The Lion Electric Company has launched a new division called LionCapital Solutions. The new division will provide Lion Electric customers with flexible financing as they look to electrify their fleets of medium- to heavy-duty commercial vehicles such as school buses and trucks.
Electrification of school busses and fleets requires a huge upfront cost but lower total cost of ownership over the life of the vehicle. By helping spread out the purchase price of fleets over their lifetimes, Lion is allowing operators to keep in place their current financial structures.
The Lion Electric Company ($LEV) is a manufacturer of electrified Class 5 to Class 8 commercial trucks, as well as all-electric buses. Since forming in 2011, the company has continually grown its fleet of heavy-duty all-electric offerings, as well as its rolodex of commercial customers, including schools.
This also includes customers like Amazon, while working with commercial fleets at Con Edison and Green Mountain Power to help transition their vehicles toward zero-emission options. This fleet-electrification strategy has garnered a growing number of school districts in states like California, as well as a multitude of schools in Canada with the backing of the nation’s government.
While commercial electrification is ever-growing, there is still much work to be done in North American to truly make a dent in fleet emissions. Lion Electric hopes to help expedite the process and ease the financial burden of this transition for fleet customers by launching its LionCapital Solutions bank.
LionCapital Solutions division to aid in electric fleet financing
Lion Electric announced the establishment of its LionCapital Solutions in a recent press release, sharing further details of how it plans to extend its services to fleet customers to now include more flexible financing options.
Lion stated that by leveraging its existing vehicle financing alternatives, the new LionCapital Solutions division can commercialize a financing program that can be deployed to fleet customers at scale.
In addition to serving purchases for Lion Electric buses and trucks, LionCapital Solutions will aid in financing purchases pertaining to charging infrastructure – all purchases include options for loans, leasing, and monetization of carbon credits. Lion Electric Founder and CEO Marc Bedard elaborated:
At Lion, we always strive to provide our customers with an all-in-one solution to electrify their fleets, easing their transition to zero-emission vehicles. With the addition of LionCapital Solutions, Lion will directly integrate financing and carbon credit monetization into the Lion ecosystem, which includes grants, charging infrastructure services, telematics, training, vehicle maintenance and more.
The new division will be able to maximize the company’s access to funding, helping eliminate or reduce upfront costs to fleets hoping to go all electric. While the total cost of ownership (TCO) of electric buses and trucks is less expensive in the long run, the higher upfront cost of an EV versus a traditional diesel option remains a deterrent for many fleet managers contemplating the switch.
By simplying the financing process, and helping alleviate some of these upfront costs to customers, Lion Electric plans to deliver a more favorable TCO from the very start.
Looking ahead, Lion Electric will work to integrate LionCapital Solutions’ new financing into its existing turnkey electrification packages for fleets.
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Author: Scooter Doll
Source: Electrek
