Conference Transcript - SLDP 2026-09-15

Operator

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining H.C. Wainwright's Global Investment Conference. My name is Mason, and it is our pleasure to introduce John from Solid Power.

John Van Scoter, CEO

Good morning. John Van Skoder, President and CEO of Solid Power. Solid Power is a Denver area-based advanced battery materials company. We were formed in 2011 out of the University of Colorado at boulder we currently have 230 employees in two locations in and around the boulder area we also have a office in korea we just updated the investor presentation i won't have time to go through all of it i've just selected a few slides but if i spark your interest hopefully you can take a look at the full deck online on our web page so as i said we're focused on the next generation of advanced batteries so-called all solid state batteries we have a very unique business model we focus on the electrolyte manufacturing and provide that to tier one battery manufacturers as well as EV OEMs we have a very scalable very stable process that is so-called wet process that uses much less capital compared to our competitors in terms of scaling we also have a unique ability to test our electrolyte all the way through the cell and so we have a feedback loop to verify the performance characteristics of our electrolyte in battery cells and we focus very heavily on partnerships notably we've had a greater than eight year partnership with bmw a over five year partnership with sk on and more recently a new partnership with samsung sti so why all solid state batteries lithium-ion batteries today worked for going on three decades and they are the incumbent but there are diminishing returns in terms of advanced performance and cost as they go forward we believe sulfide based all solid state batteries is the solution it's a new battery technology it replaces the liquid electrolyte that's in every one of today's lithium-ion batteries with a sulfide solid material it offers step function improvements in some key areas of battery performance on touch on that subsequently and it can be used across we are primarily focused on evs but it can be used across more recently humanoids drones other segments the electric light is literally a powder you see it there in those glass jars and then at the microscopic level there one to five microns you see pictured next to that in another image what it offers is much improved energy density think of it as reducing range anxiety in EVs where today's EVs, say, get 300 miles on a charge, think of doubling that with the same size battery. It also offers better battery life, so you can cycle the battery more than current lithium ion. Depending on the cell design, it can offer improved charging speeds, and then it is a big improvement in terms of safety. The other big advantage of sulfide electrolytes that we offer is it can be manufactured at the cell level on the existing roll-to-roll LIV equipment. So it doesn't require any new equipments. Current factories can be retrofitted to this technology. Within the last five years, the market has really voted and validated our whole approach with sulfides. All of the companies you see pictured there are pursuing sulfide-based chemistries for the next generation of batteries. So you see us as a material supplier there in the center. Then the cell manufacturers, again, we have a relationship with the top two in Korea, focusing on the third. Also in Japan with Panasonic and the U.S. here with Factorial. The OEMs, again, we have a long relationship with BMW. We've done joint development agreements with Ford and others that you see pictured there. We think that sulfides offer the best manufacturability and cost and performance of any advanced battery material. So why solid power? First and foremost, we have a world-class modeling organization. We started an AI machine learning team back in 2023, and they've really put us in the forefront utilizing our data set, which is very rich over our long history, to be able to improve our manufacturing, as well as explore advanced chemistries for the next generation of electrolyte. We have a rapid innovation cycle with the Electrolyte Innovation Center. We have a pre-pilot scale of everything that we have at the pilot scale. We can very rapidly customize our electrolytes for customers' needs. I mentioned the feedback loop. that's very unique to be able to validate all the way through cell performance and we have this wet process which is highly scalable and as a structural capex cost advantage for scaling and then again we focus very heavily on partnerships so we have really been focused heavily on evs to date but more recently humanoids have come into the forefront it's very possible that those will start production prior to the electrical vehicles. We are seeing demo cars now using all solid-state batteries. Some are semi-solid, but all solid-state batteries in the case of BMW's i7 last year with us. You'll see more demo cars coming out in the coming quarters and years, and that will give way to small fleet and then larger fleets in the early 2030s is our current belief. um also applications into aviation and defense with drones and then we also are getting some keen interest in off-highway vehicles mining and oil and gas so batteries are all about scaling and so we right now today have a pilot scale in colorado it's 30 metric tons of material per annum we're in the final phases of scaling up to the next level it's a continuous flow process that will get us to 75 metric tons by the end of this year. Then the third phase is going to be with a partner in Korea. We're in advanced negotiation stage with a large conglomerate there to do a 500 metric ton plant to be online in 2028. And then ultimately, we'll increment up from that 500 metric ton by 2,000 metric ton increments, all within the same site, notably in Korea. so we're on the cusp of real revenues as we go through the back half of this decade and into early next cost this is a new slide for us here you see where we are at the 30 metric ton level and with that will come down significantly with the continuous flow process that we'll have by the end of this year and then again with this 500 metric ton plant and then on down to approaching cost parity with existing LIB electrolytes. So our balance sheet is very strong. We have almost $420 million of cash on our balance sheet, no debt. We do have a $50 million Department of Energy grant we're using for this continuous flow line that we're bringing up. So we're in very good position from a cash standpoint to be able to make it through. We're in the minority there in the battery market. We have a very strong discipline around our spend. Our spend is down year on year even though our R&D projects are up and we're leveraging external funding. The DOE I mentioned but also the partnership in Korea will be a shared CapEx partnership and we're continuing to preserve our flexibility taking advantage of market conditions.

Operator

So with that I will open it up to any questions that you have.