Q2 2023 NFI Group Inc Earnings Call
Speaker 2: Thank you for standing by.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the NFI Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.
Speaker 2: After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.
Speaker 2: To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand it's raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. You may also submit questions via the webcast.
Speaker 2: Please be advised that today's conference has been recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to you today, Steven King, Vice President, Strategy and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Shannon. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to NFI Group's second quarter 2023 results conference call.
Speaker 3: This is Stephen King speaking. Joining me today are Paul Subry, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Papaso Sone, Chief Financial Officer. Thanks for watching.
Speaker 3: On today's call, we will provide an update on our comprehensive refinancing plan, second quarter 2023 results, discuss the bid and order environment and our 2023 and longer term outlook.
Speaker 3: This call is being recorded and a replay will be made available shortly. We will be using a presentation that can be found in the investor section of our website.
Speaker 3: While we will be moving the slide via the webcast link, we will also call out the slide numbers we go through the deck for participants on the phone.
Speaker 3: Starting with slide three, I would like to remind all participants and others that certain information provided on today's call may be forward looking and based on assumptions and anticipate a result that are subject to uncertainties.
Speaker 3: Should any one or more of these uncertainties materialize or should the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from those expected. Your advice to review the risk factors and the NFIs press releases and other public filings on CIDAR for more details.
Speaker 3: We also want to remind listeners that NFIs financial statements are presented in US dollars, the company's reporting currency, and all amounts referred to are in US dollars plus otherwise noted.
Speaker 3: Slide 4, we have included some key terms and definitions referred to in this presentation. Of note, zero emission buses or ZABs consists of battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell electric and troll electric buses. Equivalent units or EUs is a term we use for both production slots and delivery statistics. Most of our vehicles represent one equivalent unit.
Speaker 3: One articulated 60 foot trains at bus takes two production slots and is there for equal to two equivalent units.
Speaker 3: Fides 5, 6, and 7 provide a brief overview of NFI. For those interested in a more in-depth introduction to our business, please visit our investor website and listen to our 2022 Q4 results call.
Speaker 3: And if I continue to lead the transition to zero mission buses and coaches, or what we call the zevolution.
Speaker 3: Throughout this presentation we will refer to Zebs, Mutual Electric Battery Electric, or Fuel Cell.
Speaker 3: Slide 8 provides updated statistics on our capability and performance in ZEP.
Speaker 3: Total NFI has delivered 3123 ZEBS in 2015 that have completed over 120 million electric service miles in over 140 cities across six countries.
Speaker 3: Demand for ZEBS continues to accelerate quickly. In our North American public bid universe, over 50% of anticipated customer purchases over the next five years are for our electric vehicles, and 36% of our total backlog are now ZEBS.
Speaker 3: We'll now pass it over to Paul and Papasu who will provide an update on our nearly finalized comprehensive refinancing plan. We cap the financial results for the second quarter. Thank you, Steven. And good morning, everyone. I'll begin on slide 10.
Speaker 4: In the first quarter of 2023, we embarked on a comprehensive refinancing plan that included multi-Europe amendments to our senior credit facilities.
Speaker 4: seeking a covenant profile that masked our anticipated financial performance and recovery trajectory.
Speaker 4: Since that time, we have made significant progress on all components of that refinancing plan, including 133 million private placement equity financing from Colesche and Capital, a 92 million bought deal subscription receipt financing, and a new 50.5 million Canadian equity private placement with a leading global asset manager that was announced today.
Speaker 4: The new private placement is for the purchase of five million shares at NFI, and we'll have a statutory four month hold period. It, like all the other equity financing, is contingent on the completion of the full refinancing plan.
Speaker 4: The addition of this new equity financial has allowed us to lower our proposed second-line debt financing from 200 million to approximately 180 million, providing interest savings and lowering our overall leverage. This change is also expected to be accretive to our...
Speaker 4: Per metrics. Through the various transactions, we will generate approximately 443 million in total gross proceeds. 250 million would be used for the permanent paydown to our senior credit facilities, and the remaining funds after payment of fees will be used to strengthen NFI's liquidity by approximately 135 to $140 million.
Speaker 4: Our focus now is to finalize the remaining legal documentation to close all of the mutually conditional components of the financing plan. We expect that this comprehensive refinance will complete prior to August 31st, 2023, and we anticipate it closing it sooner. Please stay tuned for announcements for the very short term.
Speaker 4: In addition to significant effort expanded on the refinancing plan, we've remained tamed our laser focus on cash management across NFI. Operational performance is improving, but with been told working capital levels remain temporary elevated. We anticipate significant cash inflows from working capital with a potential to reach up to 100 million.
Speaker 4: in the second half of 2023. As we move into 2024 and 2025, we will invest in working capital as we increase production rates and increase the amounts of zero-mission buses built. Our goal is to ensure our working capital levels achieve a more typical pre-pandemic profile on a turns basis.
Speaker 4: or as a percentage of LTM revenue. Turning now to our Q2 2023 results, I will begin on slide 12.
Speaker 4: We continue to see very high level demands for our products and services. Year over year, our North American public bid universe is up 120%. And active bids are up 33%. We ended the second quarter with 1,682 equivalent units of bids and process.
Speaker 4: and another 8,372 equivalent units of bids that were already submitted, resulting in a new record for the highest number of bids submitted by NFI within one quarter.
Speaker 4: We expect this heightened level of bids to translate into steady orders and to support our backlog throughout the remainder of 23 and into 24 and 25.
Speaker 4: We also saw significant improvement in supply and associated production efficiencies.
Speaker 4: There's no question we'll take time for our operations, production efficiency to get back to pre-10 pendebical levels. But Q22-2023 showed promising signs of significant recovery, supporting our line entry ramp up and hiring reference that we've embarked on.
Speaker 4: In the quarter, manufacturing segments for bus and coach deliveries were up 66%, revenue increased by 66%, and adjusted even improved by 159% from the same quarter in 2022. The significant improvement was driven by higher volumes, improved sales mix,
Speaker 4: and record quarterly performance from the half market segment of NF5 that actually exceeded our expectations.
Speaker 4: The manufacturing segment did see lower than expected zero mission deliveries. This was due to the requirement to install new drain technology into the energy storage systems on select battery electric buses in North America. The drains were primarily installed in June and July and the majority of the impacted vehicles have now been delivered to customers.
Speaker 4: We expect that nearly all of these vehicles will be out of inventory in the third quarter. The strength of our market leading aftermarket parts business has continued through the first half of 2023. Going forward as a private markets continued recover and through the execution of several mid-life vehicle programs, we anticipate the aftermarket segment will continue to generate revenue growth and strong market to contribution.
Speaker 4: However, adjust the EBITDA margin percentage may be slightly lower as the no-scene in the first half of year given the strong up performance scene so far this year.
Speaker 4: NFI's total backlog remains at $6.7 billion, up $1.2 billion from the same time last year. New orders were down slightly quarter over quarter, but mostly due to the timing of certain new awards from customers.
Speaker 4: In addition to the formula rules received in the quarter, we had another 719 equivalent units that were in pending awards. These are situations where we have been named as a provincial partner by the customer, but formal purchase documentation has not yet been received. We expect these pending awards combined with the over 8,000 equivalent units of BIT submitted.
Speaker 4: will drive significant or rectivity before the end of the year. Of note, the average sale price per unit in our total backlog is up 20% from the same period in 2022.
Speaker 4: Now, turning to slide 13 is a highlight of our overall NFI supplier performance. We've been showing you this for quite some time. Overall, supplier risk rating, which compiled the detailed risk assessment process data from our top seven-erven suppliers, continues to show signs of health and improvement.
Speaker 4: We've seen a solid trend of improving growing supplier delivery performance. And this has happened even as we've started to ramp up the levels of production.
Speaker 4: Speaking of which, we have continued with our plan to increase new vehicle production rates in the second half of this year, subject to continued and sustained supply performance.
Speaker 4: And we're the process of hiring an estimated additional 100 direct team members before the end of this year.
Speaker 4: Line entries of the first half of 2023 have showed material improvement from 21 and 22. By the time we get to 2025, we expect line entries to be back around 1500 units per quarter, similar to the 2019 levels we experienced pre-COVID. I'll now ask Papas to walk you through the highlights of our financial results after which we'll provide you an outlook on the business and the market. Thanks Paul. Picking up on slide 15, backlog remains strong at 9,803 units split almost equally between firm and option orders.
Speaker 4: We have essentially sold all 2023 production slots and have sold a higher percentage of 2024 slots than where we would typically by this time of year. We also have customer options out to 2028, providing significant visibility for future years. Heavy day transit bus deliveries were up by 85% year over year.
Speaker 4: and coach, reflecting our ongoing efforts to adjust pricing to reflect inflation as well as transition to higher priced zero emission vehicles.
Speaker 4: Turning to slide 16, we show our gross margins by quarter from 2019 through the second quarter of 2023.
Speaker 4: Aftermarket continue to deliver strong margins driven by healthy demand, favorable mix and our efforts to lower freight cost. Manufacturing margins bottomed out in the second quarter of 2022 and are now positive for the first time since 2021. We forecast the positive margin improvement trend to continue as we ramp up operation.
Speaker 4: liquidity ended at 81.5 million down from the 124.1 million at the end of the first quarter. Decrease was driven by higher borrowing on our credit facilities, which supported increased working capital levels from spare parts inventory, offline buses, and higher accounts receivable balances tied to the timing of deliveries. AR was especially impacted by the late delivery of electric buses.
Speaker 4: where new drain technology was installed. We are confident of our refinancing plan will improve liquidity by over $135 million, but as we await its completion, we have been taking other actions to support financial flexibility. On July 20, 2023, we sold
Speaker 4: Our interest rate swap contracts for total proceeds of 18.4 million and it's part of the waiver extension that we announced on July 31st, 2023. We temporarily lowered the minimum liquidity requirement under our senior secured facilities from 25 million to 5 million.
Speaker 4: We appreciate the syndicate's flexibility on this change. Following completion of the refinancing plan, minimum liquidity will increase back to 50 million.
Speaker 4: On slide 18, we outlined the impact of net loss and adjusted net loss. Our net loss for the quarter improved by 8 million from 2022 Q2 primarily due to increased vehicle deliveries and solid aftermarket performance. Adjusted net loss also decreased as there were several larger one-time costs in 2022.
Speaker 5: and financial guidance.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Papasusso. I'm now on slide 20, and I'll provide a summary of some of our key demand metrics. The tar shows the last five years of North American public bid universe, which includes bid receives, bids that have been already submitted to customers in a five year look outlook of demand based on customers' fleet replacement plans.
Speaker 4: The active bids of over 10,000 equivalent units combined with a 5-year customer outlook provides a record total bid universe of over 31,600 equivalent units, which supports our view that vehicle demand will continue to remain high going forward.
Speaker 4: U.S.-based public transit agencies also continue the use of purchasing schedules that have become an alternative to the traditional unique customer procurements. NFI is named on over 25 of these state or purchasing schedules that where we've been awarded over 1,100 equivalent units off these schedules since 2018. NFI's infrastructure solutions business has become an important part of our overall company, allowing us to provide turnkey offerings of both charging infrastructure and zero-emission vehicles.
Speaker 4: Since its inception, we've been responsible for the installation of 376 plug-ins and 335 en-route charging projects for 59 different customers, with 11 current projects under contract in 2023 that last through 2025.
Speaker 4: On slide 21, we've highlighted our order and delivery activity within the second quarter of 23. While there were fewer actual awards in the quarter, mostly due to customer timing and the large number of active bids, on an LTM basis we have received awards of over 5,800 equivalent units. We also expect significant award activity in the third and fourth quarters.
Speaker 4: to the largest operator in Hong Kong named KMB. Slide 22 shows NFI's book-to-bill ratio has remained well above 100% since our low of 2021. The current demand environment suggests this will continue. Option conversion rates on the LTM basis remain low, but improved over the first quarter of 23. This lower conversion rate is expected to be a temporary issue, as we've seen numerous older internal combustion engines and legacy EV orders expire, and being replaced by new zero-emission bus orders. We anticipate conversion rates will continue to improve in the second half of this year, and well into 2024. On slide 24, we provide a quick summary of the record funding in place in each of our major markets of Canada.
Speaker 4: Turning to slide 25, we show our guidance for 2023 and 24 in our 2025 targets. Based on NFI's year-to-date performance and expected half-second half results, we've now increased the lower end of our 2023 guidance range for both revenue and adjusted EVA Duffer this year.
Speaker 4: We now anticipate adjusted EBITDA of 40 to 60 million in 2023, followed by significant recovery in 2024 of 250 to 300 million, and a target of approximately 400 million by 2025.
Speaker 4: The growth in our financial projections is driven by a combination of volume recovery, production efficiency recovery, improved product pricing, and an increased mix of zero-emission buses. As you can see in the chart, our total deliveries drop significantly from 2019 to 2022, effectively in half.
Speaker 4: Our 2025 targets for units have us back to about 20 and 19 delivery levels of approximately 6,000 total equivalent units.
Speaker 4: To meet these expectations, we will ramp up production, which is primarily a function of a stable supply chain and the addition of labour to existing facilities, rather than requiring major investment capital of new facilities. We plan to exit 2023 at higher production levels and will continue to increase that in 2024, driving volume and overhead absorption leverage.
Speaker 4: that will deliver on our approved and just Geneva Duct and our operating profits and cash flow. We anticipate we will complete nearly all of the legacy inflation impacted contracts in 2023, with the majority of those contracts with the majority of contracts built in 24 and 25 being appropriately priced, matching higher material input and wage costs.
Speaker 4: through contract pricing and enhanced margins. We remain confident we can achieve our targets with the expectations that we will exceed the 400 million dollar adjusted EBITDA target for 2025. We've maintained our 20 our 12 percent ROIC target for 2025 with a potential for significant performance on this metric as we deliver our balance sheet and see improved working capital with our new
Speaker 4: In addition, there have been some recent announcements in the US of heavy duty transit market that may provide opportunities for a new flyer business. In June 2023, Nova Bus, a division of Volvo truck and bus announced it would be ceasing production of transit buses in the United States by 2025. And just last week,
Speaker 4: our competitor Proterra announced that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It's early days to fully understand their potential impact on the market and on NF5, and we are monitoring closely. On slide 26, one of the underlying factors in our financial expectations is increased zero-emission bus sales.
Speaker 4: Zero emission deliveries have increased rapidly from our 8% of total volume in 2020 to 23% last year in 2022, with expectations that will make up more than 40% of our deliveries by 2025.
Speaker 4: Zero emissions as a percent of our backup have also been growing quickly, doubling in size from 21 to 22 and rating stable at that level 36 at record 36% in 2023 quarter two.
Speaker 4: Slide 27 shows the average price of each unit in our total backlog, which has dramatically increased for both heavy-duty transit buses and motor coaches since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. Effective in combination of higher zero-emission bus orders, inflation-adjusted pricing, and improved margins in our new contracts.
Speaker 4: Slide 27 shows the average price of each unit in our total backlog, which has dramatically increased for both heavy-duty transit buses and motor coaches since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020, effective in combination of higher zero-emission bus orders, inflation-adjusted pricing, and improved margins in our new contracts. On slide 28, we summarize our investment thesis.
Speaker 4: The last 36 months at NFI has been extremely difficult to navigate. I believe the actual results in the first half of 2023 combined with our projections for the remainder of the year appropriately demonstrate that we have turned the corner and recovery is now fully underway and in front of us.
Speaker 4: Completing the financing plan with both new debt and equity is expected to close in the very near term and will be a major step for NFI and tremendous demonstration of confidence.
Speaker 4: by our investors in our business, in our strategy, our products, and where we're headed. We are pleased with the first half performance. There is more to do. We are confident about the path we're on and the road in front of us. And as always, we're proud of our history and more than ever excited about NFI's future as a market leader.
Speaker 2: I'll now open the line for analyst questions. Shannon, please provide instructions to our callers. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again.
Speaker 2: I'll now open the line for analyst questions. Shannon, please provide instructions to our callers. Thank you as a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced to withdraw your question. Please press star one one again. You may also submit questions via the webcast.
Speaker 2: Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Your line is now open.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks guys. Good morning. Paul, maybe looking at the outlook a little bit and just the supply chain. I guess it looks like a handful of suppliers are still having some issues with. As we think about the ramp, what's left to kind of get fixed, if you will, or.
Speaker 6: or what's out there that causes you some concern about being able to achieve the ramp right now.
Speaker 4: Morning, Chris. Let me look at the conversation we've been having for three or four years now. And I think you more than anybody or any of our analyst community have watched and monitor our business for a long time. The customized nature of our products, not just in North America, but in Alexander Dennis as well, has always created complexity of supply chain given unique demands.
Speaker 4: products that we buy and so forth. As we now see our supply community, most of those systemic global issues of demand have gone away. It's now moved down to specific supplier challenges, either with some of their input materials or some of their own labor demands. And we've got some great examples in our business of, you know, things as simple as seats or windows.
Speaker 4: where suppliers to our business slow their business or drop their business dramatically during COVID started to ramp up and now struggling to staff their business to supply us at this current pace.
Speaker 4: So as you know, we've done a number of things. We've made investments in redundant inventories in our factory.
Speaker 4: but the side where possible to have an additional inventory and I know somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 70 million dollars of excess spare parts inventory in our business to try and band-aid or help support where we think we may have troubling suppliers. We've alternate supported alternate source story wherever we possibly can.
Speaker 4: We continue to manage the pace of ramp up with both those issues, our own labor supply, as well as the supply of our customers.
Speaker 4: We still have excess offline work in process. And so both Chris in North America and Paul Davis in the UK are managing the burn-off, if you will, of that excess whip at the same time as they're actually ramping up their businesses.
We've been very careful not to over promise the ramp up of our business, but we're feeling more and more comfortable every day that our supply community is able and capable to work alongside us to increase. The other thing we've done is ramped up and added a number of people and we've got more to add in terms of helping managing and and.
supplier development associated with those that supply chain community, both from our facilities or supporting some of those critical suppliers at their locations. So, you know, we really believe we've turned the corner. We've got still excess with to get rid of off of our lines, generate cash flow.
but we are very pleased at the pace that we're now able to start to ramp up. Okay. Is there any particular category of part or component that is an issue or is it kind of moving around day to day?
It's every customer's different. Some of the issues that we still kind of see that let's call them commodities, high voltage cables, the sheer ramp up across the world of electric vehicles, whether it's cars, trucks, buses, whatever, the demand on the high voltage cable community and the looms associated with is one of the commodities we're struggling with.
The other one that continues to be a bit of a problem, although improving is glass or the fabrication of windows. But compare that to a year or two years ago where we talked so much about microprocessors and electrical wiring harnesses and so forth. Some of it today is still just day-to-day management of current suppliers, but I really can't point to any global commodities that are causing us problems today.
Okay, maybe moving on just thinking about kind of the market in the US and some of the shifts there So if I go back and I think about you know, US market share Pre pandemic, you know between Proterra and Nova you're probably you may be about a quarter of the market And we've also seen Nova's district company Proterra or not Proterra
is in process right now, which I'm going to guess.
Some of those might be direct competitors on those bids. So kind of curious about that, but also when I go back and I think about, you know, the market over the last call it 20 years, I mean, we've seen different market participants exit, you know, I think about flexible, maybe like, I think it was 2005, you saw Ryan, you know, you guys helped Navi exit the market.
You know, but there was also some opportunities for you guys to either take over contracts or move around contracts. I'm kind of wondering about, you know, given the fact that you're sold out through 2023, you know, 2024 sounds pretty full. What kind of opportunity set is there for you right now to do that? Is there anything in the aftermarket to maybe look at? And I guess the other piece of this is
Is there any risk on some of the contracts or some of the transit authorities where you were dual sourced with Nova that there's risk in the future just being a single source supplier?
And of course, the Proterra news is absolutely fresh. I'll focus those questions and conversation more internally. We know what we've sold, we know the margins that we bid on those contracts. We believe that we've embedded a significant comfort in the costing base of those contracts so that we believe that if we execute as we have in the past, our margins will be considerably better than what we saw in 2021, 2022, and even some of them this year in 2023.
The sheer number of units that are sitting out there in bids that we've already submitted. We've been very appropriately priced and very conscious about the margin coming out of those things. I'm not so sure.
that we want to absorb any of the contracts that our competitors have taken. They were all bid like us at a time when they were very aggressive. We have our own known customers, we have our known bids where we've gone after.
The last thing we want to do to ourselves, to our employees or our customers or our investment community is over-promise. We're trying to ramp up too fast. We're comfortable with the supply chain recovery. And there's potential to improve some of those labels, but remember we've got to balance that with labour. And you know, Chris, that when you walk through our facilities, this isn't just, you know, put a part on a shelf-type labour. These people have to be able to read blueprints. They have to be able to interrogate the computer.
is that they deal with the variability of every bus being different down the production line. So we're just going to play this game very carefully. We're very comfortable with where we're at. We gave those guidance numbers long before Nova talked about their strategy and Proterra advised of their financial challenges.
You know, from where I sit, there is absolutely upside, but we're not going to over promise or get aggressive to try to take that stuff and put at risk our own recovery. The financing allows us to have the financial flexibility to be able to navigate through that. The unwind of the whip generates cash flow that we today have sucked up in our business, as I mentioned in my commentary, as we get more zero emission buses into our.
It's not a massive aftermarket and Nova, of course, Nova has a partnership with Previl and the support of their vehicles in Canada and the United States through a shared service infrastructure and a parts business. So I'm not sure there's a massive upside there. We're going to play our game. We're not going to chase our competitors. Okay, fair enough. Um, and maybe the other just
kind of maybe one follow-up question to the whole of it. I mean one of the things that we were talking about around electric vehicles for the last few years anyway is the risk of new entrance into your space. Certainly we've seen a lot of new entrance in the light auto space. What are your thoughts about the maturity of the heavy duty market?
where you guys operate and do you still think it's as much a risk as it used to be with new entrants into the marketplace or do you think that this might settle out with two or three players and then we move from there?
Well, you know, Chris, I'm all we're always healthy, healthy paranoid about, you know, the recovery of our competitors or the performance of our competitors are about the threat of new entrance. You know, years ago, we heard a strategy of the fan who, for example, showing up to North America and never did could this open a door for them? Sure. By America compliant. US
I think where we sit our position is, boy, the market demand is better than it's ever been. We have a known order book with solid margins in it. We have bids out there with solid margins in it.
But I point to somebody like BYD that got into this space, maybe put a thousand buses on the road in the long period they were here, but really haven't disrupted the market. It's a very unique, highly customized space that we're very, very good at. So I would say there's more wind in our sails than anybody else's right now, but we're being very cautious at the pace that we're gonna recover. And in our notes, Chris, in our commentary today, and you've seen this before, we're not projecting to get to crazy market levels or to double our overall business. What we're expecting to do is get back to our pre-COVID levels with much healthier margins and a significantly stronger aftermarket business. If there's more on top of that, that's only good at upside for our business. All right, fair enough. Thanks, folks. Thanks, Chris. Thank you.
As a reminder, to ask a question at this time, please press star 1-1 on your touchtone telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Cameron Dortzen with National Bank Financial. Your line is now open. Yeah, thanks. Good morning. A question on the, I guess, the second lien loan. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about some of the terms. I mean, it looks like the interest rate is going to be 14.5%, but what about the term and ability to prepay? I mean, the reason why I ask is that, I mean, it's a pretty...
Yeah, so, I mean, at this stage, you know, one of the things like Paul said, we can't get into all the details, but we are looking at a prepaid option and expect we'll have some flexibility not to go in the full 5 years in terms of the bridge financing. So, you know, as we kind of get through this and announce it, I'm sure we'll get into a lot more of the details. Okay, fair enough. I guess we'll wait and see on that. On the, I guess the pricing, I mean, you've highlighted the 20% increase in the backlog pricing. I wonder if you can maybe just describe how much of that kind of increase year over year is related to more zero emission buses waiting in the backlog versus versus actual price and with that 20% year over year, is that.
you know enough or more than enough to fully offset the inflationary pressures you've seen over the last couple years? Well it's a really good question Cam and of course you know you and the other analysts have seen the way we do this stuff but remember these are highly customized, highly effect, they're costed bill of materials based it on unique requirements for seats or windows or cameras or whatever the customer wants.
We have multi-year supply contracts with our battery providers, so we got a pretty good handle on the inflationary costs associated with that. The backlog of our zero-emission buses has gone up from say 13 or 14% to now 36%.
So when we sit in a bid meeting today, if it's a conventional bus, we've got a pretty good handle or conventional ice bus. We've got a pretty good handle on the history, the costs. We have accounted for all of the inflationary pressure and some.
Plus, we've taken a much more aggressive on margin. We've got a pretty solid backlog and so we're being very strategic about who we're going to sell our capacity to. We're going to focus on our key customers that have been loyal to us.
The zero emission pricing has some elements of new risk around a different supply chain and so forth. But the days that we experienced in 20 or 21 where we had to run around and try and figure out who we were going to sell some slots to because nobody was exercising their options right now are behind us. And so we're at this luxury of being able to be pretty strategic and