Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the conference call of LION E-Mobility regarding the Q2 and H1 2025 results. This call will be recorded. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. My name is Jens Heitland. I will be the moderator today. On the call, we have the LION management team, Dr. Joachim Damasky, CEO, and Jörg Peter Hahn, CFO. Joachim Damasky will give you an update on the overall business development. Afterwards, Jörg Peter Hahn will provide an overview on the H1 financial results. After the presentation, the LION team will be available for any of your questions. You will be able to ask questions via the Q&A chat function. You will be unmuted for your question. For the presentation, I would now like to hand over to you, Joachim. Please go ahead.
Jens, thank you very much for the introduction. Good morning also from my side, ladies and gentlemen. Next slide, please. I would like to talk a little bit about that, what we have achieved since we have been meeting last time. First of all, I will go through the current development with our existing battery, how far we are, what do we still have to produce there. What is the customer requirements? I will come to the development of the NMC+, where we want to start our serial production this year. After this, I will go through immersion cooling and also to our new business field with the BESS. That means the storage business. Let me please start with our current battery pack. We did, because it's still necessary now, the update for the ECE R100 Revision 3. All the requirements have been achieved.
It's mainly thermal propagation issues that have been increased. That means the hurdles from the governmental side. I think it was very well. Our customers are very happy, so that they can use the battery as long as it exists also for new vehicles. You might know that all new vehicles sold from and registered from 1st of September this year have to have batteries with Revision 3. The interesting thing is that our SDI cells, that means the 120 ampere-hour cells, will not be produced anymore. We told this last time also. Interesting is that a lot of customers now ask if we can provide them cells or even spare part packs, spare part modules. We have only the limited number left.
We have been asking SDI if they can provide us more. There is only also with them, because they will not produce it anymore, a very small number, a few thousand cells that they can sell us towards our customers. Interesting is that also some customers, where we have been working together with for many years now, as they now understand that there will be no further production of these 120 ampere-hour cells, they even want to buy several thousands of cells. We will do our spare part production at module level because we also have now to make our calculations. We are done with this so far for us. We are still working also together with our customers, what they need on module level as spare parts. You know that these batteries are used also in the StreetScooter vehicles that DHL is running.
They are also now calculating what they need. We also started repair business for modules with them, but this only makes sense if the state of health is above 85%. Otherwise, the modules have to be exchanged. This is what we are currently planning, what we might need to produce and stock on module level so that we can provide to our customers the spare parts. We have an all-time buy already for the ZKS and for the S-Box components been doing with our suppliers. There we have now the final batch produced for both the components that is going according in the number to the number of cells that we have. Also some spare parts that we have to keep in stock for this.
This means that the end of the serial production of this current Samsung SDI cell battery pack will come latest in, let's say, beginning of December. We will stock some modules. We will be able also to produce with our spare parts on module level, even some packs for our customers for next year until they are finished with all that what they need to do for their homologation with the NMC+ battery. Because also this took some time, integration work with our customers. It looks now that we do not need to have a parallel protection like we originally planned with both cell types. We will produce our final batch, then we will change the production line that what has to be done.
The work is already starting now because there is also a lot of software work that has to be done for end-of-line tests and others. This is already now ordered with our supplier, thyssenkrupp, and they are working on this, and we are planning to stop the module production then latest mid of December. That it will take some 2 months to do all the necessary rework over Christmas time, so that we hope and we are planning to start the large-scale serial production of the new battery with the SVOLT cell 147 amp hours then mid of February, so that we can supply first of March then serial batteries with the NMC+. We will pre-produce that what is necessary. [Foreign language] Okay. [Foreign language] Yeah.
What we are currently doing is to look also for all the other parts like expansion valve, what is mostly the same also with the new battery housing is the same, but we are also doing some changes on the module level. We are also starting now whatever is necessary. That means PPAP and run at rate for the components, for the modules, others. The cells, because you know that we also need to change the ZKS, that means the cell contacting system, but also other things like the frames and other. This is now going on with our new and under the lead of our new team member that joined us some 6 months ago on the quality side, a very experienced man, Mr. Klaus Lachenschmidt, who joined our team.
He has experience with the quality work in automotive area since more than 30 years, and he knows quite very good what he's doing. We are also now doing the IATF certification for us and also other certifications that we need to continue, like the ISO 9001 and others. [Foreign language] Coming to our new battery pack, NMC+. We are now in the final stage of the battery. We have produced all the test samples. We have also shipped already test samples to our customers, still with the preliminary software, because we are now in the final stage of the software development for our BMS. All the tests on ECE R10 and ECE R100, all on revision 3 are running. On module level, we have passed it already.
What means, for example, that the nail test, that means thermal propagation, has been fulfilled successfully, so that we are very confident that we will have the ECE R100 Revision 3 for the new battery on hand latest in mid of October. We are now in the final development phase of our new BMS. As you know, we are doing this together with the supplier, because to do this according to the ISO 26262, but also IATF 16949. This is what we cannot do with our limited resources on our own. This was the decision. As you know, I told this one year ago, that we are doing this with a team outside where we can do this based on an existing hardware platform. The final software tests are running now. We got last week the hopefully final software.
The integration tests with our battery customers who run the SE09, that means the NMC+ battery, with their vehicles, they are running currently, and we have no complaints. Everything is working quite good. The new S-Box, safety box, we had to change it totally because we also need new switches, new fuses, a new PCB board, because all the old components, because the development of those are now 10 years old. No chances to fulfill the current regulation demands on functional safety. Everything has been made new. Components are ready, and the new S-Box for driving tests will be shipped to our customers next week. Battery is state-of-the-art. I think this is something that is confirmed by all our customers. They see that they are getting themselves in a much better competitive situation because energy density level volumetric and also gravimetric on module level is benchmark.
Gravimetric is really best in class. This is the highest energy density for a module like this. We have a high customer interest. Also a company that is doing BMW i3 retrofitting with this battery. They say that there is a huge demand because there are a lot of vehicles out in the field who still are running on the 60 amp hour batteries, and this would increase the range by the factor of three for these customers. We are already producing in a small series production with hand welding but still under control of all our quality parameters. We are producing now the new cells, the new modules, and we are also building up the so-called C samples, and small series samples for the whole battery. We have more customer demands for the integration than we can now supply.
We have huge interest also from other customers. We hope that we will be able to ramp up this then latest end of February. I think this is the state of the art, the state of development where we are currently with our NMC+. We are really happy. We see that everything is running. Yes, of course, some things sometimes take a little longer. We are still in very close contact with our customers. As we have been able now to combine the end of the cells with the readiness of the NMC+, we are quite happy that our customers are going this way with us. They still have their tenders for their vehicles out in the field, especially the bus customers with the old battery.
They have won the first ones only because of the new battery, because they have already the possibility to give the technical specifications for their buses with the new battery. We are very confident that we can ramp up. It helps us also so that we can produce everything without changing anything in the line. That means, on the same quality level with the old cell. That means, the 120 amp hour cells from SDI. Then we can switch over what is necessary to do this. We will be able to supply some of the customers also within the next, let's say, four months in the next year, also with the old battery, until they have done whatever they need to do for their homologation.
At the end, we now are very proud that we have now all the tests running for the ECE R100. We are also now in the changing of the production line. The next bit. Last time we have been talking on our immersion cooled technology. We are still developing this. Now we are integrating also the EIS, that means electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. This is a kind of measurement that is running on super cell level so that we can measure here electronically within our BMS if there is anything going on, like lithium plating, any changes in resistance, whatever else. We can even measure temperature changes. We know based on this if there is, let's say, an increase of heat within the cell before the cell gets warm on the outside. That means we can look very much into the electrochemical processes.
This is something that we are the first ones who have this ready. We started a new development project with a German truck manufacturer. It is a feasibility study for a special kind of truck where they want to have a so-called megawatt charging within a short stopping time. This is something that we can provide with this technology. We are now also looking together with them to build up a prototype. For the passenger car OEMs, I think we have been talking that we fulfilled and finalized a prototype project with one of the German OEMs. I think we all know what is the situation now within the OEM world in Germany. When you look to all these car manufacturers, if it is Volkswagen, Audi, even BMW now, they are looking very much what kind of projects they will run. There we see some postponements.
We are still confident that it will come to this OEM project. Maybe there is a delay of, let's say, one year, one and a half year, that we are still discussing. We are still in close contact with the development people. The strategic decisions at the car OEMs, they are unfortunately not really foreseeable now. We have also started a cooperation with a German major parts supplier on system level, especially on heat exchangers, to get rid of the heat that we get out of the battery with an oil. They are doing world-class pump technologies. They have world-class heat exchangers, so they know quite good, and we are developing now together a system so that we can not only supply the battery to the OEMs, but the whole system with us together with one of the world leading part manufacturer.
We also, and this is published today, we are cooperating with a cooling oil manufacturer. As you can imagine, it's not so easy. Liquids and batteries, that means high voltage, is always a thing that we have to look very much in detail. This is the reason why we are now working with a cooling oil manufacturer. It's the viscosity, that means how liquid the oil is, because we need to have a very low fluid resistance. On the other side, we have to make sure that there is no electrical connection so that we do not have any electrical problem with the oil around the cells. I think you all know that we are not only cooling the base of the cell, but the whole cell.
The cell is surrounded by oil, and therefore, we have to look very much in detail what we are doing there. I think this looks also quite very promising. Now, I would like to come to a new field that we started, that means the BESS, Battery Energy Storage System. I think I mentioned it already that roughly 50% of our turnover in the year 2023 and before was going into the energy storage system with the existing pack. The world has changed there a lot, not only because of the price pressure, as I mentioned last time. It's also technology change. That means the batteries are not NMC anymore in this area. It's mainly LFP. Yes, of course, energy density is much lower, but they have a much higher safety level, especially regarding thermal propagation.
Therefore, we decided, because we still want to take a part in this kind of business, that we have to look for a partner. We are now cooperating with LEAP Energy. This is the battery division of Leapmotor. Leapmotor is a car manufacturer based in China. We all know that more than 95% of the LFP cells produced worldwide are coming out of China. Therefore, we decided now to go further with them. The interesting thing is that the customers we are talking with, and we have some customers already from our history that we had together with Alfen and Fenecon and other BESS manufacturers. They say Chinese competitiveness together with our contacts, with our service possibilities. I think you know that we have service engineers who can travel all over Europe and are doing this if there is any problem.
We have the possibility to give European guarantees and warranties. Of course, we are bankable. This is that what our customers very well now realize, and we have very good contacts now with our customers. We have a cooperation agreement signed in April this year for the countries Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, and also the U.K. In the U.K., one of our customers is already running with the existing battery cell that we even have been able to prove that we are able to do the service in this area as well. Yeah. Portfolio, what you can see on the right side is a 20-foot container, 5 megawatt hours. Then also, in addition, a power conversion system. That means what is necessary, the inverters and everything to get the grid connections.
We also have then cabinets with smaller size from 260-420 kilowatt hours. Service will come from our production plant in Hildburghausen. We are starting now the education also of our people, and we also will have one of the containers, the bigger containers there, so that we can show this to our customers, but also doing the training, whatever is necessary. We have very good discussions with project developers and engineering procurement construction companies, and also energy traders and investment companies. Only with Münchner Solarkraftwerke, I think you have read this also, we are working now on 41 projects. The limiting factor is now the grid connection permission. This is coming from the energy companies and the grid companies.
I think some of you have read that this is the major bottleneck, that they are not able to do all that work that has to be done, and they also have to improve the grid capacities, and this is what they are currently doing. This now was a short overview on that what we are doing. I think we are quite satisfied. The results of the first half show that we have cost under control. We are still now looking that we will improve our turnover for the second half of this year. For these kinds of explanations, I now would like to hand over to my colleague, Jörg. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Joachim. Hello, everyone, from my side also. Looking at the first half of 2025, as you see, and you all already read, because we announced it already yesterday, we could increase our revenues compared to first half 2024 with about 71% year-over-year to EUR 10.4 million. We saw this as a result of a strong market recovery. Joachim explained this already. As you know, last year was a very highly challenging year for us, but we could get through this also by starting a joint venture outside of our core business. This year looks very different from last year. With the increased revenue, we see also an increased EBITDA of EUR 1.3 million, which is way higher than in the first half of last year, which was EUR -4.8 million.
This pushed also our operating cash flow to a good EUR 3.3 million, coming from a low EUR -5.8 million in the same period in 2024. We concentrated, as Joachim also said and emphasized, on cost control and continued now optimization of our inventory levels. Next page, please. In details, the profit and loss statement in first half in a year-over-year comparison, we nearly doubled our revenue due to our new NMC+ and the immersion projects. Joachim explained that we had continuingly concentrated on these highly focused developments. Additionally, our material costs, we could kept stable with the higher revenues, which means an increased gross margin of now 49%. Personal expenses went up a bit by roughly EUR 200K in the first half year, due to the ongoing strategic projects. The tighter cost control materialized also especially in the reduction of the operating costs to EUR 2.3 million from EUR 2.8 million.
As I mentioned, this all led to this very good improved EBITDA of EUR 1.3 million. Also, a comment on last year's year-end statements we announced already in late June. We also saw that our auditors saw these positive developments and gave us a positive going concern statement. With all of that, we can confirm the guidance of at least EUR 28 million-EUR 35 million and with a positive EBITDA for end of this year. Cash flow. Next page, please. Looking at the cash flow. It improved positive to positive, coming mostly, as you see, from the operating activities with an increase here of a massive EUR 9.1 million. Operating was highly successful this year. Financial cash flow also showed the regular payback of a bank loan, which was supported by an additional shareholder loan.
This was the EUR 1.1 million first half of last year to the EUR -700K in first half of this year. Overall, we had a positive cash net change of the cash position this year. Going to balance sheet. Thank you very much. Mainly, if you look at the assets, it comes mainly from the increase on the non-current assets and what includes it are the development projects that we had to continue. Joachim explained it. This increased, this capitalization increased by EUR 1.8 million from end of last year to end of June, and this rose our non-current assets to EUR 26.1 million from EUR 24.3 million. Remarkable is also on the passive side, that we improved our equity by a conversion of a shareholder loan and the accumulated interest. Also, we could reduce the non-current liabilities by paying back the loans
That's all from my side already. Joachim, do you want to conclude, please?
Yes, thank you very much. I think you have seen now the numbers where we are. We are really positive because we have a lot of inquiries, especially for our new batteries, and our storage business also looks very promising. This shows also the announcement of Mercedes-AMG that also our immersion technology, I think the market is ready for this. It will come, hopefully, within the next 12 months. I cannot promise anything because I do not look in detail into that, what our car manufacturers will decide. We are still very positive on that. We are, for the time being, I think, when you see our outlook for the rest of the year, because our customers want to make sure that they will have spare parts. They are looking if they can ensure themselves a certain number of sales.
We are very positive that, especially in the second half of the year, we will fulfill our expectations. Thank you very much from my side, and now we are open for questions.
Thank you, Joachim and Jörg. We can now enter the Q&A session. If you want to ask a question, you please raise your virtual hand, and once your name is announced, I can unmute your line. You could also use the Q&A chat function, and we will read out the question. The first questions are coming in. First up is Mr. Burger. I will now unmute you, and if you unmute yourself also, you can speak. Herr Burger?
Good morning. Yes.
Perfect. We hear you.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes, of course.
Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Actually, there is a couple of questions. First of all, I've just seen on the presentation that you did not mention Canada. I guess in your press release, you said Canada is also part for the LEAP Energy distribution agreement. If you can clarify that, please. Another one for me, now very important, obviously, that was an interesting press release this morning. For me, a big question is, in the press release, you say it is projects that you are working on, or that are in the pipeline. Those 41 projects, are they already sold? Because for me, pipeline means it is sold. Can you please clarify that one?
In the past couple of months, for me, one thing that is always a little bit concerning if you see that, is that your top leadership team in sales left the company. In the U.S. and from what I have seen, Mr. Reich as well in Europe. If you can probably talk a little bit about that one, if you can. Obviously, light battery sounds really deflated. From last year, that is a huge difference in how it sounds to me. You also said last year that there is more than this one OEM. What happened to the other ones? Obviously, that one OEM is delayed, but what happened to the other promising projects or possible projects, what you have said?
Obviously, another one would be, that's probably the last one, for the truck light battery projects, whether there is any sort of timeline that you can share. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your questions, Mr. Burger. Let me start with Canada. I have no idea. The original thought was that Canada is included, but when we signed it's not included because we do not have salesforce in Canada now. Of course, if there are projects coming, it's open for us also because there is no other distribution agreement for Canada with Leapmotor and LEAP Energy. For the time being, it's not official part of the signed contract. You have been asking about if the BESS projects are sold. The contracts are signed so far from us with these project companies. As I mentioned, it's always a question to get the grid connections.
As soon as the grid connections are there, I think then the project companies, where we are listed in, they will be then sold, then the projects will come. We are still waiting for the sale of the whole company, or they call it vehicle. Special purpose vehicle or how is it called? For the time being, we have made our contracts, everything is signed with that company I mentioned before, they are still working on selling these. Sales force in the U.S. and in Germany. I think this is something, especially in the U.S., this was for private reasons, on the other side, because there was not foreseeable new business, that we have still existing customers where we think they will come back. You know that, for example, LION Electric in Canada, they are coming back.
They have been going through Chapter 11 or something similar. It's called CCAA on the Canadian side. We are also working together with Motive in the U.S., but there is huge uncertainty because of tax things. They are not really clear. Is there a necessity to build up something for the U.S.? Our customers are always asking for this. For the time being, because of this uncertainty, we have no plans now to build up a manufacturing site in the U.S., especially because we also do not know what will be the import duties and taxes for the cells coming out of China. We do not know if we have to ship them through Germany and then to the U.S. There are a lot of things they have to be clarified with the new government in the U.S.
Therefore, one of our salespersons have left the company. For Mr. Reich, this is something, yes, he has decided to go back into his old business field where he was before, Optoelectronics. For me, it gives now the chance I will head this intermediate, because I want to understand a little bit more, especially when we look to future development projects. I want to understand a little more what our customers want to have. I'm now directly in contact with our major bus customers, but also with others. Therefore, I will take over this for a certain period, maybe three or four months. We might also look what we are going to do, and we are also thinking about sales strategy.
Should we have one salesperson who's heading everything, or does it make more sense because the business areas are really different to have one for BESS and other one for the mobile business, especially OE and automotive. Light battery. Yes, I'm talking about one OEM who has postponed it. As I mentioned, if you look to the other vehicle manufacturers, they have the same issues, and we are still in discussions for this. Especially these kinds of high-performance vehicles is something where they are not really looking very much in detail. You know that most of the car manufacturers now have changes on the engineering side. BMW has changed head of engineering. Audi, Mr. Döllner is doing this also. We see what's going on in Volkswagen. We have also other car manufacturers who are now struggling to set up the right product strategy.
This is the reason why we cannot tell anything concrete if the immersion cooling project or when the immersion cooling project will come to the large-scale OEMs. For the trucks, the timeline is that we want to finalize that what I told you, feasibility study to end of September, mid of October. Then the truck manufacturer will decide to build up after we have the final results to build up a prototype, and this then would be then together with this major parts supplier I was talking about. I hope this answers your question so far. Now I would like hand over back to Jens.
Thank you, Joachim. We had one more question in the chat, but it's already answered. It was from Risto concerning this change in the sales team. We have one more question coming up from Christian Sandherr. Christian, you should be able to speak now.
Yep. Thank you. First question would be on the sales mix for this year. What is your expected mix between mobility solutions and storage solutions?
Thank you very much for your question. Interesting question because my expectation is that we mainly will do our sales in mobility solutions with the current existing SDI and some prototypes on the NMC+. Of course, we are hoping that we will come to the first contract also in the BESS storage. There we are also because we need to get some homologation papers from LEAP Energy, our expectation is that we hopefully will get one or two contracts. I would say for the rest of the year, 90% will be mobility.
How would you expect this to develop over the, let's say, next two years in light of the news that you have published today and everything else that's changing around it?
We are hoping also that we will increase the BESS business very much because we are really competitive on the price side. We are now working on some technical solutions together with our Chinese partner, like noise reduction, maybe also integrating some European inverters because some of the grid manufacturers, because it's critical infrastructure, they do not want to have Chinese software in this. I think that we will be able to grow at least at 50%, like it has been in the past, of our turnover will then be hopefully also in the BESS. Because this, until we have built up the first container park out there in the field, it's only an estimation and maybe our thinking that we have together as a target with our Chinese partner.
I think more reliability we have in our mobile business where we know our customers, and we are very happy that some customers are coming back. We also have really promising new customers who want to work together with this new battery.
A follow-up question on the news from this morning from Münchner Solarkraftwerke. Can you give a rough idea of how big these 40 projects are? Maybe in terms of sales potential for you guys, but also maybe in terms of megawatt storage that is required. Some kind of information that helps me understand the size a bit better.
In total, we are talking about several few hundred megawatt hours in total. To calculate, I would say this is a little risky because everything is depending on the grid connection. For one of the projects, we have now got the idea that the grid connection is planned for the year 2031. Maybe this is not that what we see be possible to talk about this in the next month or in the next year. Please give me some time for I will be able to answer these questions much more reliable than with our next call.
To clarify, because you just mentioned 2031. This is nothing you would expect to impact your P&L next year.
Exactly. Yeah, of course. There are two or three projects. I think they are much more, or much higher in probability to get sold in the next year and to be built up.
Okay.
The only thing what I wanted to say is that, unfortunately, a little bit unforeseeable what will happen.
Okay. This whole project is going to span out over, I don't know, five, six years maybe. I don't know.
Of course. We are also looking for some other. We have close contacts with the energy companies who are providing their own storage. There are also big fleet companies running electric fleets on delivery trucks, where they have not enough power to charge them overnight altogether. They are also thinking about building up containers so that they have electric battery stock buffer, so that they are able, although they are limited in the power that they can get from the grid so that they can charge their vehicles. There are a lot of interesting projects outside. For us, it's now really important to get the first project in the field as soon as this is running, and we can also prove that we do have very competent service engineers. I think the probability is getting much higher.
Yes. Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thanks, Christian Sandherr, for your questions. We have a follow-up question from Stefan Burger. Stefan, your line should now be available.
Yes. Thank you. A question. Is this cooperation with Münchner Solarkraftwerk und Verwaltungs GmbH, is that for entire Europe market worldwide, or are you going to look into more cooperations like that?
We also look for other cooperations like that, especially also in Europe. First of all, we thought it might be the best for us if we would concentrate on the German market, especially, to build up what is necessary, that we have a storage available to get the first containers built up. To talk also with the companies. Of course, our future will hopefully also give some of these cooperations also in other European countries as well.
Thank you.
Therefore, of course, we need to invest in sales and in local representatives. We are talking, or we are internally thinking about have some sales reps. That means local people, honorary charged based on the success. We are now thinking how we can improve our sales European network. Thank you very much, Jens.
All right. Thank you. We have no further questions on the chat and no further questions from the microphone. This would conclude the presentation today and the call. Thanks a lot for your attendance. If you have any further questions, please reach out anytime to the LION Investor Relations team. Thank you and bye-bye.
Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.