Poor leadership and over-complex factory blamed for Arrival collapse

An over-complex robot-based microfactory put into operation by “poor leadership” caused the collapse of British EV start-up Arrival, according to an Autocar source.

Arrival crashed into UK administration this week, having never delivered a customer van despite claiming 10,000s of orders and having burned through £1.5 billion of investment (from key automotive players including Kia and Hyundai) on a breakthrough electric van design and a futuristic factory in Bicester to build it.

Sources believe Arrival was condemned from the moment, in around 2019, when top management opted for fully robotised production, which is understood to have pushed back production by at least two years at a time when Arrival had no income from sales, while finding new investors proved problematic. 

“You have to make revenue; you have to sell product in this business,” said a source. “They