Solid Power Inc (SLDP) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Greetings. Welcome to the Solid Power Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results and Business Update Call. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

問候。歡迎參加 Solid Power 2022 年第三季度財務業績和業務更新電話會議。請注意，本次會議正在錄製中。

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jennifer Almquist with Investor Relations for Solid Power. Thank you. You may begin.

我現在將把會議轉交給您的主持人 Jennifer Almquist，負責 Solid Power 投資者關係部。謝謝你。你可以開始了。

Thank you, Stacy, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. Joining me on the call today are Solid Power's Chief Executive Officer, Doug Campbell; and Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Paprzycki. A copy of today's press release is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.solidpowerbattery.com.

謝謝你，斯泰西，也謝謝大家加入我們。今天和我一起參加電話會議的是 Solid Power 的首席執行官 Doug Campbell；和首席財務官 Kevin Paprzycki。今天的新聞稿副本可在我們網站 ir.solidpowerbattery.com 的投資者關係部分獲得。

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, we disclaim 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 our forward-looking statements, please see our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be found on our website at ir.solidpowerbattery.com.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，我們今天討論的部分內容將包括美國證券法定義的前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述基於管理層當前對未來事件的預期和假設，並基於有關未來事件結果和時間安排的當前可用信息。除非適用法律另有要求，否則我們不承擔更新任何前瞻性陳述以反映未來事件或情況的義務。有關可能導致實際結果與我們的前瞻性陳述中表達的結果存在重大差異的風險和不確定性的討論，請參閱我們最近提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件，該文件可在我們的網站 ir.solidpowerbattery 上找到.com。

With that, let me turn it over to Doug Campbell.

有了這個，讓我把它交給道格坎貝爾。

Thank you, Jen. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'll begin today with an update on our business, then I'll pass it over to Kevin for a brief review of the financials. After that, I'll provide some concluding remarks, and we'll open the call to your questions.

謝謝你，珍。大家下午好，感謝您加入我們。今天我將首先介紹我們業務的最新情況，然後將其轉交給凱文，以簡要回顧一下財務狀況。在那之後，我將提供一些結論性意見，我們將打開電話來回答您的問題。

Since we last spoke, our team has continued its solid execution on our development milestones, though we faced operational challenges during the quarter that I will discuss in a moment. But in summary, we made 20 amp-hour cell deliveries to our automotive partners. We have continued to optimize our EV cell pilot line and recently began production of full-scale EV cells. We have continued to make meaningful progress on the construction of our electrolyte production facility, and we have remained on track to begin powder production at our new electrolyte production facility in the first quarter of next year. I continue to be pleased with our team's execution as we position Solid Power for the long term.

自從我們上次發言以來，我們的團隊繼續在我們的發展里程碑上紮實執行，儘管我們在本季度面臨運營挑戰，我稍後將討論。但總的來說，我們向汽車合作夥伴交付了 20 安培小時的電池。我們繼續優化我們的 EV 電池中試線，最近開始生產全尺寸 EV 電池。我們在電解液生產設施的建設上繼續取得有意義的進展，並且我們仍有望在明年第一季度在我們的新電解液生產設施開始生產粉末。隨著我們對 Solid Power 的長期定位，我繼續對我們團隊的執行感到滿意。

Let me take a moment to add a little color on each of these key milestones. First, with respect to 20 amp-hour cell deliveries. During the third quarter, we began delivering 20 amp-hour cells to both Ford and BMW. To date, we have delivered over 150 of these 20 amp-hour cells. These cells are currently being tested by us, our partners and third-party testing facilities. Preliminarily, we are encouraged by what we're seeing as we scale from the 2 amp-hour to the 20 amp-hour cell format, though a lot of work is still needed to hit our partners' commercialization targets.

讓我花點時間為這些關鍵里程碑中的每一個添加一點色彩。首先，關於 20 安培小時的電池輸送量。在第三季度，我們開始為福特和寶馬提供 20 安時的電池。迄今為止，我們已經交付了 150 多個這些 20 安時電池。這些電池目前正在由我們、我們的合作夥伴和第三方測試機構進行測試。最初，我們對我們從 2 安時電池格式擴展到 20 安時電池格式所看到的情況感到鼓舞，儘管仍然需要做很多工作才能達到我們合作夥伴的商業化目標。

Further, I am pleased to say the performance of these cells drove customers to confirm additional 20 amp-hour cell orders during the third quarter, which is encouraging. These additional orders led to a significant increase in 20 amp-hour production during the third quarter. However, as we began increasing the production rate and volumes to meet the demand, we experienced lower initial yields. To be clear, lower initial yields for the 20 amp-hour cell production in comparison to our previous 2 amp-hour cell builds was not unexpected as it represents over an order-of-magnitude increase in production volumes, including input materials, slurries, coated layers, et cetera. It is also worth stating we view these yield challenges as opportunities to refine our higher-volume production processes, and we remain optimistic that the learnings we achieved at our present production volume will translate to our next stage of production volume such as entering into A-sample.

此外，我很高興地說，這些電池的性能促使客戶在第三季度確認了額外的 20 安時電池訂單，這是令人鼓舞的。這些額外的訂單導致第三季度 20 安培小時的產量顯著增加。然而，隨著我們開始提高生產率和產量以滿足需求，我們的初始產量下降。需要明確的是，與我們之前的 2 安培小時電池生產相比，20 安培小時電池生產的初始產量較低並不出人意料，因為它代表了產量增加了一個數量級以上，包括輸入材料、漿料、塗層等。還值得指出的是，我們將這些產量挑戰視為改進我們的大批量生產工藝的機會，我們仍然樂觀地認為，我們在目前的產量上取得的經驗將轉化為我們下一階段的產量，例如進入 A-樣本。

Our production during the quarter was also impacted by a few other issues. We saw some minor delays in the availability of materials we needed. We also experienced quality issue with some of our commodity input materials. Our team did a good job mitigating delivery delays, but it did impact our schedule. We continue to work with all of our suppliers to implement stronger upfront processes to mitigate the risk of future quality issues. Lastly, we also saw some not insignificant tightening in the labor market. While we are still successfully recruiting talent, we have seen longer lead times for hiring, which have put us slightly behind in our resource plan. This is driven in part by increased competition for battery scientists, engineers and technicians. We are excited about some of the preliminary and creative things we are working on to allow us to continue to add talented team members.

我們在本季度的生產也受到其他一些問題的影響。我們看到我們需要的材料的供應出現了一些小的延遲。我們還遇到了一些商品輸入材料的質量問題。我們的團隊在減少交付延遲方面做得很好，但這確實影響了我們的日程安排。我們將繼續與所有供應商合作，實施更強大的前期流程，以降低未來質量問題的風險。最後，我們還看到勞動力市場出現了一些不小的緊縮。雖然我們仍在成功招聘人才，但我們發現招聘的前置時間更長，這使我們在資源計劃中略微落後。這部分是由於對電池科學家、工程師和技術人員的競爭加劇。我們對我們正在做的一些初步和創造性的事情感到興奮，以使我們能夠繼續增加有才華的團隊成員。

Overall, higher production volumes, lower initial yields, supply issues and hiring challenges together meant that a majority of our time and resources were focused on 20 amp-hour cell builds during the third quarter as we prioritized our partners' needs. There remains a lot of work for our team both in terms of technology development as well as in the scaling up of our production processes. That said, I'm happy to report that we were able to achieve improvements in cell production yields over the course of the third and into the fourth quarter, although further improvements in yield are needed to hit our production targets. We are pleased with the demand for 20 amp-hour power cells. I'm proud to say the team is rising to the occasion through the challenges we experienced this quarter. We currently expect to deliver a few hundred more 20 amp-hour power cells to our partners in Q4 of this year before we can focus more of our efforts and resources on EV cell builds and entry into the A-sample phase.

總體而言，更高的產量、更低的初始產量、供應問題和招聘挑戰意味著我們的大部分時間和資源都集中在第三季度的 20 安培小時電池構建上，因為我們優先考慮合作夥伴的需求。無論是在技術開發方面，還是在擴大生產流程方面，我們的團隊仍有大量工作要做。也就是說，我很高興地報告說，我們能夠在第三季度和第四季度實現電池產量的提高，儘管需要進一步提高產量才能達到我們的生產目標。我們對 20 安時電池的需求感到滿意。我很自豪地說，團隊正在通過我們本季度所經歷的挑戰來迎接這個時刻。我們目前預計將在今年第四季度向我們的合作夥伴交付數百個 20 安培小時的電池，然後我們才能將更多的精力和資源集中在 EV 電池的構建和進入 A-sample 階段。

To that end, we were able during the third quarter to continue our work to optimize the EV cell pilot line and have made progress with the coating, calendering and laminating processes, which we believe positions us well as we begin to ramp production. While we did not make any EV cells during the third quarter due to our focus on the production of the 20 amp-hour cell format, initial cell builds have begun as of last week. We anticipate that the pace of EV cell production will increase through the remainder of the year as we ramp down 20 amp-hour cell production. We do, however, recognize that this shift does introduce some risk into our EV cell time line.

為此，我們能夠在第三季度繼續優化 EV 電池中試生產線，並在塗層、壓延和層壓工藝方面取得進展，我們相信這對我們有利，因為我們開始提高產量。雖然由於我們專注於生產 20 安培小時電池格式，我們在第三季度沒有製造任何 EV 電池，但從上週開始，初始電池構建已經開始。我們預計，隨著我們降低 20 安培小時的電池產量，電動汽車電池的生產速度將在今年剩餘時間內加快。然而，我們確實認識到，這種轉變確實會給我們的 EV 電池時間線帶來一些風險。

Optimistically, we think we can deliver a number of -- a limited number of EV cells to our customers and third-party testing houses before the end of the year. This would allow us to enter into A-sample phase in 2022, thereby achieving our original target milestone. However, it is possible that these EV cell deliveries and our entry into A-sample qualification could slip into 2023. In summary, we are continuing to push hard to achieve A-sample in the coming months, and we will provide a more in-depth operational update in 2023 as we fully assess our production results over the quarter.

樂觀地說，我們認為我們可以在年底之前向我們的客戶和第三方測試機構提供數量有限的電動汽車電池。這將使我們能夠在 2022 年進入 A 樣本階段，從而實現我們最初的目標里程碑。然而，這些 EV 電池的交付和我們進入 A-sample 資格的時間可能會推遲到 2023 年。總而言之，我們將在未來幾個月繼續努力實現 A-sample，我們將提供更多的 in-隨著我們全面評估本季度的生產結果，我們將在 2023 年進行深度運營更新。

And lastly, turning to our electrolyte production facility and powder production. Construction of the electrolyte production facility has continued to progress nicely and is now nearing completion. In particular, all infrastructure construction is complete, and we have received a full certificate of occupancy, which has allowed us to place R&D, quality and cell testing equipment in its final location for use by those departments. It should also be noted that move-in for this new facility is already underway as of last week in order to support our growing technical and support staff.

最後，轉向我們的電解液生產設施和粉末生產。電解液生產設施的建設繼續順利進行，現已接近完成。特別是所有基礎設施建設都已經完成，我們拿到了完整的入駐證，這讓我們可以將研發、質量和電池測試設備放置在其最終位置，供這些部門使用。還應該注意的是，為了支持我們不斷增長的技術和支持人員，這個新設施的搬入工作已經在上週進行。

Further, a majority of the electrolyte production equipment has been delivered and placed in their final production location, facilitating the start of the process install. The remaining equipment is currently undergoing acceptance testing at the equipment vendor's location. We fully expect the remaining pieces of equipment to be installed by the end of the present quarter. Our progress to date is encouraging and gives us a higher degree of confidence that the electrolyte pilot production line will be commissioned and validated in early 2023. We fully expect powder production volumes to ramp throughout next year as our needs increase for both EV cell builds and potential future supply.

此外，大部分電解液生產設備已交付並放置在其最終生產位置，從而促進了工藝安裝的開始。其餘設備目前正在設備供應商所在地進行驗收測試。我們完全預計剩餘的設備將在本季度末安裝。迄今為止，我們取得的進展令人鼓舞，讓我們對電解液中試生產線將在 2023 年初投產和驗證更有信心。我們完全預計，隨著我們對 EV 電池製造和潛在的未來供應。

We look forward to taking this key step towards becoming the industry leader in solid-state battery materials. We have some great pictures on our online blog that illustrate the incredible progress we've made over the last several months. My thanks to the team for their continued strong execution on this key project.

我們期待朝著成為固態電池材料行業領導者邁出關鍵的一步。我們的在線博客上有一些很棒的圖片，展示了我們在過去幾個月中取得的令人難以置信的進步。我感謝團隊在這個關鍵項目上的持續強勁執行。

With that, I'll pass it over to Kevin to take you through our first quarter results. Kevin?

有了這個，我會把它交給凱文，帶你了解我們的第一季度業績。凱文？

Thanks, Doug, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll start out with an overview of our financial results and then discuss our financial outlook for the year. We generated third quarter revenue of $2.8 million, bringing our year-to-date revenue up to $7.6 million. Our team, again, did a great job delivering on program milestones. Operating expenses for the third quarter were $18.4 million. Similar to earlier quarters in 2022, these expenses reflect increased direct program costs on higher revenues, increased labor and materials driven by our operational and development investment, and investments in our SG&A platform to support Solid Power's operational teams. Our operating loss for the third quarter was $15.6 million, and net loss was $12.4 million.

謝謝，道格，大家下午好。我將從概述我們的財務業績開始，然後討論我們今年的財務前景。我們第三季度的收入為 280 萬美元，使我們今年迄今為止的收入達到 760 萬美元。我們的團隊再次出色地完成了計劃里程碑。第三季度的運營費用為 1840 萬美元。與 2022 年早些時候的幾個季度類似，這些費用反映了收入增加導致的直接計劃成本增加、我們的運營和開發投資推動的勞動力和材料增加，以及對我們的 SG&A 平台的投資以支持 Solid Power 的運營團隊。我們第三季度的經營虧損為 1560 萬美元，淨虧損為 1240 萬美元。

Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity position. In the third quarter, we invested just under $10 million in operations and almost $21 million in CapEx, which was primarily for the new electrolyte production facility. We ended the quarter with total liquidity of just over $507 million, consisting of cash, marketable securities and long-term investments. As we look forward through the remainder of the year, for our revenue, we had said last quarter that our second half revenue will be lower than the first half revenue. We still believe this to be true, though by a narrow margin due to strong Q3 execution.

轉向我們的資產負債表和流動性狀況。第三季度，我們在運營方面的投資接近 1000 萬美元，資本支出接近 2100 萬美元，主要用於新的電解液生產設施。我們在本季度末的總流動性略高於 5.07 億美元，包括現金、有價證券和長期投資。在我們展望今年餘下的時間時，對於我們的收入，我們在上個季度曾表示，我們下半年的收入將低於上半年的收入。我們仍然相信這是真的，儘管由於第三季度的強勁執行，差距很小。

For our '22 cash investment, the small shift in our electrolyte production and EV cell production shifted the timing of our projected fourth quarter investments a bit. We will be pushing out around $25 million of capital from 2022 into 2023, which will reduce our projected CapEx spend to around $75 million to $80 million total for the year. Our operating cash invested will likely be around $45 million to $50 million for the year, though we should see an increase in Q4 as we start EV cell production. So we now expect '22 total cash investment to be between $120 million and $130 million. As a result, we expect our '22 ending liquidity to be in the range of $460 million to $470 million. And just to reiterate, before I hand the call back to Doug, there have been no real changes to our overall operations plan, only a slight change in investment timing from 2022 to 2023.

對於我們 22 年的現金投資，我們電解液生產和 EV 電池生產的小幅轉變稍微改變了我們預計的第四季度投資的時間。從 2022 年到 2023 年，我們將推出約 2500 萬美元的資本，這將使我們預計的全年資本支出總額減少到約 7500 萬美元至 8000 萬美元。我們今年投資的運營現金可能約為 4500 萬至 5000 萬美元，儘管隨著我們開始生產 EV 電池，我們應該會看到第四季度的增長。因此，我們現在預計 22 年總現金投資將在 1.2 億美元至 1.3 億美元之間。因此，我們預計 22 年期末流動性將在 4.6 億美元至 4.7 億美元之間。重申一下，在我回電給 Doug 之前，我們的整體運營計劃沒有真正的變化，只是從 2022 年到 2023 年的投資時間略有變化。

Doug?

道格？

Thanks, Kevin. Wrapping things up, we continue to make good progress towards our long-term goals. Although I've stated it before, let me be clear, our focus has and will always remain on the long term. We believe the investments we're making now as well as our ability to execute in light of challenging operating conditions will strengthen the business and enable us to meet our long-term goal of being a solid-state battery industry leader. I look forward to updating you on our progress again during our next earnings call.

謝謝，凱文。總結一下，我們繼續朝著我們的長期目標取得良好進展。雖然我之前已經說過，但讓我明確一點，我們的重點已經並將永遠保持在長期上。我們相信，我們現在進行的投資以及我們在具有挑戰性的運營條件下執行的能力將加強業務，並使我們能夠實現成為固態電池行業領導者的長期目標。我期待在下一次財報電話會議上再次向您介紹我們的進展。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Mike Shlisky with D.A. Davidson.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自 D.A. 的 Mike Shlisky。戴維森。

I guess I wanted to get a feel for the question you've had on the initial yields as you ramp up the 20 amp-hour cells here. Do you have to have any extra cash need to get that to speed? Or is it just something that's going to get itself worked out over time without much additional investment beyond the time you've already spent here in the last few weeks or so?

我想我想了解一下您在此處提高 20 安培小時電池時對初始產量提出的問題。您是否需要額外的現金才能加快速度？或者它只是隨著時間的推移而自行解決的事情，除了你在過去幾週左右已經在這裡度過的時間之外，沒有太多額外的投資？

Well, thanks, Mike. This is Doug. That's a good question. The short answer to your question is we don't anticipate needing to deploy any additional capital to addressing yield beyond, I believe, what you referenced to, which is just some additional time to work through the yield challenge. I do want to emphasize, and I stated this in the earnings call, it isn't unexpected that when we go from a 2 amp-hour cell build to a 20 amp-hour cell build that we're going to see some drop in yield because it really does represent over a 10x increase in really everything. So 10x increase in input materials, 10x volume of slurries, 10x coated surface area of layers. And so what that means is, obviously, the sensitivity to any form of defect goes up quite a bit because you just need a lot more stuff to build yourself. And so it wasn't unsurprising. But again, we felt it was important to make note of it and to let the investment community know that we're laser-focused on it and, most importantly, it is improving.

好吧，謝謝，邁克。這是道格。這是個好問題。對您的問題的簡短回答是，我們預計不需要部署任何額外的資金來解決收益率問題，我相信，您提到的只是您所提到的，這只是一些額外的時間來應對收益率挑戰。我確實想強調一下，我在財報電話會議上說過，當我們從 2 安時電池構建到 20 安時電池構建時，我們會看到一些下降並不意外產量，因為它確實代表了所有東西的 10 倍以上的增長。因此，輸入材料增加 10 倍，漿料體積增加 10 倍，塗層表面積增加 10 倍。所以這意味著，顯然，對任何形式的缺陷的敏感性都會上升很多，因為你只需要更多的東西來建立自己。所以這並不奇怪。但同樣，我們認為重要的是要記下它，讓投資界知道我們非常關注它，最重要的是，它正在改進。

Okay. Great. Can you also give us a little bit more color on the labor availability you discussed during your prepared comments there? Can you give us some examples of some proactive steps you've taken to help address those issues, whether it's getting more out of the current workforce you've got or other enticements to try and find some of the specialized labor that you're looking for?

好的。偉大的。您是否還可以就您在準備好的評論中討論的勞動力可用性給我們更多的色彩？您能否舉一些例子，說明您為幫助解決這些問題而採取的一些積極措施，無論是從您現有的勞動力中獲得更多收益，還是嘗試尋找一些您正在尋找的專業勞動力的其他誘惑為了？

Yes, absolutely. So I'm going to stop short of getting into specific strategy, and I'm sure this will probably resonate with you, for no other reason, I don't want to tip my hat to others as to the routes that we're taking to get talent in. But what I can say is that, in the spirit of really optimizing our current staff, we have transitioned to -- with some of our operations to dual shift. And we will continue to look for opportunities to do that, especially as we ramp up our second electrolyte production facility.

是的，一點沒錯。因此，我將不談具體的策略，我相信這可能會引起你的共鳴，沒有其他原因，我不想向其他人透露我們正在走的路線但我能說的是，本著真正優化我們現有員工的精神，我們已經過渡到 - 我們的一些運營部門實行雙班制。我們將繼續尋找這樣做的機會，特別是在我們擴大第二個電解液生產設施的情況下。

Okay, okay. And maybe the last one for me. I didn't hear it mentioned really, Doug. We have had the recent Inflation Reduction Act. It's supposed to help to improve the adoption of EVs and some of the time lines to be accelerated in various products. Do you think that Solid Power has anything that can benefit from either -- from grants or other subsidies directly from the bill? Or is most of what you think might happen here more indirect, getting autos to be adopted, just EVs in general? I'm just kind of curious, is there anything that you think is directly laser-focused on either your cost structure or on your business over the next couple of years here?

好吧好吧。也許對我來說是最後一個。道格，我沒有聽到有人提到它。我們有最近的通貨膨脹減少法案。它應該有助於提高電動汽車的採用率，並在各種產品中加快一些時間線。您認為 Solid Power 是否有任何可以從中受益的東西——直接從法案中獲得贈款或其他補貼？還是您認為這裡可能發生的大部分事情都更間接，讓汽車被採用，只是一般的電動汽車？我只是有點好奇，在接下來的幾年裡，您認為有什麼直接關注您的成本結構或您的業務的嗎？

Mike, it's Kevin. I'm going to take that one. We're excited about the IRA and the benefit to Solid Power. And that's both the indirect benefit that you mentioned just lifting all of the entire EV market, but also how we benefit directly from the tax credits. Like everyone else, we're waiting for detailed guidance from the Treasury Department, so everything is a little bit premature. Right now, we're pretty confident there's 2 ways we can benefit. And one of the credits is based around production, and I think our electrolyte sits right there. And the other is based around investment in production facilities.

邁克，我是凱文。我要拿那個。我們對 IRA 和 Solid Power 的好處感到興奮。這既是您提到的提升整個電動汽車市場的間接收益，也是我們如何直接從稅收抵免中受益的方式。和其他人一樣，我們正在等待財政部的詳細指導，所以一切都為時過早。現在，我們非常有信心可以通過兩種方式受益。其中一個功勞是基於生產，我認為我們的電解質就在那裡。另一個是基於對生產設施的投資。

And so there's -- these are 2 mutually exclusive options for us that we can take advantage of. We've got some top-notch partners that we're working on to help us determine which of those alternatives will benefit Solid Power the most. And then also, there are changes in our operations that we can make to maximize the benefit. And so as we go through that exercise and get more clarity here in our plan, we'll certainly share that update.

因此，我們可以利用這兩個相互排斥的選擇。我們有一些一流的合作夥伴正在努力幫助我們確定哪些替代方案最有利於 Solid Power。此外，我們可以對我們的運營進行一些改變，以最大限度地提高收益。因此，當我們進行該練習並在我們的計劃中更加清晰時，我們肯定會分享該更新。

(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from Gabe Daoud with Cowen & Company.

（操作員說明）您的下一個問題來自 Cowen & Company 的 Gabe Daoud。

Doug, I was hoping you could maybe just give us a little bit of color on the performance of the 20 amp-hour cells. You indicated that your partners, initially, I guess, performance hit some of their milestones to ask for more increased orders. So just curious if you could talk a little bit about that, some of the feedback maybe and then just the road map or the hurdles from here to improve performance on the 20 amp-hours.

道格，我希望你能給我們一些關於 20 安時電池性能的信息。您表示，您的合作夥伴最初，我猜，業績達到了他們的一些里程碑，要求更多的訂單。所以只是好奇你能否談談這個問題，可能是一些反饋，然後只是路線圖或從這裡提高 20 安培小時性能的障礙。

Absolutely. And that's a great question. You're absolutely correct that our partners were absolutely encouraged with what they were seeing with this initial round of 20 amp-hour power cells. I can't get into the details as to precisely why they have increased their orders because, again, that's sensitive information. That's not mine to share. But what I can say is, previously, I have broadly described how our interactions, our cooperations with our auto OEM partners has sort of shifted from a, let's just say, a feasibility demonstration into really more of a legitimate vehicle integration demonstration. And so I think it's fair to cast these potential additional activities around -- in that category of doing broader demonstration-type activity.

絕對地。這是一個很好的問題。您完全正確，我們的合作夥伴對他們在最初一輪 20 安培小時的電池中所看到的內容感到非常鼓舞。我無法詳細說明他們增加訂單的確切原因，因為這又是敏感信息。那不是我要分享的。但我能說的是，之前，我已經廣泛描述了我們的互動，我們與汽車 OEM 合作夥伴的合作如何從一個，讓我們說，可行性演示轉變為真正更多合法的車輛集成演示。因此，我認為將這些潛在的額外活動圍繞在進行更廣泛的演示類型活動的類別中是公平的。

So we were obviously very encouraged. It was a case of good news, bad news, coupled with the labor constraints in that. The good news is great, more orders for 20 amp-hour cells. The bad news is, well, it's going to cause us to focus more of our resources on the 20 amp-hour than we had originally planned and meaning there's a delay in getting the EV cell line up and running, but we hope over this quarter to make that transition.

所以我們顯然很受鼓舞。這是一個好消息，壞消息，再加上勞動力限制的案例。好消息是好消息，20 安時電池的訂單增加了。壞消息是，這將導致我們將更多的資源集中在 20 安培小時，這意味著我們將延遲 EV 電池系列的啟動和運行，但我們希望在本季度完成進行過渡。

Your next question comes from Brian Dobson with Chardan Capital Markets.

您的下一個問題來自 Chardan Capital Markets 的 Brian Dobson。

So I guess, given your recent deliveries to joint development partners and your conversations with those in the EV space, what are you hearing in terms of production goals or outlooks or supply chains in terms of EV that you could share with us?

因此，我想，鑑於您最近向聯合開發合作夥伴交付的產品以及您與電動汽車領域的對話，您在電動汽車的生產目標或前景或供應鏈方面聽到了什麼，您可以與我們分享嗎？

Well, what I can share is, and I think Kevin touched on this, there has been no change in our development plan that we've shared in the past. As stated in the call, our goal is, hopefully, by the end of this calendar year, to kick off A-sample phase, although admittedly, that may slip into early 2023, and then get us into successfully completing a B-sample validation phase in the 2024 time frame. And again, that is a major, major achievement because that is full design freeze in automotive speak. So there really is no change in our development plan, the production volumes that we have targeted for SP2, which is our electrolyte production facility. Those production targets also remain unchanged. And so we hope in the first part of next year to have SP2 hitting those production targets.

好吧，我可以分享的是，我認為凱文談到了這一點，我們過去分享的發展計劃沒有任何變化。正如電話中所述，我們的目標是，希望在本日曆年年底之前啟動 A 樣本階段，儘管不可否認，這可能會滑到 2023 年初，然後讓我們成功完成 B 樣本驗證2024 年時間框架內的階段。再一次，這是一項重大成就，因為這是汽車領域的全面設計凍結。因此，我們的發展計劃確實沒有變化，我們為 SP2（我們的電解液生產設施）設定的產量目標。這些生產目標也保持不變。所以我們希望在明年上半年讓 SP2 達到這些生產目標。

We've come to the end of the Q&A session. I will turn the floor over to Doug Campbell for closing remarks.

我們已經到了問答環節的尾聲。我將請 Doug Campbell 發言結束髮言。

Well, I just would thank the audience for sitting through today's earnings call, and we appreciate the opportunity to update the investment community on how the company is going. We remain very optimistic on our business, recognizing that there are certainly some headwinds out there. But frankly speaking, I think we're all experiencing those even as consumers. So we're doing the best we can to execute on our model, and we're very pleased with how things have gone throughout this entire year. So with that, we will close today's call.

好吧，我只想感謝聽眾參加今天的財報電話會議，我們很高興有機會向投資界介紹公司的發展情況。我們對我們的業務保持非常樂觀，認識到肯定存在一些不利因素。但坦率地說，我認為我們都在經歷這些，即使是作為消費者。所以我們正在盡我們所能在我們的模型上執行，我們對整個一年的情況感到非常滿意。因此，我們將結束今天的電話會議。

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

今天的電話會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路，感謝您的參與。