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Workhorse Group Inc. (WKHS)

Q2 2023 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 8, 2023

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, greetings, and welcome to the Workhorse Group's Second Quarter 2023 Investor Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. It’s now my pleasure to introduce your host, Workhorse Group's Vice President of Corporate Development and Communications, Stan March. Sir, you may begin.

Stan March

Management

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, and welcome to all of you joining us on today's second quarter 2023 results call. Before we begin, I'd like to note that we've posted our results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023 via press release. You can also find this release, as well as an accompanying presentation in the Investor Relations Section of our website. We'll be tracking with that presentation during the call, so please follow along, either from the link in the press release or through the website directly. And with that, let's get started. Joining me on today's call are Rick Dauch, our CEO; and Bob Ginnan, our CFO. The agenda for today can be found on slide 3. Following my opening remarks, I'll hand the call over to Rick, who’ll give you an update on the progress we've made on our strategic and operational priorities during the second quarter. Bob will then walk us through our financial results for the quarter and cover our revised 2023 guidance. Rick will then wrap up before we take your questions. Our disclaimer can be found on slide 4. Some of the comments that will be made today are forward-looking and therefore are subject to certain provisions and are subject to risk and uncertainties. You can find the full disclaimer statement in our periodic filings with the SEC, as well as in today's press release and in the presentation. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Rick Dauch. Rick?

Rick Dauch

Management

Thanks Stan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for taking the time to join us this morning. We're going to use this opportunity to provide an update on the progress we've made in executing our strategic and operational priorities during the second quarter and the steps we are taking to position Workhorse for long-term profitable growth. Turning to slide 5. Our team is moving full speed ahead and is intently focused on execution, execution, and execution. We have taken decisive actions to build a strong foundation over the past two years here at Workhorse. I'm confident that we've established an organization, the product roadmaps and business systems that position Workhorse for profitable growth and value creation for our shareholders and customers. During the second quarter, we increased production and delivery of our W4 CC vehicles. Launched production of the W750 and delivered our first W750 step van to an end customer. Our W56 program continued vehicle durability and systems testing ahead of the start of regular production in Q3. We also received our first orders for the W56, which we plan to deliver to customers in Q4. The W56 also was on full display for the first time outside of trade events at a CALSTART sponsored event in Washington DC and at select dealer shows on the West Coast where it received excellent reviews. We made solid progress expanding our dealer network, announcing new certified partnerships during the quarter with Burr, EVC/Smyrna and Western Truck Exchange. Each of these deals was targeted and selected for their specific regional location, reputations with customers and ability to install custom bodies on cab chassis units. In addition, we shipped 53 Tropos vehicles as part of our three-year contract with the Company that were assembled in our world-class manufacturing facilities in Union City,…

Bob Ginnan

Management

Thanks, Rick. Let's turn to slide 10 to discuss our second quarter financial results. Our second quarter results reflect the team's focus on operational execution and financial discipline. We continue to ramp up production and delivery of our vehicles and expect that to continue throughout the rest of this year, which will drive strong results. At the same time, we are taking steps to become more efficient organization and manage our cash burn effectively. Turning now to our results. Gross sales for the second quarter of 2023 were recorded at $6.4 million less an allowance of $2.4 million for potential HVIP voucher impact while car finalizes Workhorse’s HVIP eligibility. Sales, net of returns and allowances for the second quarter of 2023 were $4 million compared to zero in the same period last year. The increase in sales is primarily due to sales volume of the W4 CC vehicle in the current period. Just a couple comments on the GreenPower HVIP voucher impact. Until CARB finalizes our voucher status, we are holding an allowance on the 40 of the W4 CCs we sold. We anticipate a favorable outcome, but are dependent on the resolution of several factors outside of our control at the moment. Cost of sales increased to $8.4 million from $3 million in the same period last year. The increase in cost of sales was primarily due to a $4.8 million increase in costs related to vehicle sales and a $0.6 million increase in employee compensation and related expenses. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased to $14 million from $13 million in the same period last year. The increase was primarily driven by a $0.5 million increase in employee compensation and related expenses, including non-cash stock-based compensation expense, a $0.4 million increase in professional services, and a $0.5 million…

Rick Dauch

Management

Thanks, Bob. No one said that making the transition from technology startup to becoming a full services OEM would be easy, and let me tell you that it's not. Here at Workhorse, we are taking two technology startups, our Commercial Vehicles business and our Aerospace business through this challenging transition. It takes long hours, great teamwork, significant capital resources, time and patience to get the job done. After two-plus years of incredibly tough duty, we are on the precipice of successfully getting Workhorse to the starting line in terms of being able to build and ship safe, reliable, capable products to our customers. We are poised to capture demand as the combination of consumer and government regulations continue driving the transition from ICE to EV powered technology. Let me briefly discuss our Q3 priorities, which are outlined on slide 13. We remain laser focused on advancing our product roadmaps according to plan. We continue to ramp up production of the W750 while simultaneously preparing for the start of production of the W56 strip chassis next month. This also means completing W56 step van durability testing, as well as installing cab and body process equipment at Union City in Q3. We also plan to ramp Tropos production to 50 units a month in Q4 to meet accelerated demand for those vehicles. We must properly grow our CV sales. This means completing the build out of our sales organization for both CV as well as Aero. We must secure CARB and EP certification for the W56 and secure HVIP vouchers for all of our vehicles. Expanding our certified dealer network is also necessary. We will continue to showcase our innovative, high-quality electric vehicles through fleet demonstrations and test drives and get demo trucks in the hands of select fleet customers and dealers…

Operator

Operator

Certainly. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

Can you talk a little bit about the dynamics with the customers and closing deals? Certainly there's a number of elements in any given deal including some of the local subsidies, the charging infrastructure and the vehicle availability. But can you talk a little bit about any sort of -- anything that's standing out as a delay here for you guys in terms of closing deals and folks taking delivery?

Rick Dauch

Management

Sure. First and foremost, people want to get their hands on the trucks and actually operate them, not just look at a PowerPoint slide. So getting a W750 to the field is critical. We now have three or four of those out with our sales team doing product demos at dealers. W4 CC, we had to go out and secure build slots to put on boxes in the back of trucks. We have some of that being done right now. And W56, while we've had a couple prototypes out in the field, one in Washington and one in the West Coast, Washington DC, they weren't production quality ready, right? They still had some issues we needed to get addressed. Okay? So the big fleets, the ones who really drive this segment of the market, Class 4through 6, they basically told, we're very interested in your products, get us products that are production quality, off of production tooling, finished with testing. We want do demos anywhere from two weeks to four weeks, and then we're prepared to place orders. So, that's number one, getting real products through testing and through production. Two, the big companies, I'll say, have a pretty solid plan of what they're going to do over the next 5 to 15 years to electrify their fleets. That includes putting the electrical -- the substations in and connecting to the grid and getting the charging systems in and then a very clear cadence of moving their fleets from ICE to EV. Whether it's UPS or FedEx or DHL, we've been in discussions with all those guys. They have a clear plan and I think that will become our biggest customers going forward, right? The smaller fleets are moving with a little bit of wariness, I'll say. They're not convinced…

Colin Rusch

Analyst

Yes. It's incredibly helpful. I appreciate all the detail. And then just looking at the testing process with the vehicles, could you talk a little bit about where you've been surprised to the upside in terms of the performance of the vehicles and where there's some elements that may need some incremental tinkering?

Rick Dauch

Management

Well, first couple of weeks, W56 testing, we had a few brackets break. And so that -- I get a weekly report, sometimes a daily report if we've had a failure. So, I decided after one of our programs use to go up to the test myself. I've been at a lot of test tracks in my career. I've never been on a test track like that. I'm telling you, maybe I'm getting older, but I could barely walk the next few days because I had to brace myself, the track's so rough. It's about a 4.5-mile long loop over cobblestones, dirt roads, gravel roads, concrete, broken concrete, bulging, rubble -- rumble strips up and down. It was a hell of a test. Now I understood why we had some brackets break. We had a bracket break on one of our thermal management container systems. We had a bracket break on our rear door. Here's what I tell you, our powertrain is performing marvelously. We're getting the range we think. We may even exceed some of the range targets. I get the final report next week. Our chassis system has done very well. We've had to go from no load at first to partial load and now we're running the truck in its final stages at 10,000 pounds fully loaded. Obviously you learn a few things along the way, once you put more load in the truck. Nothing surprising to me. In fact, I'm very happy. As I said to my comments, I saw four or five of our competitors' trucks up there. Two of them were down, had been down for two weeks. One couldn't retain its charging systems, so won't comment on who they were or what they were, but I know who they are. And our trucks have performed very well. And we're probably 65% of the way through our testing right now, about 30 days behind schedule. First couple of weeks is a little tough. And then we had one incident we had to take care of, but we're on track to finish that testing as we head into September, so.

Operator

Operator

Next question today is coming from Chris Souther from B. Riley Securities.

Chris Souther

Analyst

Maybe just a little more color on the HVIP certification path and anticipated timing of resolution there. Can you give us a sense what kind of the holdup was there and just any sense of to the mix of sales that were anticipated in California this year under that program?

Rick Dauch

Management

Yes. Good question, Chris. Our W4 CC and our W750 are built off the GreenPower chassis that we buy from overseas. That's called the EV Star. And the EV Star is on the CARB executive orders. Our W4 CC and W750 are not. So, we need to get our vouchers through GreenPower. And there's some technical legal issues around the dealerships in California, we got that resolved, right? Right now we're working with both CARB and GreenPower to resolve an issue out there with those two assets -- those two entities, and we're kind of caught in the middle. We think it's an administrative issue and we are working hard to get that resolved. We hope to get that resolved here in August, if not, early September. It's critical to our success. It costs us probably a few dozen orders in shipments in second quarter. So, we need to get that done. Obviously, the fleet mandate kicks in, in January, and we're starting to see RFQs across up Northern and Southern California, everywhere in California for electric vehicles. We got to get this done and we're working two paths. One, we get our vouchers as we are supposed to from GreenPower, or we get our own allotment on executive order from CARB. Bob, anything else we should cover on that?

Bob Ginnan

Management

No, that covers it.

Chris Souther

Analyst

And then maybe just overall on the customer side, can you walk through, like where the visibility today stands on the full year guidance? And then maybe just additional color around -- it sounds like large fleets are moving faster than smaller fleets, which makes sense. But you called out kind of government’s kind of owned fleets as an area that you're particularly excited about. Just any sense as to kind of what you think the mix is there between public and private fleets for this year?

Bob Ginnan

Management

I'll go ahead and start on the outlook in general, Chris. It's really kind of predicated on two things. One is on the W4 CCs, getting build slots and making sure that those can be upfit and delivered to end customers is the driver there. And we see some opportunities and progress on that. And then of course the big one is the launch of the W56 and being able to get those step vans out first in demos to the bigger fleets and then to end customers. And those are the drivers of what we see in the fourth quarter for the sales side. In terms of the breakdown in fleets, we've started our focus with dealers first, now moving to fleets and then just now adding in a government focus as we've seen those opportunities. So, right now I think it's probably for the rest of this year more weighted to the dealer side, but hopefully we start to make some movements on the fleet and the government side here quickly, because those could turn vehicles very fast.

Rick Dauch

Management

I think, when we originally started down this path, we were kind of novices I'll say about the upfitting and custom bodybuilding segment and how long that takes and how sold out some of those guys were. We purposely pivoted in the second quarter to identify those dealers who have either in-house or affiliated custom body builders in their region. And so you see us moving away from more Class 6, 8 type dealerships over to these work-type truck dealerships. We have the Pritchard family who've been very supportive of us for since the day I got here, and I appreciate that very much. They've done the yeoman's work helping us identify that and build secure build slots. Also, the other thing I'd say is there are some dealers who are a little bit gun-shy, right? There's a concern about how fast the transition to EV vehicles will actually happen in the industry. I think the Clean Fleet mandate that California and CARB passed earlier this year is really going to change the game for us from a supply and demand standpoint out in California, then it -- as it moves up the I-5 corridor north. And I think there's also -- read the industry, there's been a lot of EVs that haven't made it. And so, there's concern about viability of the EV companies, right? And are you going to be here to service your truck and warranty your truck and continue production? That's one of the reasons we're going out for this share issuance, so we can make sure -- we can tell the customers we have a clean -- clear path forward to financial viability. And as Bob said, we built this company from a cost structure that doesn't take a lot of trucks across our fixed assets to get the gross -- positive margins -- gross margin positive. So, all right. We got some work to do to get full positive free cash flow because we have an overhead cost structure here, but we'll address that over the next 18 months.

Operator

Operator

Next question is coming from Jeff Osborne from TD Cowen.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

Just a couple of questions on my end. I think you folks mentioned 300 units to get to gross margin positive and hoping to get there in Q4, Q1. Can you talk about what the volumes would be needed to get to cash flow breakeven?

Bob Ginnan

Management

Well, Jeff, we're kind of starting with gross margin here we think with our cost structure and the contribution margin. That's why we're confident in this 300 number as we move forward. Obviously, it is dependent on, we have multiple vehicles, is dependent on mix and all those things. But assuming a normal average mix, that's what we anticipate. Little bit further out to get to total, as Rick said, we have an operating expense cost structure to cover. So, we really haven't gone out that far and ready to talk about that just yet. But the first step has always been positive gross margin. Well, the first step was actually positive contribution margin. We're there, so now the next step is positive gross margin, and then we'll keep going in terms of what we talk about.

Rick Dauch

Management

Yes. We've done some math, Jeff. We will talk to you about that later this year and next year.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

Okay. Look forward to that. Just two other quick ones. I'm not looking for you to endorse consensus for '24, but I think Wall Street has you around 200 million, or give or take. What level of sales do you anticipate from California? Is that sort of half the mix? I just would've thought with the IRA bill and having a nationwide credit that the HVIP program wouldn't have been as impactful as it was to the revised guidance for '23? So, I'm just trying to get a sense of perspective as you look out over the next 12 to 18 months. Do you anticipate, California being half the mix or bigger or smaller?

Bob Ginnan

Management

I think the key there Jeff is the incentives are only part of the story. I think if you look at the three legs of this, you got incentives, you got adoption, and then you got what's driving urgency. And while they exist -- in fact, incentives in New York, for example, are greater, California's driving the urgency by some of the new rules that really take effect in 2024. So, the urgency is much greater there. Therefore, we think that's where the preponderance of the opportunities exists. In terms of percentage, we haven't really calculated it, but it's significant.

Rick Dauch

Management

Yes, I think that the Clean Fleet rule says that 9% of your new vehicle purchases need to be electric. Whether you're Ryder, Penske, FedEx, UPS, DHL, Cintas, PepsiCo, all those fleets in California are going to see a 9% penetration next year of electric vehicles and it ramps up after that. So I do expect California to carry the bulk of the early EV adoption, but we're seeing some pretty aggressive programs in and around the New York City area down in Florida with some of the state governments and across the school systems. One of the things we learned from Tropos is they've had good success at some of the school systems out West, University of Arizona School System, University of California School System, where the schools are adopting the electric vehicles. We're following right behind their footprint there to bring our trucks to the market.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

And just one last follow-up on Chris Souther's question on the HVIP program. Does the revised guidance essentially a mandate that you resolve that in August, or what's the risk that if we don't see a resolution this month, what…

Rick Dauch

Management

Yes. I'd say, it's sooner -- the sooner we can resolve is the better. We have one customer out there -- one dealer who's told us, based on the inquires he has, he thinks he can sell 15 to 20 trucks a month. Right now he only has a 10. He hasn't made the second order yet, because he is waiting for to get the HVIP vouchers. We just signed up the Western Truck. There's a lot of demand in the LA County area for sure. So it's pretty critical for us. I'd say that's something that'll be on our radar screen and that's something we won't wait for a quarterly earnings. Once we get that resolved, that'll be something we get out there, so.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

But if you don't, then you would hit the high end -- or sorry, the low end of guidance and if you do, you could hit the high end. I'm just trying to understand the $20 million range.

Rick Dauch

Management

I’d say there is some -- if we don't get it, I'd say there's some risk to us in the low end of the guidance. If we get it, then I think we might have a better shot at the top end of the guidance. How's that? So, it's probably the number one -- on my whiteboard in my office, number one is get CARB executive order and vouchers. And we have three or four people, including a couple people in the outside helping us do that. So, as you know, when you work through government organizations, sometimes things move a little slower than you'd like in the business will. How's that for being nice?

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

Understand, Rick. Good luck in Sacramento.

Rick Dauch

Management

Yes, on the way there in weeks here. So for sure, so.

Operator

Operator

Next question is coming from Greg Lewis from BTIG.

Greg Lewis

Analyst

I was hoping to get a little more color -- and I don't know how granular we want to be. But as we think about this year guidance and we think about the buckets, let's call it your vehicles, Tropos Stables & Stalls and drones. Is there any kind of way to think about the revenue contributions? Maybe, if you could just think about how you're thinking about vehicles versus other, or however you want to think about that. So, just trying to get a better sense for where those drivers of the revenue and the high-end and the low end they're going to be?

Bob Ginnan

Management

Sure. So, let's start at the kind of bottom and work up here. On the Tropos side, it's been a challenge on the supply chain, getting the kits in, so we can turn them around and finish them. That's -- once we get them, we can turn them around very quickly and get them out the door. We do expect it to ramp up in the third quarter versus the fourth quarter or versus the second quarter, but not to the point where it is game changing on the revenue. Remember, one of these trucks, because it's -- we're assembling them, is dramatically different revenue convert compared to one of our trucks. So, we do expect continued growth there. But in terms of modeling out, it's not huge dollars there. Next up the list is, we've broken through on our first drone sales, but really getting those to scale, while I think it'll be significant progress this year, it's not a big contributor to your revenue model. Now it gets us into the trucks and there, if you think about the four, really four versions we're focused on, you've got the Class 3, 4, cab chassis, the step van in the Class 3, 4, step van in the Class, 5, 6, and then the strip chassis on the Class 5, 6. And as we start to turn the cab chassis, as build slots become available and credits, et cetera, we expect that to be a significant contributor. And then, of course, the step van and the W56 is to be the real linchpin. So, those are the two keys, those two vehicles, and then the 750 and the strip chassis will be important, but not as important as the other two.

Rick Dauch

Management

Yes. So Greg, if I throw some color in there, I think in my remarks we talked about we can build and ship up to 300 W4 CCs yet this year, about 50 -- up to 50 of the W750. That's a much more complex product. A lot more part numbers, a lot more work at our manufacturing facility. W56, we'll start rolling the chassis down the line. We got a couple pieces of equipment due in the next two weeks, and we'll start running chassis this month and advance next month, assuming we get through all the final testing and certification there. So, vehicles is the bread and butter for this company. Stables & Stalls makes a little bit of money for us and profitable money. Tropos, we've gone through the growing pains, as Bob said, with our kit suppliers. We actually took a pause for almost six weeks until they got their act together. We got the new kits in, in July. They were about 90% accurate versus about 50% accurate before. We're building those every day, basically, probably ramping from 16 to 32 to 50 a month on pace. In Aero, it’s about a combination of drone sales, which is we're still at the very cusp of the early of the drones for delivery. But drones for scanning, which is mostly drones as a service for is a big opportunity. And we do think the HALO after it gets to a few more tests in a couple of tough situations, environments, I should say, we should pick up some orders that we can announce later this year, so.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Mike Shlisky from D.A. Davidson.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst

If we could start off with some other news that happened today in the EV space. One of the large battery makers in the EV truck space announced their bankruptcy. To my knowledge Workhorse is not using that company. I guess, first, could you just confirm that for any of your models. And then secondly, Rick, you've been an expert or have been talking about supply chain for quite some time. Can you get the sense as to how you plan, any kind of adjacencies [ph] in the battery supply chain? It's hard to get one certified to kind of figure it out. Do you have -- just in case your current providers can't deliver, do you have a backup plan for Workhorse whenever it is time to get production wrapped up here? I would appreciate any color there. Thank you.

Rick Dauch

Management

Yes, we don't have any exposure to Proterra from a Chapter 11 standpoint. I got that notice when I was driving home from a customer dealer event last night. And so we got -- we have no exposure there. Supply chain, we have written guarantee of our battery supplies for this year, next year from our current supplier. We're confident they're the largest battery manufacturer in the world today, I think. And we have taken a look at other sources, some in North America that are coming along the line in '24, '25, and we have other ones. And our current supplier's talking about building his own factory here in North America. So, we have a -- our supply chain team has a very detailed outlook of where we can get batteries for and what price per kilowatt hour. And the one we have right now is the best we could do. We think we're competitive on battery costs versus some of our peers or competitors, and we have looking at different options out in the future.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst

I also want to get some feel for the change in guidance and some of the brief delay you've got in kind of the rollout here on W56. I guess, it's two-part question. First, should we just push, call it the difference in the midpoint, call it $20 million [ph] of revenue into the first quarter of next year? And does that shift anything from the first quarter to the second quarter of next year? And then more broadly speaking, Rick, you've been in this space for quite some time and can you share with us, do you think it's that -- the issue with some of the fleets is beyond just getting the charging infrastructure, but also I'm just hesitant to invest when e-commerce is in a tougher spot right now? I'm just curious as to the broader CapEx thoughts from what you're hearing from a fleet nowadays.

Rick Dauch

Management

I'll let Bob talk about guidance, but I'll go -- I'll peel the onion backwards. I do think there's some -- here's my experience from the heavy truck industry, when I was at Accuride. Heavy truck experiences recession first. They start seeing the volumes go down and freight movement. So they stop ordering trucks, they stop ordering trailers. I do see, and I've talked to some of my friends in the industry that there's starting to be some caution on the fleet operators of how much capital they're going to outlay going forward. You saw the big notice last week, Yellow Freight went down, Chapter 11, 30,000 jobs lost. That'll ripple across the industry. There's concerns up in Detroit about the UAW putting the very tough demands on the Big Three and how that's going to ripple across the automotive industry and the supply chain, right? Talking about taking the industry back 20 years when GM and Chrysler went bankrupt. So, I guess they want to bankrupt again. I don't know. I got to be careful what I say, I guess. But at the end of the day, it's interesting time. I think, I've talked to multiple dealers, I've talked to multiple fleets, they've had multiple EV companies come pitch them, and then that EV company doesn't deliver on their promises, whether that's -- whoever, how many trucks they're going to build, how many plants they're going to build, and now they have nothing to show for, right? We're one of the few EV companies that has a world class factory. We're one of the few EV companies in the commercial space that has products running down the production line, not at the volumes we want, or not the sales. We got to button down the end there, the dealer network and get the trucks in the hands of the people, then I think it'll start going. Okay? Everybody believes the EV world's going to turn overnight. We said from the day I got here, this is a multi-decade transition to EVs. We're building the foundations, we're going very slow, very methodical, probably slower than our investors want, slower than we want some days, but we are building a rock solid company that's going to be here to stand the test of time. So, you want to talk about guidance?

Bob Ginnan

Management

Yes, I'll talk a little bit about that. So Mike, basically when we look at this, we look at our reduction as somewhat internal, somewhat external, whether it's HVIP vouchers or the delay, the roughly 45 delay in the W56 internal. And then you've got infrastructure and adoption that we also talked about as well. But all those things combined all suggest timing versus demand. We don't look at this as a demand change. We look at this as a timing to get those things worked out and flowing through the process correctly. So, to kind of simplify that down to your question, we look at far more as a push than a reduction.

Rick Dauch

Management

As an ex-military guy, we know what our objective is. The battlefield's a little tougher than we thought. We're learning lessons as we move across into the zone there, right? So, we had logistics issues, we had import issues, we had quality delivery issues, we had tooling issues. We had engineering test issues. We're working through them one at a time, fighting the battle, fighting the battle, moving the ball down the field. Eventually we'll get in the end zone. Okay? So zero sales last year, $6 million, this year. We took a reserve because of the CARB issue. Now we'll go resolve the CARB issue. We get that resolved, we get W56, then we've got - we have products that I can put our name on behind it, safe, reliable, capable trucks that do the job. When I got here two years ago, our friends at one of the customers said, your truck you have is not anywhere close to being viable for us. It can't carry our payload and it won't last more than two years. That same customer is now and discussed with us about buying trucks that have a life of 15 to 20 years and carry 10,000 pounds, and we're really proud of that. I was out in our prototype center this morning. I think there's 14 or 12 vehicles up there. W4 CCs, W750s, W56, old e-gens being retrofitted, and a couple of the old C1000, we're still taking some of the lessons learned out there. Software engineers are out there, wiring guys are out there. It's like a bees’ nest of activity out there.

Operator

Operator

Next question is coming from Craig Irwin from ROTH MKM.

Craig Irwin

Analyst

So, most of the things I wanted to ask have already been addressed. But Rick, I was hoping you could give us a little bit more color on demonstration calendar. This is obviously something that's going to play an important role as far as how the second half comes together and then '24. How scheduled are you at the moment for demonstrations on your different vehicle platforms? Do you feel that there's an opportunity for fleets raising their hand now to come in and get the appropriate amount of time on vehicles? And do you maybe need to grow the demonstration fleet over the next couple of quarters?

Rick Dauch

Management

Great question. We've had that debate in our biweekly program reviews. We started with like maybe three or five program vehicles. I think we're now up to 8 to 12. That comes down to part availability, in terms of launching. I think we're settled in right now between 8 to 12. I've got -- we got a program review next week, I think, to button that down. I do think we'll have to add a few more to our build schedule. We have one customer who wants two trucks. He wants a strip chassis with somebody else's body on that he currently uses in the field. Then he wants our strip chassis with our van configured to his demands, which is different than what we build today. So, we got a lot of moving pieces there. We're talking about the big guys, right? We're talking about UPS. Their truck is slightly different than a FedEx truck. FedEx fleet is very diverse between the FedEx Ground and the FedEx Express vehicles. Some are owned, some are owned by contractors. DHL has a different demand. We're working with one of the large retail companies right now on a order for a 100, 300 trucks. They're trying to decide between a W750 or a W4 CC with a different backing on the back. You have both those vehicles going to that customer for about a two week trials August 14th. So, we're basically managing customer by customer. One customer wants a six-month trial before it plops down a bunch of investments, right? So that's kind of where we shifted to. I'm very confident in the plant. I like what the lessons we learned on the W4 CC, much -- a little more difficult than we expected when we got the GreenPower vehicles. W750 was, I'll say, some self-inflicted wounds on some late design changes. I think we dealt with almost 200 design changes from our first pilot build to our first production build. That's a hell of a lot of engineering work, a hell of a lot of supply chain work that people really can't appreciate unless you're actually in the mix. And now the W56. So, I'm confident by first quarter we're running in production and now it's our job for sales team to go lock up the vouchers and go get the dealers lined up and sell some trucks. That's kind of where we are here at Workhorse.

Operator

Operator

We’ve reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any further or closing comments.

Rick Dauch

Management

I just want to say thanks again for your interest in Workhorse. For those shareholders listening, we do need your vote “FOR” the shareholder proposal. You can trust us to use those shares wisely and as effectively as possible. Our goal here is to create a company you'll be proud of and they can great create shareholder value going forward over the next few years. Thanks for your interest, and we'll see you on the road somewhere.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.