RE:Linamar / SEA and Awards Judith
I wouldnt get too worked up over the Linamar deal. Sue knows the market well from her time at GE and Wolong. She intimately knows the time it takes to develop a product for the market. Linamar and Exro have been working hard on developing the Eaxle for a long time now. We do not know all the details of the development but remeber they had a working Eaxle they demonstrated in Vegas at CES at the start of covid and have very likely been road testing one or more for two years or more. Thats the time it takes. Now if Exro were to partner with another tier 1 to develop their own Eaxle it would take an additional two years of developing testing and reworking it before they could even produce it. Follow my timing here. So Now Linamar has the exclusive rights to 2027, 3.5 -4 years. Thats it. So if Exro were to start the codevelopment of another Eaxle with another Tier one for the same market (which Sue knows well and knows the numbers AND the suppliers) it would take them minimum of two years before they could even think of producing them for their customers, by that time Linamars exclusivity will be close to expiring. Furthermore Linamar has the capacity and ability and reputation and customers base to totally monopolize that segment of the market if they so chose! The Linamar deal on the surface may look bad, but when you consider everything from an industry perspective it may in fact be a brilliant deal!