Lightning eMotors Names New Chief Manufacturing Officer

Industry veteran Brian Barron promoted to Lightning’s Executive team

• Barron brings manufacturing background from Lucid Motors, BMW, and other recognized companies to Lightning eMotors
• Proven track record of building and growing high quality, automation-focused manufacturing teams to help enable Lightning scale production, reduce costs, and improve margins

Lightning eMotors (NYSE: ZEV), a leading provider of medium-duty and specialty commercial zero emission vehicles for fleets, today announced that it has promoted Brian Barron to chief manufacturing officer. Barron will lead the manufacturing, vehicle assembly, and procurement functions as Lightning eMotors scales to meet its growth targets.

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Brain Barron heads Lightning eMotors' manufacturing and vehicle assembly operations. (Photo: Lightning eMotors / D. Bennett)

Barron has been the Vice President of Global Manufacturing at Lightning eMotors since June 2021. Prior to joining Lightning, Barron was the Director of Global Manufacturing at Lucid, an electric passenger vehicle manufacturing company. Barron also spent more than 19 years in a variety of key manufacturing roles at BMW Manufacturing Co.

“Interest in zero-emission commercial electric vehicles is growing quickly given the focus from regulatory agencies and corporations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and we are scaling up our production at lightning speed to meet this demand,” said Tim Reeser, chief executive officer and co-founder of Lightning eMotors. “Brian has a proven track record of building and growing an efficient manufacturing team including the automation tools and systems that we need to accelerate production while lowering costs. In the past six months at Lightning, Brian has demonstrated the skills, experience, and leadership we need to drive Lightning into the future.”

Barron will serve as a member of Lightning eMotors’ executive team reporting to Reeser and will lead the teams responsible for manufacturing Lightning’s all-electric powertrain, vehicle assembly across five different platform classes, procurement and supply chain, and facilities expansion and automation.

“We have increased our ability to deliver commercial electric vehicles significantly over the past year, but there is a lot of room for us to improve efficiency, scalability, and quality,” said Barron. “By expanding the use of automation tools we have put in place, such as collaborative robots and augmented reality systems for process control, we can deploy higher volumes of vehicles at improved margins without compromising our high-quality standards. I’m excited about the opportunity to help lead this growth.”

Barron holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Clemson University and served in the United States Navy as a sonar technician for six years.

Barron is based in Loveland, Colorado.

About Lightning eMotors:

Lightning eMotors (NYSE: ZEV) has been providing specialized and sustainable fleet solutions since 2009, deploying complete zero-emission-vehicle (ZEV) solutions for commercial fleets since 2018 – including Class 3 cargo and passenger vans, ambulances, Class 4 and 5 cargo vans and shuttle buses, Class 4 Type A school buses, Class 6 work trucks, Class 7 city buses, and Class A motor coaches. The Lightning eMotors team designs, engineers, customizes, and manufactures zero-emission vehicles to support the wide array of fleet customer needs with a full suite of control software, telematics, analytics, and charging solutions to simplify the buying and ownership experience and maximize uptime and energy efficiency. To learn more, visit our website at https://lightningemotors.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, potential future vehicle deployments, potential future demand for electric vehicles, and Lightning eMotors’ expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions, plans, prospects or strategies regarding the future business plans. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intends,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by the management of Lightning eMotors in light of their respective experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments and their potential effects on Lightning eMotors as well as other factors they believe are appropriate in the circumstances. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting Lightning eMotors will be those anticipated. These forward-looking statements contained in this press release are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results or outcomes to be materially different from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors include, but are not limited to: (i) those related to Lightning eMotors’ operations and business and financial performance; (ii) the ability of Lightning eMotors to execute on its business strategy and grow demand for its products and revenue; (iii) the potential increases in costs or shortage of materials required to develop and manufacture the eChassis; (iv) the potential severity, magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic as it affects the business operations, global supply chains, financial results and position of Lightning eMotors and on the U.S. and global economy; (v) current market conditions and federal, state, and local laws, regulations and government incentives, particularly those related to the commercial electric vehicle market; (vi) the size and growth of the markets in which Lightning eMotors operates; (vii) the mix of products utilized by Lightning eMotors’ customers and such customers’ needs for these products; (viii) market acceptance of new product offerings and whether this will be a catalyst for others to purchase electric vehicles and (ix) the rate at which customers deploy our electric vehicle. These and other risks are described more fully in Lightning eMotors’ filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other documents that it subsequently files with the SEC from time to time. Moreover, Lightning eMotors operates in a competitive and rapidly changing environment, and new risks may emerge from time to time. You should not put undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which such performance or results will be achieved, if at all. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should any of the assumptions being made prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Lightning eMotors undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

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