richard. Before we open the line for questions, let me conclude by saying that we are pleased with our Q3 performance and thrilled about the opportunities unfolding in the EV market and our positioning. Our commitment is to achieve profitability and positive free cash flow, and we are confident that we have the right elements in place, the right focus and the right strategy to achieve our objectives.
Thank you for your attention this morning. Let's now open the line for questions.

Isabelle Adjahi

Operator, we will now open the lines for questions. (Operator Instructions)

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions)

Marc Bedard

I think we have a question from George. George, please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Congratulations on a great quarter. I wanted to ask about the sustainability of your -- the gross margin momentum that you showed. How should we think about the next couple of few quarters in terms of modeling the gross margins going forward?

Richard Coulombe

I'll take that one. Thank you for the question, George. So we achieved a record 6.7% gross margin in Q3, so representing a substantial increase as compared to 0.7% in Q2 of 2023 and a negative 9.3% in Q3 2022. So sustaining positive gross margin and achieving positive EBITDA and free cash flow clearly is #1 priority at Lion. It would obviously require continued focus on revenue growth and tight management -- cost management. We're definitely in the right direction but we could see some volatility as we continue to ramp up.
New platform deliveries on the LionD and Lion5 starting this quarter and the gradual integration of our Lion battery into -- currently commercial model could temporarily affect our gross margin. We continue to be very focused on driving productivity within the organization and working at reducing our product cost.

Unidentified Analyst

And then maybe just as my second question, again, is a housekeeping. You mentioned that going forward, your growth CapEx is more or less complete. Can you just remind us what the level of maintenance CapEx we should assume for the firm for the next couple of few years?

Richard Coulombe

Should be pretty minimal. Right now, we're really aiming at single-digit CapEx for next year. It's going to be largely maintenance CapEx.

Unidentified Analyst

Single-digit millions is the number you mentioned?

Richard Coulombe

Correct.

Operator

We now have Mike Shlisky of D.A. Davidson.

Michael Shlisky

So right now, you're up and running with a really nice-looking plant in Illinois, obviously, well established in Quebec. Do you have any view as to when your visibility is going to be good enough at this point. You start giving us some guidance about what your deliveries might be at least 1 quarter out, how consistent is your production rate right now?

Nicolas Brunet

All right Mike, Nick here. I'll take this one. Look, I mean, we're still in ramp-up mode. The guidance decision is one that we're always assessing internally. We don't have an update to provide this morning and when things change, we will, but won't -- there's no set timing for us to provide any guidance going forward.

Michael Shlisky

Okay. Okay. Maybe you can ask -- just talk a little bit about the Lion8 tractor. I guess, I am curious, you said it's little bit behind in the speech that how you develop the battery, guided into the truck and getting that whole project finalized. Was there a high cost there over the last couple of quarters that we should be thinking about? And do you expect to recover most of that from Nikola once that case is resolved?

Marc Bedard

Well, with respect to Nikola Motors, well, you know that the -- we've terminated basically the -- what was going through with them right now. So the proceeding against Romeo but now civil proceedings against Nikola. But going back to your question on the [achieving], we have no choice in using our own batteries. And the HD batteries will be certified early next year, and we will be able to use those battery on the Lion8 tractor.
This Lion8 tractor, I need to tell you, Mike, is amazing. And obviously, the whole market is expecting it. We will be able to put a lot of kilowatt hour on those trucks. So we will have a lot of range as well. So we're expecting very good demand, I mean for that product. But obviously, going back to the root of your question on Nikola Motors, respectively, I mean, we will not be able to comment further because of the proceedings going on right now.

Operator

We now have Benoit Poirier from Desjardins Capital Bank.

Benoit Poirier

Yes. Just looking at your truck backlog, if you remove the 140-purchase order -- sorry, for the -- just looking on the bus side, there was 140 purchase orders removed from the LionA but it looks like that there is some booking was lower on the bus side. Could you comment about your bidding pipeline and your ability to secure more momentum on the bus side in 2024?

Nicolas Brunet

Yes, certainly. Ben, I'll take this one. Look, there are a number of moving parts in the order book during the quarter. As you mentioned, the most important one was the removal of the 140 LionA units related to the postponement. But there's also some volatility caused by the timing of the subsidy programs, and that's expected as customers await to know what their allocations are or what the programs that are being put in place or renewed before they're placing the order.
I think it's important to reemphasize that we continue to see strong engagement from the customers towards fleet electrification. And we see some upcoming catalysts in the order flow. I mentioned earlier the EPA rounds 2 and 3 for which allocation to customers are expected -- allocation of awards are expected early next year. That's $900 million of school bus funding, right, that's coming in the U.S. federally in -- somewhere in between end of Q1 and beginning of April.
In the Quebec market here, which is obviously a big market for us, there was a pause, if you will, in the subsidy program as it was being extended and renewed. And the good news is that the subsidy that previously paid $125,000 per school bus was extended, and it was increased where now the operators can obtain up to $175,000 per bus based on -- depending on battery capacity.
There's the ZETF program that we talked about that could lead to more near-term deliveries for us when the approval -- when we hopefully get the approvals. But also that will drive more purchase order flows, we believe, and then there's a number of various funding alternatives as well at the state and at the provincial level. So overall, we continue to feel very good about the demand environment, but those subsidy programs can create some volatility in the order book on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

Benoit Poirier

Okay. And with respect to this recently bus order from Ireland, which is conditional, what is the timing with regard to the final approval for the Canadian ZETF subsidy?

Nicolas Brunet

Yes. I mean it's -- we have a number of orders that are in the queue for the ZETF, tough to point to specific timing of each, what we say on the larger orders, we're progressing well in the dialogue. We hope that it's in the near term, but obviously, difficult to pinpoint a specific time. But it's live right now and (inaudible).

Operator

We now have Dan Levy of Barclays.

Josh Conner

Josh on for Dan's line today. I had a quick question on if we're getting any mix benefits from an increase in U.S. sales. I saw that the U.S. volumes ticked up quite a bit this quarter and ASPs also went up accordingly. So I was wondering if there's any correlation or potential benefit from increasing sales into the U.S. versus Canada?

Nicolas Brunet

Yes, Bob (sic) [Josh], thank you for this one. The short of it is, yes, typically in the U.S. market, we tend to sell units with more onboard energy, higher battery capacity, more auctions. The U.S. market is a more intricate market relative to Canadian market where there's less differences in between a province and the state. Obviously, there's -- the regulatory environment is different. And so we do tend to sell vehicles with more options that are more customer in the U.S. and have a higher average selling price. Obviously, keep in mind, the U.S. market is about 10x than the Canadian market, and it's our goal to match that over (inaudible)

Josh Conner

And as a follow-up, we're seeing a somewhat slower EV uptake among the medium and heavy-duty trucks. And I was wondering if you have any inclinations on whether maybe like some of the states like California or any of those other states on the advanced green fleet will potentially consider bumping up the potential regulatory credits to (inaudible) some more demand there?

Nicolas Brunet

I mean, look, there's the -- let me start by saying that in the truck space, the truck EV market for the Class 5 days is really still at a (inaudible), right? If you look at as of June 30 this year, there were less than 1,000 vehicles registered. And based on this data, the Lion would be the fourth player in the space. So we're one of the very few players with critical mass and importantly, with a purpose-built product out there. There we have seen some positive legislation. You talked about California (inaudible) that's certainly a positive development. This is more on the regulation side.
And typically, yes, we've seen that following regulation is the modification, if you will, of the subsidy programs. We don't have direct visibility into that, but we've seen it in other markets, and we're certainly hoping it will be the case as well. Altogether, again, the market is just at the beginning, and we have the product and the manufacturing capacity to accommodate clients as things ramp up, and we're very hopeful for this market to increase significantly over time exactly when (inaudible).

Operator

We have our next question from Tamy Chen with BMO Capital Markets.

Tamy Chen

Can you go back to the Canadian subsidy program, the ZETF. What's causing again some of the delays? Is it the -- just the application, there's additional nuances or revisions required. And so there's just been a delay from an administrative perspective. I'm just trying to understand what's going on there.

Nicolas Brunet

Yes, Tamy. Look, the ZETF program is one that is very specific application by application. And so it's every approval is different. The orders that we have in the queue are, we believe, the first big ones for the school bus because recall that the program is both for transit and school buses. And those are the first big ones for the school bus. And so there's dialogue between the federal government ourselves and our clients to find the appropriate -- to get the appropriate terms. I need to point out that the acts of our clients to directly within the parameters of the program.
And so we're hopeful that we'll get a good resolution. And again, it's very bespoke application by application. And obviously, there's -- yes, there is an administrative burden to that. We believe that once -- the first large ones are hopefully approved that things can accelerate from that.

Tamy Chen

I see. Okay. And the Lion8 bus, the school bus. So I just want to make sure I understand you post -- the 400 -- sorry, the 140 units deferred in your order book, is that on the Lion8 school bus? And so was that the customer deferred or you made the decision to prioritize other higher demand products? I just want to make sure I understand that as correctly.

Marc Bedard

Yes, this is related to the Lion8 school bus, and it's a matter of focus. We're strong believers and focus as you know when we decided to focus on the commercial production of the high-demand products as you were saying. So it's the LionC, and most -- it's also the LionD coming to market, the Lion5 and the Lion8 a little bit later. So all a matter of focus and cost control.

Nicolas Brunet

And if I just address the order book part, it was us removing those units from the order book as we're undertaking dialogue with the customers to see if there's a desire to defer the longer period, the order or convert it to a LionC or LionD order. But just in our review, we felt prudent to remove those from the order book.

Operator

We now have Chris Souther, B. Riley Financial.

Christopher Curran Souther

I just wanted to touch a little bit on kind of the production mix between the 2 facilities. Could you give us any sense of what the kind of output is starting to hit out of Joliet here? And then I have a follow-up.

Marc Bedard

Yes. Chris, yes, the cadence is going well. You will probably remember we have a manufacturing capacity of 1,000 buses in Montreal, and we have a manufacturing capacity of 2,500 buses in Joliet. And in Montreal, we also had capacity for 1,500 trucks on an annual basis. So the cadence is going very well. And there was no question yet on the supply chain. But supply chain is getting a lot more stable. And that was the discussion we have probably for the last 2 years.
So it's getting a lot more stable, and we've been working a lot on the redundancy of suppliers as well. So it's going quite well. So our goal is really to increase the pace as needed. And you know that the goal is also to manufacture in the country where the buses are being delivered, and we're getting there.
So obviously, we're doing less buses in the U.S. right now than we're doing on the Canadian side. But as Nick was saying earlier, I mean, the U.S. market is 10x bigger than Canadian market. And with the manufacturing capacity of 2,500 buses on the U.S. side, we're very, very well equipped to increase that pace as we get more orders we'll be able to deliver.

Christopher Curran Souther

Yes. Just to clarify that the answer like we -- in the third quarter, the deliveries by country kind of matched up with the geography of the manufacturing facility? Or are we not quite there yet on the U.S. school bus side?

Marc Bedard

By and large. Yes. Off course that's...

Christopher Curran Souther

Got it. Okay. And then if I'm kind of looking at the margin increase, I think pricing had a big piece to do with that. As we kind of trend higher with -- can you just kind of talk through what that premium in the U.S. should be that we can kind of bake in as we have U.S. kind of ramping up more? I just want to get a sense how much continued opportunity of price increase on the ASP side, we have? And is there any kind of delta on the production cost side between the 2 at this stage? And then I'll have to...

Nicolas Brunet

Yes. Chris, as I mentioned earlier, it really is about selling -- it's about the onboard energy that we have in the vehicles. It's about the options that we have in there. For an equal build, there's no price difference or at least no material price difference between producing in Canada and producing in the U.S. So it really is about mix and options on the vehicle more than anything else. And I couldn't point to a rule of thumb of U.S. versus Canada.

Operator

We now have the next question from Rupert Merer of National Bank.

Rupert M. Merer

On working capital, your working capital increased a little bit in the quarter. Wondering if you can give some color on what drove that. I imagine a combination of batteries and vehicles. And how do you see that evolving over the next few quarters?

Richard Coulombe

Thank you for the question. I'll take that one. So obviously, there's a portion of the working capital increase that's directly connected with the growth in our production, but also the introduction of the LionD, the Lion5, and also we're preparing for the integration of our own batteries into our platform, so this is somewhat driving some of the increase.
I can tell you, we're very focused on working capital, one strategy we have in place with overstocking of inventory given the supply chain prices that we went through in the last year or so. And today, as Marc pointed out, we don't necessarily need this strategy anymore. So right now, we're very focused on really reducing working capital and we expect to see working capital turning around in the next few quarters.

Rupert M. Merer

Is there much in inventory related to vehicles that are awaiting ZETF funding? And when you get funding, could you see some of that working capital coming out?

Richard Coulombe

Yes. Well, as Nick pointed out earlier, there's a couple that were waiting approval, there is one that has been lagging from last quarter with [lengths], there's 50 of them that are definitely just waiting to be delivered. So yes, there are some, and you will see some uptake here as we get the approvals.

Rupert M. Merer

Great. And then secondly, you talked about the fact that the supply chain is easing. And earlier on in your prepared comments, you talked about focus on cost reduction. Wondering if you can give us some color about where we are today in the costs and where are the opportunities to drive out cost in the future? And also, if you could give a comment on inflation and if you're seeing now, say, a reduction in the inflation that we've seen over the last few years?

Marc Bedard

Yes. Rupert, this is Marc. Yes, we're focused on reducing the cost as you know. So there's many places where there's going to be -- there will be savings in the future. Obviously, the inflation didn't help. I mean, still hitting us the inflation right now as we all know but there are a lot of places where we see a lot of benefits.
First of all, I need to tell you that our manufacturing processes are a lot more stable. And this is good. We've been doing this for many, many years, and we see the benefit of that. Obviously, with volume going up, then the amortization of the fixed cost is getting better. One place where we will be reducing significantly, and this is starting now. It's also in R&D. I mean we've invested a lot in R&D in the past and in the future, the R&D investments will be going down.
And speaking of cost control, you probably saw also that the SG&A has been very like stable. And we are looking at reducing the percentage of SG&A over sales in the next quarters as well. So for example, we've been able to double the sales this year compared to last year with about the same amount of SG&A expenses.
So it's all about the focus on our products. It's about the focus on the margin, bringing down those costs. And you probably saw as well that in Q3 of last year, Rupert, we sold 156 vehicles, and we had a negative EBITDA of $15 million. This year, we had a negative EBITDA of $3.9 million with 245 vehicles. So you can do the math. I believe that everyone can see that the business model is scaling very well. And we said that in the past but I think this is the proof that you're seeing now, it's scaling very well. And the good thing is that we don't need very high volume to reach profitability.

Rupert M. Merer

Great. Thanks for the color, Marc. And definitely solid margins this quarter. Congrats. I'll get back in the queue.

Marc Bedard

Thank you, Rupert.

Operator

We have the final question on the line registered from Abhishek Sinha with Northland Capital.

Abhishek Sinha

Yes. Just wondering, on your gross margin, I know you have 2 consecutive quarters of positive gross margin. So I understand the margins could be lumpy given the nature of the business but can we assume that the margins would be positive from here on going forward given your ramp up in the U.S. and higher ASPs and whatnot?

Marc Bedard

Yes. Abhishek, it was mentioned earlier, we're going to see some movements in gross margin. So obviously, with under volume, I mean, the margin is -- this is really helping the margin as I was just saying earlier, but the launch of the new platforms now. And we're talking about the Lion8 tractor in next year. We're talking about the Lion5 that we are starting the deliveries, I mean, in Q4 of this year and also the LionD. Well, it's obvious that the gross margin at the beginning of those products is not as good as the one it's going to be in the very near future. So we expect some volatility in the gross margin for the next 2 or 3 quarters because of those items.

Abhishek Sinha

Got it. Could you comment on the M&A landscape in the sector? I mean we see some of the peers are under stress. Just wondering how you guys are evaluating any such opportunity or mostly just focused on organic growth from here?

Marc Bedard

Yes. we were fully focused on managing our business. We're increasing our margin. I mean we're commercial -- the meetings with customers and having a very efficient operation as well. I mean this is our focus. So we're 100% focused on those items right now. So we're not looking at this.

Operator

Thank you. We have no further questions on the line. So I'd like to hand it back to Ms. Adjahi for any final remarks.

Isabelle Adjahi

Well, thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. We really look forward to continuing the discussion, and please free to contact me for any follow-up questions you may have. Have a nice day. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for joining. I can confirm this does conclude today's conference call. Please have a lovely rest of your day, and you may now disconnect.