Solid Power, Inc. (SLDP) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Solid Power, Inc. Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask a question. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Charlie Van Goetz, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I am joined on today's call by Solid Power, Inc.'s President and Chief Executive Officer, John Van Scoter, and Chief Financial Officer, Linda C. Heller. A copy of today's earnings release is available on the Investor Relations section of Solid Power, Inc.'s website at solidpowerbattery.com. I would 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, Inc. 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 results to differ materially from those expressed in today's forward-looking statements, please see Solid Power, Inc.'s most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found on Solid Power, Inc.'s website at solidpowerbattery.com. With that, I will turn it over to John Van Scoter.

Thank you, Charlie, and thank you all for joining us today. We delivered a productive first quarter, marking steady progress across our key operational and strategic priorities. Starting with our partnership with SK On, we completed site acceptance testing in early April, marking the final milestone of the line installation agreement for SK On. We believe achieving this milestone underscores our commitment to supporting our partners’ ASSB efforts. With this accomplishment, we are very pleased that there are now cell production lines using our technology on three continents: here at our facilities in Colorado, BMW's facility in Germany, and SK On's facility in Korea. We also continue to support our customers and partners in their development efforts through delivery of our electrolyte. We provided Samsung SDI with electrolyte under our three-way joint evaluation agreement with BMW and continued sampling with other customers during the quarter. Turning to our electrolyte development roadmap, we believe installation of our continuous electrolyte manufacturing pilot line will represent a critical inflection point on our path to commercialization and a clear differentiator for Solid Power, Inc. With factory acceptance testing for all key equipment complete and construction underway, we are laying the groundwork for commercial-scale production. Once installed, this line will enable our transition from batch to continuous processing, supporting near-term customer programs and driving expected cost savings relative to today’s processes. The line is designed to allow us to de-risk and optimize processes in advance of full commercialization. Importantly, we believe our wet processing methodology for electrolyte production offers scalability, yield, and capital efficiencies relative to traditional dry process methods. We also continue to explore potential partners with processing, scaling capabilities, and capital to support construction of a 500 metric ton electrolyte production facility. We anticipate additional demand for sulfide electrolyte in Korea and are considering a potential partnership for commercial-scale production in Korea. We are evaluating multiple potential partners and are pleased with our progress to date. With respect to our final development goal, we continue to leverage our Electrolyte Innovation Center, or EIC, and cell capabilities for product and process development during the quarter. Through this development work, we are executing against our objective to continually deliver differentiated electrolyte products and secure long-term customers. I will now turn the call over to Linda C. Heller for the financial results.

Thank you, John. I will start with our first quarter results. Beginning with revenue, during the quarter we generated revenue and grant income of $3.1 million, driven primarily by progress toward the site acceptance testing milestone under our line installation agreement with SK On and performance on our assistance agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy. Operating expenses were $29.4 million for the quarter, compared to $30 million in 2025. This decrease was driven by timing of supplier and material shipments relating to our development activities. Operating loss was $26.3 million, and net loss was $13 million, or $0.06 per share. Capital expenditures totaled $1.7 million during the quarter, primarily representing costs for construction of the continuous electrolyte production pilot line. Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity, Solid Power, Inc.'s liquidity position remains strong. We ended the quarter with total liquidity of $435.3 million, due to the net proceeds after fees and expenses of $121.3 million raised through a registered direct offering in January. In addition, contract assets and accounts receivable were $12.7 million, and total current liabilities were $17.1 million. Overall, we remain focused on maintaining financial discipline while continuing to invest appropriately in our technology development and process improvements, and we believe we are well positioned to support our strategic priorities throughout the year. I will now turn the call back to John.

Thank you, Linda. In closing, I want to thank our employees, partners, and stakeholders for their continued commitment and support. We are executing on our objectives with focus, and I am confident we are well positioned to deliver meaningful progress through 2026. We will now open the call for questions.

We will now open the call for questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer & Co.

Thanks so much, guys. Could you talk a little bit about the potential for partnerships in North America that you are starting to see move forward, given the amount of capacity that is underutilized right now for the auto space and substantial legislation and government involvement in terms of tariffs and the NDAA clients for military applications? I am sure you are seeing some level of demand for that at this point, but just curious about the potential for you to look at partnerships and potentially start bringing something forward that we may not be thinking about just yet.

Afternoon, Colin, and thank you for that deep question. I will be honest with you, the demand that we see right now is really coming off of the peninsula in Korea. We have yet to see, despite all the things that you described, anything really substantial here in the States. If we go back a couple of years, that was very different. We actually planned 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 SP2.5 and then shifted to partnerships in Korea. We certainly are well positioned, should that change, to come back and revisit that. We would very much like to invest here in North America, but right now, we just do not see the demand.

Okay, perfect. And then can you talk a little bit about the capital efficiency that you are enabling for your customers at this point? I know it is substantial, but would love to get any detail you might be able to share on that.

Hi, Colin. The capital efficiency has really a two-pronged approach to it. First and foremost on SP2.5, that is bringing the continuous processing, which is necessary for commercialization down the road, to a commercialization scale. So we are shifting from batch to continuous processing, and we expect that line to be commissioned by the end of the year, and we 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. There are a variety of advantages to it, from dry room utilization to size of the equipment, that all lead to a very significant capital expenditure reduction by using that, as well as yield and other improvements. So between that, and with electrolyte production versus cell production, that in itself has tremendous capital efficiencies. Among those three, we feel we are 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 is one of the reasons we are 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 I think that is a leading indicator of the advantage we have with our process.

Perfect. Thanks so much, guys.

The next question comes from Ahmed Dayal with H.C. Wainwright.

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?

We actually do not break out in our guidance the CapEx individually. We did for Q1; our CapEx was $1.7 million. That also includes the amount of the reimbursement from DOE that would be considered, so it is actually larger, but the net impact would be $1.7 million. The largest capital expenditure that we are making in 2026 is our SP2.5, which we do have the grant money that goes against that on our financial statements.

Understood. Thanks for that. And then what are the next steps with SK On from here? Post site acceptance, how should we expect things to proceed from this point?

Good afternoon, Ahmed. It is John here. We view our relationship with SK On as a long-term relationship, like our others with BMW and so forth. It is a multiyear relationship as we go forward, but we will be transitioning to supporting them running the line from this point forward. To this point, prior to SAT completion, we were running the line in their facility. Now they have taken that over, and they are running the line, but we will bring in our experts as we need to support their development efforts—their cell moving through this year and on into next—and then transition to ultimately a 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 is completed that we would transition to a long-term supply agreement with SK On.

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?

It is multiyear. It actually goes out through 2027. It is for a total of 8 metric tons, so however long it takes them to consume that is the way I would encourage you to look at it, as opposed to a set time frame.

Okay. Understood. Thank you for that.

That is all the time we have for questions. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to John Van Scoter for any closing remarks.

Thank you for joining the call today and for your interest in Solid Power, Inc. 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.