Aeva sales beat expectations as it signs Plus as first production customer

(Reuters) -Aeva Technologies Inc on Wednesday reported third-quarter sales that beat Wall Street expectations and said it will provide sensors to self-driving truck firm Plus, the company's first disclosed mass production customer.

Founded by former Apple Inc engineers, Aeva makes what is called a lidar sensor, which helps self-driving vehicles gain a multidimensional view of the road. Aeva has development partnerships with firms such as Denso Corp around lidar sensors for vehicles and Nikon Corp for sensors for robotic factory production lines.

For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Aeva said it had sales of $3.5 million and an adjusted loss of 9 cents per share. Wall Street had expected sales of $2.99 million and an adjusted loss of 11 cents per share, according to IBES estimates from Refinitiv.

Aeva shares rose 1.8% in after-hours trading following the results.

Aeva also on Wednesday said it had struck its first high-volume production deal with Plus, which is developing self-driving truck technology. Aeva, which earlier this week said it has selected Fabrinet to contract-manufacture its sensors, said it will start supplying sensors to Plus late next year. The companies did not disclose how many units the deal will involve, but Plus has said it aims to put 100,000 systems on the road by 2025.

"There are 80,000 drivers short in the trucking industry, so there's a lot of consensus around autonomous driving for trucks being one of the first commercial applications that takes off," Aeva Chief Executive Soroush Salehian told Reuters.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San FranciscoEditing by Matthew Lewis)

By Stephen Nellis