Electric bus and battery maker Proterra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. The company says the filing is designed to strengthen its financial position and that it will keep operating throughout the bankruptcy process.
Last December, the California-based company announced it would be concentrating its operations in South Carolina by the end of this year. Proterra is currently building a 43-acre battery plant in Greer.
But the filing does expose some cashflow problems for the EV giant. Proterra’s second-quarter earnings conference call had been scheduled for Wednesday, but the company cancelled the call following the bankruptcy filing.
The company’s (PRTA) NASDAQ shares dropped from 1.43 at the close of Monday to open at 0.44 Tuesday. By midday Tuesday PRTA was trading at 0.2. Its stock is projected to stay down for the next six weeks, then rebound and level out over the next year.
Proterra CEO Gareth Joyce said in the statement that the company has faced “various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale all of our opportunities simultaneously.”
However, the company also states that it plans to continue operating as usual throughout the proceedings, including paying salaries.
The maker of EV batteries and buses has a battery manufacturing presence in Greenville. In 2019, the company supplied Rock Hill with the country’s first all-electric, free-to-ride public bus fleet that started from scratch.
It is unclear whether the filing will have any effect on Proterra’s EV fleet customers in the state.
