The Arrival project is alive and kicking
Arrival managed to manufacture its very first production verification van in a microfactory. Indeed, as Head of Sales for Southern Europe Andrea Finardi told us here, microfactories are those places imagined by Arrival to produce the brand-new electric vans. Microfactories are supposed to be installed in several European countries in the next few years. Nevertheless, the latest news concerning the Arrival project were not so good, as Reuters reported 30% workforce reduction due to business restructuring, back in July. Moreover, Arrival announced the company’s intention to focus only on van production, with similar projects concerning buses and electric cars to be put in stand-by at the moment.
The first Arrival van from the Bicester microfactory
Back to the news, Arrival produced the first van in a microfactory in Bicester, UK, using in-house technologies, including composite materials, autonomous mobile robots, in-house components and a software defined factory. The vans that will be manufactured in 2022 will be used for continued testing, validation and quality control, rather than being sold to customers.
“Today is an important day for Arrival. This is the first time a vehicle has ever been built
in our Microfactory, using a new method that does not use a traditional assembly line. Although we have not yet achieved serial production, we are focused on making it happen. We will continue to produce vehicles in our Microfactory in order to master at-scale production”, said Denis Sverdlov, Founder and CEO at Arrival. “It has been more difficult than we had initially imagined, and I thank the team for the immense amount of effort, technology, innovative breakthroughs, and problem solving.”
