Solid Power Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Solid Power (NASDAQ:SLDP) reported third-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

Solid Power advanced its manufacturing roadmap with the Mobius pilot line, increasing electrolyte production capacity by 150% and aiming for full commissioning by year-end.

Strategic discussions for a joint venture in South Korea are ongoing, aiming to establish a 500 metric ton production facility to accelerate commercial adoption.

Third-quarter revenue and grant income totaled $1.2 million, with an operating loss of $29.8 million; cash investment guidance for 2026 was reduced to $75-85 million, reflecting improved financial discipline.

The company continued its customer engagement, supplying electrolyte to Samsung SDI and SK On, and maintained a strong liquidity position of $397.6 million with no debt.

Solid Power is exploring applications for its technology beyond EVs, in areas such as humanoid robotics and defense, leveraging its cell testing and pilot production capabilities.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good day and welcome to the Solid Power third quarter 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 questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Charlie Vangette, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Charlie Vangette (Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I’m joined on today’s call by Solid Power’s President and Chief Executive Officer John Van Scoter and Chief Financial Officer Linda Heller. A copy of today’s earnings release is available on the Investor Relations section of Solid Power’s website, www.solidpowerbattery.com. 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 www.solidpowerbattery.com. With that, let me turn it over to John Van Scoter.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Charlie, and thank you all for joining us today. The third quarter was marked by continued focus on advancing our electrolyte technology and expanding our strategic relationships. We also reached an important milestone in our manufacturing roadmap with Mobius, previously referred to as the SP2.5 continuous manufacturing pilot line. I’m pleased to report that in October we began introducing materials into Mobius. This new line is expected to increase our electrolyte production capacity by 150%, adding 45 metric tons of capacity and bringing total annual capacity to 75 metric tons.

Mobius is designed to demonstrate the scalability and efficiency of our proprietary wet process technology and to serve current and future near-term customer programs as we transition from batch to continuous production. We are now progressing toward full commissioning, which remains on track for year end. Mobius represents an important step in our journey to commercial scale by providing us with manufacturing capabilities, operating experience and a foundation we believe are critical to scaling our electrolyte technology.

Our vision is to build on what we establish with Mobius as we pursue a potential 500 metric ton annual production facility in Korea. During the quarter, we continued to advance discussions with leading battery materials manufacturers regarding a potential joint venture in South Korea for commercial-scale electrolyte production. With Korea at the center of solid-state battery development, we believe combining our technology and manufacturing know-how with the scale, expertise and market access of an established industry leader could create a powerful platform to accelerate commercial adoption.

Our customer engagement also continued during the quarter. We once again provided electrolyte to Samsung SDI and SK On to support their continued development efforts, and we remain committed to helping our customers advance towards commercialization. Operational excellence remains a core priority as we prepare for commercial readiness. Building on the Stage 1 milestone we reported last quarter, we recently completed Stage 2 of our ISO 9001 certification process and certification remains on track for year end. This is an important milestone for Solid Power as we continue the transition from development toward commercial supply. ISO 9001 provides an externally recognized framework for maintaining consistent, repeatable quality across our operations, strengthening areas such as process control, traceability, documentation and continuous improvement.

Importantly, it also gives our customers greater confidence that we have the systems and operating discipline in place to consistently deliver high-quality materials as we scale production. EVs will continue to be our North Star as we scale, but the potential of our technology extends well beyond a single market. We see exciting opportunities for all-solid-state batteries in applications such as humanoid robotics, drones and defense where safety and performance are increasingly important. We have entered collaboration discussions with potential partners to evaluate our sulfide electrolyte for these uses. We also see an opportunity to leverage our cell testing and pilot production capabilities to support development in these emerging markets.

Together, these opportunities demonstrate the broader potential of our technology platform and give us multiple avenues to create long-term value as we execute on our EV strategy and expand into new markets. Overall, we are pleased with our progress this quarter. We continue to execute against our commercialization roadmap across manufacturing scale-up, collaboration programs and strategic partnerships, and we are doing so with financial discipline as reflected in improved cash outlook. Linda will discuss that.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Linda to review our financial results and provide an update on our financial discipline goal. Linda.

Linda Heller (Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer)

Thank you, John. I’ll start with our third quarter results, beginning with revenue. During the third quarter of 2026, we generated revenue and grant income of $1.2 million, driven primarily by the assistance agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy funding a portion of the Mobius construction. This brings year-to-date revenue and grant income to $4 million. Operating expenses were $31.1 million in the third quarter compared to $30 million in the second quarter of 2026. The increase was driven by strategic consulting fees supporting our commercial readiness objectives. Operating loss for the quarter was $29.8 million and net loss was $24.4 million, or $0.11 per share. Capital expenditures totaled $4.7 million during the quarter, primarily related to construction of the Mobius line. During the quarter, cash investment, representing cash used in operations and capital expenditures, was $21.5 million, bringing year-to-date cash investment to $56.6 million.

Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity, Solid Power’s liquidity position remains strong. We ended the third quarter with total liquidity of $397.6 million. In addition, contract assets and accounts receivable totaled $6.2 million and total current liabilities were $18.8 million. We continue to operate with no debt. Our financial discipline is also reflected in our outlook. We have reduced our expected 2026 cash investment to a range of $75 to $85 million, an improvement from our prior range of $85 to $100 million. The improved outlook reflects strong execution on production, cost reduction and disciplined spending, enabling us to lower expected cash investment while continuing to advance our commercialization roadmap. We are accomplishing this in a cost-effective way while continuing to build the team, expertise and production capabilities needed to execute our strategy and support future commercialization.

Overall, we remain committed to disciplined capital allocation while continuing to invest in the initiatives that drive long-term growth. We believe our balance sheet provides the financial flexibility to execute our commercialization strategy and support our collaborators’ development programs. I will now turn the call back to John.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Linda. As we close, I want to thank our employees for their continued dedication and our customers, collaborators and shareholders for their ongoing confidence in Solid Power. We appreciate your support as we continue executing our strategy and advancing our path towards commercialization. As we enter the final quarter of the year, our focus is on finishing 2026 strong. We are working to complete the commissioning of Mobius, advance our discussions regarding a potential joint venture in Korea, achieve ISO 9001 certification and continue working closely with our customers and collaborators to support their development goals. We have accomplished a great deal in 2026 and these priorities build on the meaningful progress we have made throughout the year.

Our focus now is on achieving our near-term milestones and carrying that momentum directly into 2027. We believe the foundation we have built positions us to continue executing against our strategy and take the next steps towards commercialization. We are energized by the opportunities ahead for Solid Power. Thank you for your time today. We look forward to updating you on our continued progress in the quarters ahead. We will now take your questions. Operator.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. 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 two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Colin Roesch with Oppenheimer.

Please go ahead.

Colin Roesch (Analyst)

Thanks so much, guys, and congratulations on all the progress with Mobius. Could you talk a little bit about the key steps that you guys, you know, we should be watching as we get through the final acceptance and the initial ramp here through the balance of this year? It seems like you guys have this pretty well under control, but I just want to get a sense of which steps are the key ones for us that we should be attending to.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Good to hear from you, Colin. Thanks for the question. Yes, it’s all very recent that we started to put materials into the line, so it’s very early days, but the team is very, very excited to complete the commissioning this year. It’s going to be stepwise. We have four unit processes within the continuous flow operation, and so we’re going about that again in a stepwise fashion, whether it be the first part of the process or the last part, and then finally material all the way through the line continuously.

So I would expect in the coming months that we’ll have the unit processes largely checked out and spend the balance of the year around running material through the full line.

Colin Roesch (Analyst)

Excellent. And then, you know, with the increase of available material, you know, and the capital efficiency that you guys have talked about with this process relative to other attempts out in the field. Can you talk about what that means for your customers? Obviously, folks have been going through testing, but they’re going to want to do more volume and the validation of the cost structure as you get this up and running. Just want to understand kind of how quickly things might start shifting for you guys in terms of higher volume sales with some of these customers.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Yes, we’ve mentioned a number of times, but we have a unique wet process. We take precursors and mix them with solvents at the beginning of our line. Our competitors have a dry process and they cannot scale as well as we can with the wet process. So we believe we have a structured capex and opex advantage compared to the majority of our competitors. We can just increase the size of our unit processes to get to those larger and larger scale volumes.

The demand and what we ship obviously will be driven by our end customers’ progress with their cell designs. That is largely the gate right now for us, we believe. And the other beauty of Mobius is it’s 45 metric tons and our next objective is the 500 metric ton plant in Korea. So a 10x scalable off of that continuous flow is very doable based on precedent there in terms of scaling. So that’s what I see happening with the unit processes and the scaling up as we go forward.

Colin Roesch (Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much, guys.

OPERATOR

Thank you. The next question comes from Jake Sikelski with Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead.

Jake Sikelski (Analyst)

Hi John, Linda and team, thanks for taking the questions. Are you able to provide a bit more color on the other markets you’re looking at outside of EVs? I guess, what inning do you feel you’re in with partners here and, you know, do you see any potential for them to accelerate commercialization ahead of the EV market? Just trying to get a sense of how we should be thinking about the opportunity here.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks for the question, Jake. Yes, it is very early days. I don’t know if you said innings or not, if you were referring to a baseball analogy, but we’re probably in between the first and second innings in discussions with humanoids and with defense applications. But yes, we believe they will move faster. The qualification cycles will be shorter, the number of cycles per period will be greater. I kind of draw an analogy to, say, a CES consumer electronics kind of cycle, more so than a typical four-plus-year automotive cycle.

So that’s what makes it so attractive. Again, I want to emphasize automotive continues to be our North Star. We’re looking for markets that have synergies from a system requirement standpoint, both in energy density and safety, in cycle life, that sort of thing. So we won’t take our eye off that ball, but it could create some validation points for us and some modest revenue for us in the medium term.

Jake Sikelski (Analyst)

Okay, that’s helpful. And then just building off that a bit, how much of the planned 45 ton per annum capacity increase at Mobius is spoken for for existing customers or partners? And do you expect to reserve any output there for these additional markets in 27?

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Right now we don’t have any of it secured in terms of a supply agreement. We do have the existing SK On supply agreement that we announced in 2024 for 8 metric tons, but that is largely being supplied through our batch process. We will, we expect the requalifying with Mobius with our various customers. So we need to get through commissioning and get to demonstrated nameplate capability and then we’ll start that process in 2027.

Jake Sikelski (Analyst)

Got it. Okay. Thanks again.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Jake.

OPERATOR

Thank you. The next question comes from Sameer Joshi with HC Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Sameer Joshi (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, John, Charlie. Thanks for taking my questions. So, first, congrats on the progress on Mobius. My first question is: the cash investment guidance is now 75 to 85, from 85 to 100. So that’s understandable. But that implies a wide range. If by my calculation it’s around 18 million to 28 million for the fourth quarter, should we expect it towards the lower end or high end? Or maybe ask another way, what would make it go up to 28 or what could make it stay at 18?

Linda Heller (Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer)

Well, we feel very comfortable with the guidance of 75 to 85 for the year. There’s a number of things that can be lumpy in terms of that. For example, our DOE assistance agreement, the timing of reimbursement could have a swing either way. So there’s items like that, payments to vendors, equipment vendors, when they complete their checklist so that we will continue to pay that on Mobius. Those can have swings in timing as well. So it’s mainly timing issues, I would say, not so much, you know, expense issues.

Sameer Joshi (Analyst)

Understood. Got it. Thanks for that clarification. Part two of that question is, do we have a plan of similar investment guidance, cash investment guidance, for 2027?

Linda Heller (Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer)

We have not. Our plan will always be to provide an outlook for 27 in our fourth quarter 2026 earnings call. That is consistent with our pattern in previous years.

Sameer Joshi (Analyst)

Understood. And then on the Korea JV that we are looking at, you’re talking to several partners. Should we expect any initial, at least some kind of an announcement during 2026, or will this be a 2027 event?

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Well, we’ve been targeting with two partners through advanced negotiations and discussions to get something done this year. We’ll see. We’ll see if we can get that done. We’re trying like heck to put something out, get it put together. But sometimes these big deals do move to the right. So we’re pressing hard. We’ll see how it lands. Got six weeks left to make it happen.

Sameer Joshi (Analyst)

Understood. May I squeeze in one more on sort of Mobius, the continuous versus batch processing. Are you able to quantify sort of the costs per production unit or yield improvements that would happen because of the continuous process versus batch, or is it too early to talk of such things?

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

We certainly will be able to do that ultimately, but it really is too early. We’ve got to get the nameplate demonstrated for Mobius. Then we’ll be able to easily do those comparisons and show the cost down. You recall that we did show a representative cost-down curve in our investor deck recently. That is, we believe, a good representation of what we will get as a next step with Mobius, but we will certainly be able to confirm that once we have it fully commissioned and nameplate demonstrated.

Sameer Joshi (Analyst)

Got it. Thanks a lot, John. And thanks for taking my questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you. The next question comes from Adam Kelsey with Titan Partners Group. Please go ahead.

Adam Kelsey (Analyst)

Great. Thank you. John, I really enjoyed your comment about EVs being your North Star, but there’s potential beyond that. Would love to better understand how you balance your attention between the auto side as well as these emerging markets.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, great question. I would say we’re still primarily focused on the EV segment, but again we’re looking to other newer markets where there is synergy from a system requirement standpoint, notably energy density, safety and cycle life. So other markets that don’t have those kind of requirements that EV markets have, we’re not spending time on those, but we are spending time where there’s synergy.

Adam Kelsey (Analyst)

Great, thank you. And obviously some of those markets, like robotics, you know, there’s an educational process up front. But I’d be curious, from a technical and technology perspective, is there anything you’re seeing that either builds a moat or helps you guys compete in those markets against any potential competitors?

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, it’s really a great point, Adam. You know, the relative battery knowledge in the EV market is much higher than it is in these other markets, largely. So we’re spending a lot of our time just educating the end OEMs around the value proposition for all-solid-state batteries and specifically sulfide-based ones. We’ve gotten really good reception, but it is a relatively new topic for them. So we’re exploring different system applications with these OEMs as ways to give them things that they can’t do today with traditional Li-ion batteries.

Weight and balance is a big deal, say, in humanoids and then payload differences, say, in the military application. So yeah, we’re kind of in the education phase right now of the art of the possible with all-solid-state batteries in these new markets.

Adam Kelsey (Analyst)

Awesome. And I know it’s so early days, but, you know, when we think about, you know, initial Mobius production, how are you thinking through these other potential markets and utilizing your capacity effectively and efficiently?

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

I believe that Mobius will become the core going forward. We’ll continue to operate the batch line as long as there’s demand for that product. But our objective is to, as soon as we can, switch over to the Mobius line and primarily support customers with that line moving forward to get the learnings, to get the yield, to get the cost, so then we can scale up to that 500 metric ton plant based on that continuous process in Korea, rapidly.

Adam Kelsey (Analyst)

Awesome. And one final one for me with respect to the reduced spend, it sounds like there are a few operational improvements. I’m just curious if there’s anything you guys would like to call out or highlight.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

On the operational performance, a couple things. We renegotiated some supplier contracts in terms of that, which yields benefits for multiple years. Those were significant for us, very important as we work down the unit cost for electrolyte, as well as just getting some efficiencies out of our capital expenditures, working that through on our cash. So we did a very good job on those. So those are two of the biggest impacts, I would say, on that.

Adam Kelsey (Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, Adam.

OPERATOR

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to John Van Scoter for any closing remarks.

John Van Scoter (President & Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you for joining the call today and for your interest in Solid Power. We look forward to updating you again next quarter.

OPERATOR

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.