Mullen Automotive acquires ELMS inventory, manufacturing plant, and IP in all-cash purchase
Mullen Automotive has absorbed yet another fellow EV start-up. Today’s acquisition includes Electric Last Mile Solutions, or ELMS, which filed for bankruptcy in June. Mullen received court approval last week to acquire ELMS’s Indiana manufacturing facility, its inventory of EVs, and all its intellectual property.
Mullen Automotive ($MULN) is a Southern California-based EV start-up founded in 2014 that has set out to deliver affordable EVs built entirely on US soil. Although the company has yet to deliver an EV to the market, it came close twice. First, it tried to bring the fabled Coda EV back from the dead, then struck a deal with Qiantu in China to try to bring the assembly of the Dragonfly K50 to the US.
Following a merger in 2020, Mullen pivoted its strategy once again and honed its focus onto its own ground-up EV model – the FIVE crossover SUV. The start-up surprised us yet again by shifting its production sights elsewhere, claiming a majority stake in Bollinger Motors this past September. It vowed to get Bollinger’s ill-fated B1 and B2 electric trucks into production using some of the cash from its acquisition purchase.
Just over a month later, Mullen Automotive announced an investment in another EV start-up, acquiring Electric Last Mile Solutions and all of its assets, including a large production facility.
Mullen approved for all-cash purchase of ELMS’s business
The EV startup shared that it was approved by the US Bankruptcy Court on October 13 as a Chapter 7 transaction, which includes ELMS’s former production facility in Mishawaka, Indiana. Here is the list of assets acquired in the ELMS purchase:
- All intellectual property (IP).
- All inventory, including vehicles (finished and unfinished), finished goods, part modules component parts, raw materials, tooling (including but not limited to product-specific tooling), and all manufacturing data that is required or reasonably helpful for the assembly of the Class 1 Electric commercial delivery vans and Class 3 Commercial Delivery Cab Chassis.
- Real property located in Mishawaka, Indiana, together with all buildings, improvements, and fixtures.
- All tangible personal property, including equipment, machinery, furniture, supplies, computer hardware, data networks, servers (with data and software), communication equipment, software, discs, and all other data storage media.
With the acquisition, Mullen Automotive procures a production footprint with the capability to produce up to 50,000 vehicles per year. The start-up stated that the acquisition of said factory will allow it to accelerate production of the Mullen FIVE and Bollinger B1 and B2 EVs by 12 months.
Mullen currently operates a facility in Tunica, Missouri, which will now become the company’s commercial manufacturing center, responsible for producing Mullen and Bollinger Class 1 to 6 commercial vehicles. Subsequently, FIVE production will move from Tunica to the newly acquired facility in Indiana. Mullen chairman and CEO David Michery spoke to the cash purchase:
Mullen’s acquisition of Bollinger was one of the largest transactions of its kind in the EV market. Upon closing the ELMS transaction, the company will be in a position to strategically leverage all its acquired assets to shorten its production path and aggressively expand into the commercial and consumer EV market.
Mullen Automotive did not share the purchase price of ELMS in its recent press release, but the start-up reportedly offered over $93 million in cash and other considerations, according to previous court documents. The start-up claims to have access to $275 million to close the ELMS acquisition based upon its cash on hand and “funding commitments” of up to $240 million.
Mullen intends to launch Class 1 to 3 commercial delivery EVs in 2023, followed by the start of FIVE production in 2024.
Electrek’s take
It’s interesting to see Mullen Automotive acquire yet another start-up that couldn’t make it over the scaled production hump. The newly acquired facility could certainly help the start-up answer its own call to destiny in becoming a legitimate automaker, but they still don’t pass the sniff test here at Electrek.
We’d love to be proven wrong. We are by no means rooting against Mullen Automotive. The FIVE and FIVE RS look very cool, but this company remains a mere start-up with some prototypes until it actually starts delivering viable EVs to customers.
Why spend all this money purchasing other technologies from companies instead of using those funds to build your own passenger EVs as planned? Makes you wonder. We totally understand the entry into last-mile and commercial Evs – that segment is absolutely booming. But why now, before successfully scaling a vehicle of its own?
Hopefully, Mullen hasn’t spread itself too thin here financially, especially on the wings of “funding commitments” that make up a large majority of its available funds. Again, rooting for them, but this is definitely a “show, don’t tell” situation.
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National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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