This Amended Current Report on Form 8-K/A and the documents incorporated herein by reference include forward-looking statements within the meaning and protections of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. These forward-looking statements are also made in reliance upon the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements with respect to Lightning Systems’ beliefs, plans, objectives, goals, expectations, anticipations, assumptions, estimates, intentions, and future performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may be beyond our control, and which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Overview
Lightning Systems, which also does business as Lightning eMotors, is a leading electric vehicle designer and manufacturer, providing complete electrification solutions for commercial fleets – from Class 3 cargo and passenger vans to Class 6 work trucks, Class 7 city buses, and Class A motor coaches which we believe represents a significant total addressable market of approximately $67 billion. Lightning Systems is committed to eradicating commercial fleet emissions, the main cause of urban air pollution, by providing zero emission Class 3 to 7 Battery Electric Vehicles, Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles and charging infrastructure solutions to commercial fleet customers. Our ongoing focus has been on reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency. As of the date of this Amended Current Report on Form 8-K/A, Lightning Systems is the market leader in the Class 3 to Class 6 Electric Vehicles (“EV”) segment, with 31 vehicles and 1 powertrain kit sold in the first quarter of 2021 compared to 1 vehicle and 5 powertrain kits sold in the first quarter of 2020. Lightning Systems sold 9 Class 3, 17 Class 4, and 5 Class 5 vehicles during the first quarter. We believe that Lightning Systems is the only company in the United States that has delivered fully functional Class 3 to 7 EV’s to end customers that are in use today, with 129 units sold by us since 2019.
We started in 2008 as a manufacturer of hybrid systems for commercial vehicles. In 2017, realizing that hybrid solutions did not adequately address the growing issue of urban air pollution from commercial vehicle fleets, we directed our efforts to focus exclusively on the attractive market opportunity in Zero Emission Vehicles (“ZEV”). We leveraged nearly 10 years of unparalleled knowledge developing and implementing hybrid commercial vehicles to successfully adapt to zero emission vehicles. As of the date of this Amended Current Report on Form 8-K/A, all Lightning eMotors platforms currently in production have been fully certified as zero emission vehicles by the California Air Resource Board, the clean air agency that defines vehicle emissions standards. We currently maintain 6 Executive Orders, which is a requirement to sell ZEV vehicles in California as well as various other states.
We are the only full-range manufacturer of Class 3 to 7 Battery electric Vehicles (“BEV”) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (“FCEV”) in the United States and provide end-to-end electrification solutions including advanced analytics software, mobile charging solutions, or Energy-as-a-Service, and financing which we refer to as EV-as-a-Service for custom fleet vehicles. We combine an internally developed, proprietary, optimized modular software with Lightning eMotors hardware designs that allow us to address the diverse opportunities in the markets in which we operate in a cost-effective manner with a significant time-to-market advantage. We have also built an extensive ecosystem of supply-chain partners and specialty vehicle partners which are instrumental to our growth. Lightning eMotors offers electric vehicles and powertrain solutions for 10 commercial vehicle markets including: school buses, transit buses, ambulances, motor coaches, delivery trucks, food trucks, utility trucks, refrigerated trucks, airport & campus shuttles and Recreational Vehicles (“RV”).”
Business Combination and Public Company Costs
Lightning Systems entered into the Business Combination Agreement with GigCapital3, Inc. (“GigCapital3”) and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Project Power Merger Sub, Inc. (“Merger Sub”), on December 10, 2020. Pursuant to the Business Combination Agreement, the stockholders of GigCapital3 approved the transaction on April 21, 2021, and the deal was consummated on May 6, 2021. As a result, Merger Sub, a newly formed subsidiary of GigCapital3, was merged with and into Lightning Systems and the separate corporate existence of Merger Sub ceased, and Lightning Systems continued as the Surviving Corporation of the Merger. Lightning Systems was deemed the accounting predecessor and the combined entity became the successor SEC registrant, meaning that Lightning Systems’ financial statements for previous periods will be disclosed in the registrant’s future periodic reports filed with the SEC.
The Business Combination was accounted for as a reverse recapitalization. Under this method of accounting, GigCapital3 was treated as the acquired company for financial statement reporting purposes. The most significant change in the successor’s future reported financial position and results is the increase in cash (as compared to Lightning Systems’ balance sheet at March 31, 2021) of approximately $268.3 million, after stockholder redemptions of $58.5 million permitted under the Business Combination Agreement and prior to the payment of non-recurring transaction costs and other payments that totaled approximately $51.5 million.
As a result of the Business Combination, GigCapital3 was renamed as Lightning eMotors, Inc., and Lightning Systems became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lightning eMotors, Inc, which is a NYSE-listed company with common stock registered under the Exchange Act. Lightning eMotors will be required to hire additional personnel and implement procedures and processes to address public company regulatory requirements and customary practices. Lightning eMotors expects to incur additional annual expenses as a public company for, among other things, directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, director fees and additional internal and external accounting and legal and administrative resources, including increased audit and legal fees.