Quarter 1
Q1 2026 Earnings Call — May 5, 2026
Colin Russ (Oppenheimer & Co.): Thanks so much, guys. You know, could you talk a little bit about, you know, the potential, you know, for partnerships in North America that you're starting to see move forward given the amount of capacity that's underutilized right now for the auto space and, you know, the substantial amount of legislation and, you know, kind of you know, government involvement in terms of tariffs and, you know, the NDAA compliance for military applications that I'm sure you're seeing some level of demand for at this point. But just curious about the potential for you guys to look at partnerships and potentially start bringing something forward that we may not be thinking about just yet.
Management: Good afternoon, Colin, and thank you for that deep question. I'll be honest with you, the demand that we see right now is really coming off the peninsula in Korea. We have yet to see, despite all the things you described, anything really substantial here in the States. If we go back a couple of years, that was very different. We actually plan to do our original DOE plant here in North America. But with the changes in the landscape here in North America, we shifted to just the SB 2.5 and then shifted to partnerships in Korea. We certainly are well positioned, should that change, to come back and revisit that. We'd very much like to invest here in North America. But right now, we just don't see the demand.
Okay, perfect. And then can you talk a little bit about the capital efficiency that you guys are enabling for your customers at this point? I know it's substantial, but would love to get any detail you guys might be able to share on that.
Linda (Title): Okay. Hi, Colin. On the capital efficiency, there's really a two-pronged approach to that. There is first and foremost on SP 2.5. That's bringing the continuous processing, which is necessary for commercialization down the road, a commercialization scale. So we are shifting from a batch to the continuous processing. So we expect that line to be commissioned by the end of the year and are on track for that. The second is the actual processing technology that you use for electrolyte. And we use something known as wet process technology. That is able to, there's a variety of advantages to it from dry room utilization to size of the equipment that all leads to a very significant capital expenditure reduction by using that, as well as yield and other improvements to that as well. So between that and with the electrolyte production versus cell production, that in itself has tremendous capital efficiencies. So amongst those three, we feel like we're very well positioned to be able to drive costs at the commercial scale. The only thing I would add, Colin, is around the wet processing, that's one of the reasons we're getting, I think, such a strong uptake with potential JV partners in Korea. They see the advantage that Linda just described in terms of the capital efficiencies and so forth. So it's just, I think, a leading indicator of the advantage we have with our process.
Perfect. Thanks so much, guys.
Amit Dayal (HC Rainright): Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Linda, sorry if I missed this, but can you maybe walk us through the CAPEX for 2026?
Management: We actually don't break out in our guidance the CAPEX individually. We did for Q1 for our CAPEX on terms of that we had 1.7 million on that, but that also includes the amount of the reimbursement from DOE that would be considered, so it's actually larger, but the net impact would be 1.7. The largest capital expenditure that we are making in 2026 is our 2.5, which we do have the grant money goes against that on our financial statements.
Thank you for that. And then, what are the next steps with SK on from here, you know, this post-site acceptance? How should we expect, you know, things to proceed from this point?
John (Title): Good afternoon, Amit. John here. Yeah, so we view our relationship with SK as a long-term relationship, like our others with BMW and so forth. So I think it's a multi-year as we go forward, but we'll be transitioning supporting them running the line from this point forward. To this point, prior to SAT completion, we were running the line in their facility. So now they've taken that over and they are running the line, but we'll bring in our experts as we need to to support their development efforts on their cell moving through this year and on into next. And then transition to ultimately an electrolyte supplier agreement with them. We do have an R&D electrolyte supply agreement as part of the three-part agreement we did in 2024, but we would expect once that's completed that we would transition to a long-term supply agreement with SK.
Okay. And then on the electrolyte supply agreement, John, what is the timeline? Is it six to nine months or a little bit sooner than that?
John: It's multi-years. It actually goes out through 27. It's for a total of eight metric tons. So however long it takes them to consume that, I guess, is the way I would encourage you to look at it as opposed to a timeframe.
Okay, understood. Thank you for that. Yeah, that's all I have for now. I'll take my questions off. Thank you so much.
Management: Thank you. Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to John Van Skoda for any closing remarks. Thank you for joining the call today and for your interest in Solid Power. We look forward to updating you again next quarter. Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you.
Quarter 2
Q4 2025 Earnings Call — February 24, 2026
Colin Rush (Oppenheimer): Hey, guys. Thanks so much for getting me on. We know that you've been able to produce a set of incremental volumes of material and surely are collecting a fair amount of data around that process. Could you talk a little bit about your cycle times and evolving the manufacturing process at this point and what other levers you have within the platform to continue to accelerate some of that development?
Management: Sure. We run a variety of batch sizes, which will directly affect the cycle times. We have very rapid turnaround in our electrolyte innovation center. In that center, we do two kilograms or less, depending on what the customer request is. But we can turn those batches in days. When we get up to the larger batch sizes, we typically run between 40 and 50 kilograms in our current SP2 batch facility. And the cycle times on those run approximately a week, again, depending on batch size and the specific parameters that we're trying to control.
Excellent. And then as you look at the different form factors that could deploy the technology at the cell level, could you talk a little bit about efforts that you're seeing on the horizon and interest that you're seeing from incremental customers to diversify some of the form factors you're working on?
Management: A great question, but quite honestly, Colin, we haven't seen a great diversification yet, although we could envision as some of these newer segments beyond EV are considering all solid-state batteries that they could take prismatic format or others. Right now, it's primarily pouch across all of our engagements with primarily EV customers.
Colin Rush (Oppenheimer): Excellent. Thanks so much, guys.
Chris Pierce (Needham): Please go ahead with your question.
Chris Pierce (Needham): Hey, good afternoon. Just one. I guess if you're talking about, just want to make sure I heard you right, the FK on pilot line is up and running by the end of 2026. And what is that? How should we think about 27 and 28 as sort of we hear more about NSSB batteries in these vehicles and sort of not in the United States part of the world, but other parts of the world? I guess, should we think of 27 as a jumping off point? And if we do think of 27 as a jumping off point against the burn that you kind of got to this year, should we think about you guys as having enough capital to get to that jumping off point or are there still too many balls in the air to sort of have certainty around that?
Management: Chris, again, thanks for joining. Great questions. I'll take the first part and then let Linda address the second burn rate part of the question. SKON has specifically, when they did their ribbon cutting at the pilot facility last year, stated that they wanted to have SOP for their batteries in 2029. And that's a one-year pull-in from prior public statements around ASSBs. So I would envision, I'll let SK Han talk to the details, but just knowing what we know about the time it takes to get from where we are to 2029, I would expect 2027 to be, again, a strong development year at the cell level, and then probably 28 being more mature leading up to the SOP in 29.
And then, Chris, in terms of our runway, you have seen us shore this up. We did give guidance for this upcoming year of $85 to $100 million in terms of cash investment. And then if you look at where our ending liquidity is, plus with our proceeds from the RDO, we think we're well positioned to be able to work with our partners and support be sufficient on that, but we are continually looking at our runway and ensuring that we can be there for our partners.
Chris Pierce (Needham): Okay. Thanks and good luck.
Jake Sikelski (Alliance Global Partners): Please go ahead.
Jake Sikelski (Alliance Global Partners): Hey, John and Linda. Thanks for taking my questions.
Management: Thank you, Jake, for joining.
Jake Sikelski (Alliance Global Partners): That last question a bit. Looking at the pilot line and, you know, the strength and balance sheet, are you able to leverage the balance sheet at all to kind of accelerate the timeline for the line, or is it less dependent on capital availability?
Management: Well, Jake, it's Linda again. I believe we are in a good position in our balance sheet that if there were to be an opportunity that would allow us to shorten the timeline to be able to be in a commercial production, we certainly are there. We can make those long-term investments at this point in time. Obviously, we will continue to be opportunistic in the capital markets and as well focus on our own cash burn so that we should be in a good place.
For clarity's sake, though, the line is installed in SKM's facility in Korea, and they will begin running that line by themselves largely with our support once SAT is completed. So any additional capital improvements or those sort of things will be their responsibility for that line. But as Linda said, if there's something that we could do to assist, we'll certainly consider that moving forward because of the strength of our balance sheet.
Jake Sikelski (Alliance Global Partners): Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then just on existing partnerships, can you just touch on any upcoming milestones you might keep an eye out for as those processes move forward this year?
Management: Well, I think we've established through the announcement last fall with BMW and SDI our preferred approach moving forward to expand these partnerships, where we are dealing directly with the OEMs to create the demand in the platforms, but then really have the tier one battery partners step in and provide the batteries with us providing the material and some of the expertise to achieve performance targets. So that's our preferred model going forward, and we would like to duplicate that in other areas as we move forward.
I would also, though, point to the comments earlier in the prepared remarks, and that is around our intention to explore potential JV partnerships around the electrolyte manufacturing in Korea with a target of a 500 metric ton annually capacity through a partnership, with Solid Power bringing the technical expertise, the IP, the process knowledge, and then relying on the partner from a manufacturing and capital standpoint. So that would be the other partnership that I would point to for 2026. I'll look for some developments there as we move through the year.
Jake Sikelski (Alliance Global Partners): Makes sense. That's all from my end. Thanks again.
Management: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to John VanSkoder, President and CEO, for any closing remarks.
John VanSkoder (President and CEO): Thank you for joining the call today and for your interest in Solid Power. We look forward to updating you again next quarter. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.