Earnings Call Transcript - SLDP Q4 2022

Operator, Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Solid Power, Inc. Full Year 2022 Financial Results and Business Update Call. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will turn the conference over to your host, Jennifer Almquist, Investor Relations for Solid Power, Inc. Thank you. You may begin.

Jennifer Almquist, Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Joining me on the call today are Solid Power's Interim Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman, Dave Jansen; and Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Paprzycki. A copy of today's press release is available on the Investor Relations section of Solid Power's website at ir.solidpowerbattery.com. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that parts of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements as defined by U.S. securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions about future events and are based on currently available information as to the outcome and timing of future events. Except as otherwise required by applicable law, Solid Power disclaims any duty to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. For a discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in today's forward-looking statements, please see Solid Power's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found on the Company's website at ir.solidpowerbattery.com. With that, let me turn it over to Dave Jansen.

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

Thank you, Jen. Good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate you joining the call today. I am excited to speak with you following a busy first few months in the interim CEO role. For those whom I haven't spoken to yet, I've been involved with the Company since it was founded, and as President and Chair, I've worked with leadership on developing our strategy, business, and team. Today, I will start with an overview of our 2022 results. I will then touch on our business strategy and provide my thoughts on the year ahead. Then I'll pass the call over to Kevin for a review of the financials. After that, I'll provide some concluding remarks and open the call for questions. 2022 was a very successful year for Solid Power. I'm proud that our team delivered on a number of key milestones, and I continue to believe the Company is well positioned for long-term success. Our 2022 objectives were aimed at building the foundation for scaled electrolyte production and cell development. To accomplish this, we first invested in key production capabilities for electrolyte powder and EV cell manufacturing. We scaled and manufactured cells on the EV line. We deepened relationships with our partners. We secured funding for key R&D efforts. And we built an effective public company platform. Looking at these a little more closely. First, our electrolyte production facility and EV line will play an important role in the next stages of development as we support automotive qualification and work towards commercialization. Second, we delivered both 2 and 20 amp-hour cells to our partners, and the feedback has been encouraging and, as we discussed last quarter, led to our customers confirming additional orders for our 20 amp-hour cells. We also produced our first EV cells, which I'll touch on shortly. Next, we deepened relationships with our partners. In December, we expanded our relationship with BMW. In addition to increasing development resources during a tight labor market, this paves the way for potential sales of electrolyte once BMW's pilot lines are up and running. This arrangement also lets us work closely with BMW on pack level requirements and vehicle integration. This positions us to power a BMW demo car, which we think would represent an important proof of concept. Further, our relationships with Ford and SK On also remain strong as we continue to work closely with them as well. Also, this being our first year as a public company, we developed a great Board of Directors and hired key personnel to build a strong public company foundation. Again, I'm very proud of our team's progress in 2022 and want to thank them for their continued dedication and hard work. I would now like to take a moment to summarize our strategy. Our approach is unique for the industry and has not changed. Mainly, we see ourselves as a battery material supplier and technology company engaging in the development of advanced solid-state battery cells. We do not envision ourselves as a commercial battery producer over the long term, but rather, we will license our cell designs and intellectual property. This is by design. Battery manufacturing is capital-intensive, competitive, and margin-pressured. And it can take decades to develop the manufacturing expertise needed to compete as a battery producer. To be clear, we currently and we will continue to design and manufacture ourselves for development purposes. We have a great team focused not only on developing our current EV cells but also on next-generation cells, including our nickel- and cobalt-free designs. Thus, our intention is to supply battery manufacturers with our materials rather than compete with them on cell manufacturing. This can open up a much larger market for us as we can supply our electrolyte and work with anyone taking a sulfide-based approach to solid-state batteries, whether they use our cell designs or not. We believe sulfide-based solid state is the best path for EV applications due to its potential for wide temperature performance and manufacturability. There currently are a limited number of sulfide electrolyte producers, and all are at the R&D scale. Given the lack of commercial production and the potential benefits, we believe we can capitalize on the growth of these technologies. We believe our electrolyte can compete based on performance, quality, reliable supply, and cost. As we start producing electrolyte from our new facility, we are also working on the next generations of electrolyte with a focus on conductivity, cost, and performance. Looking ahead, 2023 will be another important year for us. Starting with our electrolyte, we are targeting two key milestones in 2023. The first is to commission and begin producing electrolyte from our new facility. All the equipment has been installed, and we expect validation to be complete by quarter end, if not sooner. Our new facility will have the capability to produce 30 metric tons of powder per year. The facility was designed to support cell development for the APQP process of our current partners. However, we also expect to have additional production capacity for our other customers, which brings me to our second goal, to get our electrolyte into the hands of potential customers. We have engaged with potential customers and are making plans to deliver sample product. The intent is to pave the way for future electrolyte supply agreements. These sales would be independent of our current partner activities. We are excited about the opportunity for others to kick off the testing process of our electrolyte. Turning to cell development. We have two additional key milestones for 2023. First, continue to improve key cell performance metrics, including energy density, pressure, cycle life, low temperature operation, and safety. We have delivered hundreds of 20 amp-hour cells to our partners and have seen some good results, and some that are more challenging as our first batches are being tested. We said on our third-quarter call that initial production was impacted by quality issues and some input material delays due to tightening in the labor market. Our yields were lower than expected, which combined with the significant increase in demand for 20 amp-hour cells resulted in us spending more time anticipated on 20 amp-hour builds. I'm pleased to say that the team did a great job of pausing, analyzing, and identifying root causes to address these issues. This allowed our team to make design changes to improve manufacturability and identify enhancements in our manufacturing processes that we believe will benefit all of our cell production. We also encountered mixed performance in our 20 amp-hour cell safety. We passed our UN/DOT certification, which is a gating test to start module and pack development. However, it is taking longer to meet the positive abuse performance results that we saw in our two amp-hour cells. This is an area where our JDA partners have been incredibly helpful, and we are grateful for their expertise and support as we collaborate to clear this hurdle. Our second key cell development milestone for 2023 is to deliver EV cells to our joint development partners and officially enter A-sample. As a reminder, on our last call, we stated that we believed we could optimistically deliver our first EV cells by the end of December, but more realistically, it would be in 2023. We began production in October and believe later this year to be a reasonable target for EV cell delivery. Stepping back a bit and looking at our path to commercialization. Our 2023 milestones are designed to support our overall timeline. Successful execution is the key to driving value for both our partners as well as our shareholders. After we deliver A-sample cells and scale our electrolyte production, we believe we will have better line of sight into our commercialization path. And at that point, we plan to provide an update on our long-term timeline. That said, we can share a few higher-level takeaways as we look at our timeline. First, our overall schedule for starting electrolyte production remains intact, including prior delays. Our team did a great job of increasing our SP1 production to build inventory and avoid costly expediting fees. Second, we expect EV cell delivery in 2023; however, it could be late in 2023 if unexpected challenges arise. Given our previous target was December 2022, this delay will impact our overall commercialization timeline. More importantly, we are seeing market risk with respect to our overall commercialization timeline. This situation remains pretty fluid. However, high-level communications from our partners and others have pointed towards the 2030s for the broader adoption of solid-state battery technology. This could represent a two- to three-year delay from our initial projections. Internally, however, we are still driving towards our goal of reaching commercialization by 2028. As a management team, we are being aggressive and creative in addressing and mitigating potential risks due to timeline by working with our partners and leveraging their resources and expertise, pursuing electrolyte sales to companies who are not currently engaged in cell development with us. Additionally, we have also begun discussions with new potential partners whose skill sets could accelerate development, though it's too soon to say anything definitive. Before I turn the call over to Kevin, I want to highlight one additional accomplishment that occurred early in 2023. In January, we secured an additional $5.6 million in Department of Energy funding to continue our development of nickel- and cobalt-free solid-state cells. If successful, this technology could be a game changer in terms of both input costs and supply chains. It will likely be several years until it comes to fruition, but this technology is already on our product roadmap. With that, I will hand it over to Kevin to take you through our financial results.

Kevin Paprzycki, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Dave, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll start off with an overview of our financial results and then discuss our 2023 and longer-term financial outlook. Our 2022 revenue of $11.8 million came in ahead of our initial expectations. Our team, again, did a great job of delivering on program milestones, and we also saw initial revenue from the new BMW agreement late in the year. 2022 operating expenses were $70.9 million, up from last year. These represent increased direct program costs on our higher revenues, increased labor, and materials driven by the scale-up of our operational and development investment and investments in SG&A to support Solid Power's operations teams and build out our public company platform. Our operating loss was $59.1 million in 2022 and net loss was $9.6 million. Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity position. During 2022, we invested $33.8 million in operations. We also invested $58.3 million in CapEx, reflecting the installation of our EV line and the construction of our new electrolyte production facility. As expected, operational and CapEx spending were both favorable to our plan. This was due to the shift in timing on EV cell production and completion of the electrolyte facility. Combined, these shifted around $15 million in operational spend and roughly $25 million in capital spend from 2022 to 2023. During the fourth quarter, we also received $6 million from BMW related to our expanded joint development agreement. We ended the year with total liquidity of $496.1 million, consisting of cash, marketable securities, and long-term investments. Looking ahead to 2023, as Dave outlined, our performance this year is important. The 2023 guidance we are providing today assumes we execute on these milestones as planned. That in mind, we currently expect that 2023 revenue will be in the range of $15 million to $20 million, inclusive of revenue from our BMW agreement as well as expected revenue from government programs. We currently expect our 2023 total combined cash investment to be in the range of $120 million to $140 million. That breaks down into $70 million to $80 million of expected operational investment and CapEx investment between $50 million and $60 million, which primarily represents the final build-out and start-up of our electrolyte plant. This leaves us with expected liquidity in the range of $355 million to $375 million. Regarding the long-term timeline from a financial perspective, we've begun to model our long-term cash burn should our commercialization timeline shift. I want to point out that we are glad to have such a solid balance sheet. Our ability to manage our cash is really bolstered by our unique business model, which keeps our capital needs lighter than others in the battery space. Likewise, because we accelerated our operational and equipment investments, our annual spend in 2022 and 2023 is likely to be higher than our spend going forward. We're also planning to be prudent with our investments and will match timing with what we're hearing from our customers. While there is still work to be done, right now, we believe that our current cash, along with revenues we expect to take in from our government programs and current partnerships, will take us out into the late 2020s. We have significant flexibility with our capital spend. And with the benefit of additional project finance or grant funding towards our planned SP3 mass production plant, it's our view that we can run all the way to commercialization without having to raise additional cash. Again, this is a testament to Solid Power's business model. With that, I'll now turn the call back to Dave.

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

Thanks, Kevin. Before I turn the call over for questions, I want to briefly touch on one last item, our ongoing search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer. We are targeting individuals who can continue to drive the development and commercialization of our technology and have been impressed with the quality of people who are interested in the position. It is still too early to give a target date for any kind of announcement. However, we feel good about the team in place as well as our ability to drive things forward until we find a permanent CEO. With that, let's open it up to questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our first question is from P.J. Juvekar with Citi.

P.J. Juvekar, Analyst

Yes. Dave, question for you on your SP2 electrolyte facility. How much of your revenues in 2023 will come from that facility? And what do you think is the demand for sulfide electrolytes either from your partners or from third parties that you talked about?

Kevin Paprzycki, Chief Financial Officer

P.J., it's Kevin. I'll take the first one. Very little of our 2023 revenue will come from powder out of this new SP2 facility. So we're not dependent upon this facility for any of our 2023 revenues.

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

What was the second part of the question? Sorry.

P.J. Juvekar, Analyst

The second part of the question was, how is the demand looking for this powder from your existing customers and the new customers that you talked about?

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

Yes. Great question. So right now, we're in the process of talking to our partners as well as new potential partners about using our powder in their designs. We are at early stages of those discussions. We are, however, in more detailed discussions with our current partners. So I can't really give you any guidance on revenues, but we are looking optimistically as we move forward with those partners.

P.J. Juvekar, Analyst

Okay. And last year, you talked about delaying your EV pilot line because of issues with scaling above your 20 amp-hour cell. As you ramp up your EV pilot line and deliver your first EV cell, can you talk about the technical specifications of that cell? Like is it a 50 amp-hour cell, a 100 amp-hour cell? What are the densities you're targeting? Can you just give us some idea of what you're trying to achieve with this EV cell?

Kevin Paprzycki, Chief Financial Officer

It largely depends on our customers' long-term needs. The EV cells could vary from 60 amp hours up to 100 amp hours. We believe that in the long term, it will likely be around the midpoint of that range. However, it's important to note that things can change, and they often do, as we collaborate with our partners.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from the line of Brian Dobson with Chardan Capital Markets.

Brian Dobson, Analyst

So the expanded partnership with BMW is very exciting. What do you see as some key benchmarks that you think you'll need to meet there in order to further expand that agreement?

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

Yes. We are really excited about the new agreement with BMW. It's a natural progression since 2016 when we began working with BMW, taking the next steps forward to really working closely on the design of cells specifically for them, looking at things like pack integration and vehicle integration, and then actually having the BMW team on site helping us and learning about our design so we can move the technology forward. I can't really say at this point what the exact parameters will be, but that will be a main focus of our program going forward.

Brian Dobson, Analyst

Well, we look forward to hearing more about it. You also mentioned some powder sample deliveries to potential customers. I know it's early, but can you share any initial feedback that you've received from that?

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

Yes. We have a lot of interest. There are a lot of entities out there exploring the sulfide solid-state battery space, and we've been in contact with a variety of those firms. We are in the process now of looking at sampling agreements, material transfer agreements, and getting the powder into their hands for them to test.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from Mike Shlisky with D.A. Davidson.

David Johnson, Analyst

This is David Johnson on for Mike. I just want to get a sense of what the labor situation looks like. Do you have all the people you need to deliver on your 2023 goals at this point?

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

Yes, great question. Clearly, the labor market has been tight, but we've added – I think we've more than doubled our employees since last year. I think we're about 240 people now. We're always looking for good talent. However, one of the key aspects of what we're doing is we consider this a force multiplier. With our partners helping us and having BMW folks on site, those individuals can provide tremendous value to help us move the technology forward. They have very relevant experience and domain expertise in the technology that we're developing. I think we feel pretty good about being able to move things forward and meeting our goals for 2023.

David Johnson, Analyst

That's great to hear. Maybe a last one for me. Sorry if I missed it, but can you just give us a sense of the cash usage in the first half of 2023 compared to the second half?

Kevin Paprzycki, Chief Financial Officer

Good question, Mike. The cash usage is likely more concentrated in the first half of the year. The main reason for this is the completion of the SP2 facility, where approximately two-thirds of the capital expenditure will occur in the first and second quarters, with the remainder spread out over the latter half of the year. Therefore, cash usage is expected to be weighted toward the first half by about two-thirds.

Operator, Operator

As there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Dave Jansen for closing comments.

Dave Jansen, Interim CEO, President and Chairman

Thank you all for joining us today. We really appreciate your attendance, and we look forward to updating you on our progress throughout the year.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.