Our next new flagship fully electric SUV, the Volvo EX90, on November nine. That is another milestone for the company as we approach the back end of this year. You look to share of recharge cars, that has been affected by the supply constraints, so we saw that reduce from 31% to 25%. However, when you look at as those supply constraints start to free up within the Q3 and we look at September in isolation, then we actually see that BEV sales accounted for 13%, which is the highest in the history of the company. Our overall recharge is tracking to 31% when you look at September as an isolated month within Q3. Of course, that bodes well for ambitions for Q4 and beyond.
With that, let me hand over to Johan Ekdahl, who will take us through the financials in a bit more detail. Johan?
Thank you, Jim, and good morning. Okay, let's then go through the financials a little bit more in detail. Retail sales volumes down 8%, which is then driven by the production constraints, especially earlier in the quarter. It's based on the lockdowns for COVID in China, the power cuts in China and the heat waves, and also continued supply constraints in certain components. However, we did see actually turning points where we had a year-over-year increase in retail sales in September. This has been gradually improving, also during this quarter. Revenue, very strong, 30% up. Strong pricing on the back of the good demand. Strong mixes, of course.
We also have seen a tailwind on FX, especially on the US dollar, and also that we have an effect from the contract manufacturing of cars then for Polestar. EBIT at SEK 3.5 billion or 4.4% in the quarter. A decrease from last year, which is then driven by higher cost for raw materials, especially on electrified cars and on the lithium prices, but also on high cost for spot purchases of semiconductors and also a higher euro FX. We'll come back more on EBIT just shortly in detail. Cash flow positive. Operating and investing cash flow in the quarter, SEK 3 billion, which is also somewhat of a turning point here compared to the previous quarters this year. Revenue, again, very strong, up 30%.
We have an effect from increased wholesale volumes during the quarter. We do see continued good pricing on the back of high demand. We do see a positive sales mix effect and also a very strong FX, especially on the US dollar, which is then contributing with almost SEK 6 billion. On top of that, we have contract manufacturing for Polestar contributing SEK 6.5 billion in the quarter. All in all, strong revenue. EBIT, we also here see a positive effect from volume and sales mixes and also on pricing. FX virtually flat. We have a positive effect from US dollar, but we also have a strong euro rate, which then makes this offset, you could say, to more or less flat.
In addition to that, in this quarter, we have seen increased costs for raw material and freights. Raw material, an effect from the flow-through of the high spot prices during the Q2 , where we do see a certain lag in time, and also continued high prices on battery materials, especially on lithium. In addition to that, we have seen high costs for spot purchases of semiconductors during the period, and we also have some more temporary effects on the geographical mix, which is then especially a lower U.S. mix than usual due to certain logistics issues towards the end of the quarter. That is something that will now normalize during the Q4 . Including Associated Companies, EBIT at SEK 2.1 billion, which is then affected SEK 1.5 billion of results from Associated Companies in the period.
EBIT development over time. As we see, we have been quite stable over time. We have this big uptake in Q2, including Associated Companies, which is then, of course, driven then by the effects from the listing of Polestar. As I just showed, we see a decline in the Q3 for the reasons just mentioned. BEV margins, a deterioration during the quarter, which is driven by several things. One being the increased cost for the raw material, especially batteries and driven by the lithium prices. That stands for, say, around half of this effect.
We also see some other more temporary effects, especially on FX, also driven by the low US mix that I just mentioned, and also the US dollar effects which have further affected the prices for batteries. When we now go forward into the Q4 , we will see a more normalized geographical mix, and we will also see price increases further flowing through into the Q4 and also even further into 2023. On liquidity, we are at a solid liquidity level. We have a positive free cash flow of SEK 3 billion in the , mainly driven by a positive working capital development now during this ramp-up phase of the gradually improved production situation.
We see also included in investments is SEK 3 billion of what we have called pre-IPO transactions, which in this case is a share of the loan to our JV with Geely, Aurobay, in China. The underlying operating free cash flow is actually even better. With that short financial summary, I will give back to Jim to take us through the summary of the quarter.
Thank you. Okay, in summary, the order book remains robust and stable across the globe. Overall semiconductor situation is better, but the continued lockdowns in China caused by COVID and some of the heatwaves have impacted our production. If we look at production for the year, especially if we focus in on Q3, then production at 145,000 units is up 34,000 units year-over-year, with September daily production being the highest in our history. Recharge production in Q3 was 37%, whereof 14% of that was fully electric. The effects of the lithium prices will continue to affect or put pressure on our raw material and overall prices as well as gross margins as we go into the Q4 .
We continue to put in cost measures to focus on productivity and efficiency to offset some of those additional costs. The additional pricing actions that were put in place are further to materialize in Q4 and beyond, and again, that will have a positive effect. Now, assuming that there is no further major supply chain disruptions, production wholesale and retail are expected to grow in the second half of this year. However, we do expect a slightly lower wholesale volume than in 2021. This means that we'll be tracking towards double-digit EV sales for the full year as originally planned. Despite all of the uncertainties, and they remain high, we are fully focused on and remain fully committed to our long-term strategic objectives as outlined earlier in the call. One last point, and that is the EX90 reveal in November ninth.
This is the reveal of our first SPA2 product, which will be our flagship EX90 that we are excited to bring to the public and announce that on November ninth. With that, I will hand over to Ron, who will now take us through the question and answer session.
All right. Thank you for that, Jim. We are all settled in now to kickstart the Q&A session. For that, let me invite to join Jim and Johan, John Hernander, our Head of Investor Relations. Good morning, John.
Good morning, Ron. Thank you.
Let's just do it again to quickly go through how you can participate in the Q&A session. You can do so in two ways. You can send in your questions via chat using the chat window that you should be able to see at the bottom of your screen, or you can also see the QR code. That's what you should use if you want to call in to ask a question. Remember to press star one one. With that, I think we have a lot of callers and a lot of questions already. Let's get this started. Let's take the first caller. This is George Galliers from Goldman Sachs. Good morning, George. What question do you have for us?
Thank you for taking my question. The first question I had was just on semiconductors. You mentioned that the constraints are continuing to improve gradually. Could you talk a bit about how much constraint you see in the Q4 and also the first half of next year, and also what you're seeing in terms of semiconductor pricing? With respect to semiconductors, could you just remind us how you purchase them? Do you purchase them directly from a tier one supplier or indeed a semi manufacturer, or are you buying them from within the broader Geely group? The second question was just with regards to the loans at Aurobay. Could you just confirm, was that planned and as described during the IPO process, or is that an incremental loan above and beyond what was previously communicated?
Thank you.
Hi, George. Maybe I'll start off, and I'll answer the first two parts of your question, and I'll hand over to Johan who can take you through the conversation with Aurobay. Semiconductors, what we've found increasingly through the course of this year is that semiconductor availability has become better. But however, as we approach the back end of the year, we still see sporadic supply constraints. Where that happens, then we need to play in the spot market in order to secure those parts. The trend line is good, and so much as we are having to play less and less in the spot market and purchases, but that is still prevalent right now in Q3. I expect that to be the same in Q4.
Hopefully as we go into 2023, we see that trend line continue, and we need to spend less and less money on spot market purchases for semiconductors. In answer to your question in terms of how we buy those, it's a mix. On some semiconductors, we buy directly from the manufacturer. On some of those, we buy those semiconductors through a sub-assembly. We have sub-assembly components that use those semiconductors, and in that case, we rely on those manufacturers who are doing the sub-assemblies to buy those semiconductors, and then install them in the sub-assemblies before shipping them to Volvo.
We're also leaning in on that as much as we possibly can and helping those sub-assemblies companies to actually procure the silicon and the semiconductors where we think we can help. In some cases, that's where we make the spot purchase buys. We secure those semiconductors, and then we ship them to the sub-assemblers, and they produce the final product or the final sub-assembly and give it to us. This isn't related to Geely. We do all this on our own through Volvo procurement.
should probably just add to that, in that, in order to build the robustness of a supply chain architecture and infrastructure, we are adding more and more analytical tools to our supply chain capabilities so that we get more visibility and a bit more granularity quicker in the process to try and alleviate some of the, because obviously the sooner you see these issues, the sooner you can react. Either you're in the spot market quicker and therefore paying less money, or indeed you can actually navigate past that without having to go into the spot market in the first place. Hopefully that answers the question, and I'll hand over to Johan, who can talk about Aurobay.
Yeah. Regarding the question on Aurobay, the short answer is this was fully in accordance with plan on the financing of Aurobay. It's nothing incremental on that. Yeah. That's the short answer.
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much for very clear answers.
Okay. Thanks for those questions, George. Let's take another one that comes in through chat. This is by Waldemar Lindrück. And Waldemar is asking, how does the stop in production in Torslanda next week affect the production as a whole? Does it lower the target for the full year?
The stop in production in Torslanda, obviously we've known that was coming, so that's already baked into the full year numbers, at this particular point in time. Of course, if you're familiar with the manufacturing process, it's sometimes easier, rather than to run the facility on a half-day basis or a sporadic basis, it's sometimes much more effective and efficient to close the factory for a couple of days until you have sufficient supply of components, and then run that at full speed, which is generally when you can run the factory in the most efficient manner. That's really the reason behind the reason for the closure. Also, just to give you clarity, that's already baked into the year-end numbers.
We don't expect to see any more closures, unless there's some major disturbances that we don't see right now, between now and the end of the Q4 .
Thank you. Let's take the next caller, this is Mattias Holmberg from DNB. Good morning, Mattias. Go ahead with your question.
Thank you. First I would be interested to dig a bit deeper into the quite high volatility in revenue for BEV Core that you show on slide 12, and also the quite significant drop in gross income, which I think declined from 71% in Q2 down to 21% now in Q3. A bit surprised to see prices come down sequentially when you talk about price increases, so perhaps there's something I'm misunderstanding here. Also perhaps a comment on how quickly you expect to be able to reestablish the gross profit or gross margin for the BEV segment with your current visibility on selling prices and costs. Thanks.
If we start with the Q3, then on BEV, it's several different reasons. One being, of course, higher cost for raw material, especially lithium, that is currently on a very high level. That has an effect, I would say pretty much half of the effect that we see between Q2 and Q3. In Q3 isolated, we have had some, let's say, more temporary effects, which is a mix of effects and geographical mix of sales, which means that we do buy batteries in U.S. dollar but have had an unusually low U.S. mix on the BEV sales during the quarter, which means that you now have an accelerated FX effect due to that fact.
The drop in that you see in revenue is not by any means that we have lowered prices in absolutes for the BEVs, it's rather an FX effect as well. I think looking forward, we will see a more normalized geographical mix into Q4 which will offset this effect that we see in Q3 somewhat. We do see, however, still of course high raw material prices short term, based on the lithium prices, et cetera. We do believe that, and so does the market and the intelligence that we have, that the lithium prices gradually will come down. They are at the peak right now.
I think that we will short term still see probably high raw material prices, even though we have some other effects that will be not as severe in Q4 and forward as we saw in Q3. We will also see some additional pricing increases flowing through into Q4 and even more into 2023, especially in Europe, where we have made price increases earlier during the year, but due to the long order book and the lag in time, if you will, we will see a gradual flow through of that into Q4 and even more so beyond that.
Thank you. If I may just a quick follow-up, or actually a second question. I'm a bit interested to hear more in how you're thinking about the still maintaining the mid-decade ambition of 1.2 million cars sold, and, more precisely what you mean when you say that you're tracking towards them. I mean, when I look at IHS having cut 2025 global forecast by almost 10% just this year, I'm a bit curious to hear what market assumptions you use in order to reach the SEK 1.2 million , or if you seem to assume that you will be able to compensate for the weaker market with even more market share gains. Thank you.
Yeah, great question. So two parts to that. First of all, we need to look at demand. Demand for our products right now are incredibly strong. Perhaps more importantly, the demand for our BEV and recharge products, but especially the BEV products are strong. Actually, we see that as a global phenomenon. If you look at the whole industry as a whole, from January to August, ICE demand has been down by 19%, whereas BEV demand has been up by 74%. That's just an IHS industry-wide number. That's important for us because, of course, our strategy relates to taking more market share out of ICE as we build up our BEV portfolio. So far, we've really only had the XC40 and the C40 product in our BEV range.
We'll announce the EX90 in a few weeks' time, and then, of course, we're committed to releasing a brand-new BEV product every year until the mid-decade for the next four or five years. Next year, we've already alluded to that we will release a new smaller SUV, which we expect to be a good volume product for us as well. When you add all of that together, then you get a whole range of products from the smaller SUV all the way up to the flagship EX90 SUV. You get them in the BEV format, and you get them released before those mid-decade ambitions of 1.2 billion cars. In addition to that, you get an explosion of demand into the BEV product category.
Those combined, I think with the technology that we're bringing to the market, gives us a pretty good shot at hitting those mid-decade ambitions.
Maybe to add to that as well, I mean, we don't think that we enter a potential recession at the overheated level. I mean, we've seen the supply being restrained over the last couple of years. I think that we not only, as we alluded to, include market appreciation in our ambitions to grow, but one should bear in mind also on the absolute level where we start at the moment, I think.
Yeah. Eisa,[and if I can] just to pivot on that, there's been you know, because there's been a lack of supply into the market, the people that are coming into the market now are probably gonna come in on the BEV side because that's the new technology, that's the technology that they're gonna invest in for the future, and that's where we'll have the most confidence they'll have less residual value risk. So all of that, us having products placed at the smaller SUVs all the way up to the flagship SUVs and having a good range of products in a market which is expanding in BEV, I think positions us pretty well to meet those mid-decade ambitions.
Good. Great. Thanks for that comprehensive answer.
Let's take another question via the chat. This comes in from Caroline Lalander in Dagens Industri. Why has online sales decreased from 8% to 6%? She has another question: How will the rising energy prices affect Volvo Cars?
If we start with the online sales, we have, as you say, 6% in the markets where we have launched that. I think that is to a large extent an effect of the production and supply situation where we for several reasons. One is that we have had lower inventory during this period, which means that is. It's not really supporting in that way the online business model. The second is actually prioritization of course during the limit. When we have a limited supply, we have actually prioritized other channels to some extent on that where we have sort of revenue recognition and cash flow, et cetera, due to the limits in supply. It's to some extent deliberate.
We are still comfortable that we will receive good growth in that channel going forward when we have a more normalized supply.
Just to be really clear on that, Caroline, we could have higher sales than 6% quite easily. We chose to push those vehicles to different channels for financial purposes to become what we think the right thing to do. There is demand that is coming in on online sales, which is much higher than the 6%, even in the limited markets that we are launched in online sales capability.
There was another question on the rising energy prices and how that would affect or could affect Volvo Cars.
I think that there are two things. For our own operations, yeah, of course, we will see an increased cost for energy, but that is not by any means the biggest cost we have. I think that that effect is somewhat limited, even if the prices are high. Of course, we do see indirect effects rather on effect on raw material prices, et cetera, which is of course to a large extent also driven by higher energy prices. There we have seen in the quarter that we have had higher prices for raw material. In our own operations, the exposure to energy prices is not that significant.
Let's take the next caller. This is Jose Asumendi from JP Morgan. Good morning, Joe. Go ahead with your question.
Thank you, Jose. JP Morgan. Thanks very much. A couple of questions, please. Can you talk a little bit around your order book, whether you're starting to see maybe the economic uncertainty that we are facing, is it denting the other backlog or are you seeing some uncertainty? Can you also please comment on the level of inventories that you have across different regions? The first one. Second question, please, on the profit bridge, the other bucket is quite substantial. Can you provide more color on the other categories and how should we think about this category into the Q4 , please?
Can you please comment, like overall, how do you think about managing pricing power into next year and maintaining, you know, the strong level of pricing power and low level of discounts, structurally strong for the next decade? Thank you.
Hi, Jose. I'll take the first part and the last part of that question, and then maybe Johan can speak about the inventory levels around the globe. It's a great question because we look at that ourselves. When does demand with rising energy prices, rising inflation, when do you start to see consumer sentiment dropping off, and when do you start to see large order cancellations, or the order book or the new orders start to slow down? We're looking at that on a regular basis. At this particular point in time, Jose, we don't see any reduction in demand. In fact, what's really encouraging for us is that the demand for our BEV and our recharge products is incredibly high.
Which is great because that's the future, that's the strategy of our company, is that we're adding capacity of course for our fully electric products. We keep a very beady eye on the reducing consumer sentiment. At this particular point in time, globally, we don't see any softening of support of demand, and we don't see any large-scale cancellations of existing orders. That's that. I guess that's the good news. In terms of the pricing, we think we do have scope for additional pricing power. We think the brand is strong and the brand attributes are working well in the markets that we're in. We have raised prices already, as you know. In fact, as Johan alluded to, not all of those price increases have yet came through.
The cost increases came through quicker than some of the price increases. The reason for that, of course, is because we have a large back order book, and so it's only on the new orders that we could leverage that new pricing. That will start to flow through in the Q4 and then of course into the Q1 as well next year. You'll start to see those higher prices kick in in some of the markets that we put prices in later than the other markets. Europe reacted quick and some other markets were a bit slower. That's where I see the pricing power and the demand profile. I'll let Johan talk about the inventory levels across the globe.
Yeah. We have, I mean, due to the production constraints we have had, we have been at very low inventory levels for some time. We have seen an increase in inventory slightly during Q4, which is mainly driven by production inventory, which is due to the fact that we are seeing a gradual improvement of production during the quarter. That has increased inventory. When we see a gradual improvement both in production and sales going forward, I think we will see a gradual increase in inventory levels. Not for any other reason than that they are at an extremely low level currently. When things gradually normalize, we will see a slight increase in inventory.
In this quarter we have seen it mainly in production inventory, not in inventory of new cars mainly.
There was another question on the profit bridge, that if we could explain that a bit more. What led to the decline in the profits in this quarter?
Yeah. If we look at the profit this quarter, I think that we have a few main items. As we have said, we have had an increased cost for raw material, which is partly a flow through from the high spot prices in Q2, where we have seen the peaks in many raw materials. We're also seeing a continuous high level on raw material for electrified cars, mainly driven by lithium prices and batteries. We also have seen, as we have talked about, the high increased cost for spot purchases of semiconductors due to the continued, although improving, supply constraints, and also increased costs for logistics.
On top of that, we have also seen on FX that on revenue we have a good tailwind on the US dollar, which is contributing quite a lot to our revenue growth. However, we also see an increased euro rate, which has more or less offset that effect if you take it from a profit perspective. We're on EBIT level, FX effects are more or less flat. Okay. Those are the main effects. In addition to that, if we look at from an FX perspective, in the quarter isolated, we also have, as I said, a lower than usual US dollar sales mix, which also affects this from an FX perspective due to the benefit we would have had on the high US dollar if that mix. That will normalize during Q4.
All right.
Thank you.
We have another caller on the line. Let's bring in Agnieszka Vilela from Nordea. Go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, loud and clear. Go ahead with your question, please.
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. I just wonder when it comes to your order books, how long are they today? When can you deliver your cars, basically? Has the time to delivery expanded given your problems with the production? To start with that.
I'll start with that, and then I can add some details. We don't actually release the amount of orders that we've got, and it's different in different regions, of course, and it's different across different product models. Again, I'm gonna come back to the demand cycle piece. Even though we have increased our lead time as we would call it, between order and delivery of the product itself, again, we've not seen any demand in shortening or reducing it as an extension of those lead time deliveries. By and large, I think the industry has seen extended lead times as well, so maybe that's part of the reason for that.
While that's increased over the course of probably the last couple of months, now we're starting to get into a situation where we're starting to see maybe for the first time that some of those lead times will come down for certain models, and it is model by model and country by country. Of course, if you're manufacturing a product in one part of the world and you're shipping it logistically to another part of the world, then you need to bake that into the lead time. Whereas if you're manufacturing and supplying it in the same geography, then of course that lead time becomes considerably shorter. You need to look at it on a lead time by lead time and product by product basis.
Perfect. Very clear. Another question is on your new product, EX90. I don't know if you've been talking about the selling price already. I just wonder what kind of premium do you need to have towards EX90 given the fact that you have so much technology in the new product and in order to make this product profitable for you?
Yeah, no, we haven't released pricing on that yet. Suffice to say that we think that product for the technology, the market it's in is competitively priced. It's a super feat of engineering and innovation and we will be starting to release that in a couple of weeks' time. We think we're very optimistic that we'll price that product to be very competitive in the marketplace.
Perfect. Thank you. Then the last one from me. I can see that the contract manufacturing the quarter revenues reached SEK 7 billion. When I look at the Polestar deliveries of 9,300 cars, that would mean that the kind of contribution by car you get in the quarter was at about SEK 700,000 compared to below SEK 300,000 before. Can you explain what is happening and what kind of assumptions should we make going forward? Thanks.
What I will say on that is that we don't comment on the specific margins on that. We have a contract with Polestar where we have selling the cars on arm's length. The margin on average on the contract manufacturing cars is slightly lower than on our normal wholesale. We also say that this kind of sort of mathematics is not necessarily showing the exact margin of the cost because there is a certain lead time between our production, our sales to Polestar and Polestar retail deliveries to the market. I would say it's more complex than just doing that mathematics. I will not comment on that specifically. I think the margins on the cars from us to Polestar is the
has been the same more or less over time during 2022. It's not that it has been any different in the Q3.
You don't have any kind of license revenues, special license revenues that you booking this quarter or?
No. Nothing material at all on license revenues this quarter, no.
Thank you.
All right. Just a reminder to all our callers to please stick to two questions so that we have others on the line who also get an opportunity to participate. Thank you for that. Let's take a question then that's come in from via the chat. With the high lithium prices, is Volvo Cars sure the electrification is the right technology for the future?
Maybe why don't you start, John, and I'll kind of handle the. Listen, at the end of the day, my opinion is that the technology wins at the end of the day. It usually does. In fact, I think you could say it always does. We see that proof point now in the marketplace where we see ICE reducing by 19%, we see BEVs increasing by 774%. That is a massive switch in even a year ago.
When you have a technology which is quieter, which has no vibration, where there's less servicing for the customer, where there's less servicing costs for the customer, and where there's zero tailpipe emissions and it's much better for the planet, then that combination is a very, very powerful combination that says that this is the technology of the future, and these are the technologies that you need to invest in as a next generation mobility company. I'm increasingly confident that we have the right strategy. Yes, there's some lumps and bumps right now. There's a lot of turbulence.
I think you could safely say that every industry in the world right now is suffering some kind of form of turbulence, given all between this dreadful war in Ukraine to increased energy prices, raw materials, inflation, COVID lockdowns in China, semiconductor issues. When you put all that together, that's quite a turbulent environment. Of course we're having to navigate through that. As you come out the end of this, and we will come out the end of this in a relatively short period of time, hopefully, as lithium prices start to stabilize as well, then those who have positioned themselves well and kept investing in the new technologies for the future, I think will be the stronger players in next generation mobility, and that's exactly what we expect to be.
That's why I'm confident that this is the right strategy.
Johan?
I think you're perfectly right, and we don't think that the current high lithium prices are sustainable long term. You know, with the launch of one new electric vehicle per year in the next five years, we are firmly on our way for the mid-decade ambitions. We are also confirming our strategy of the fully electric car by end of the decade. I would also like to highlight that on the tenth of November, we have our Capital Markets Day, where we will address a lot of these topics in more detail. I look forward to see you there as well.
Good. Thank you, Johan and Jim. We have another caller. This is Erik Golrang from SEB. Good morning, Erik.
Thank you. Two questions. Actually, the first one is on the raw material comment to Q4, just to make sure we get it straight. You talk about partial improvement on raw material costs, lithium still high. The total raw material cost per car, will that be up or down in the Q4 ? The second question and perhaps a topic then you'd return to on the CMD, but still, in terms of securing, you talk about more focus on securing raw materials further out in the curve. Towards that 1.2 million target you still have, how far up on that slope have you secured supply of key materials?
If we start with the question on raw material into Q4, I think that we will see over time a gradual decline in raw material prices. Still, lithium is at a very high level, which will affect the raw material cost for electrified cars. As John said, we do believe that this will gradually come down. It's not sustainable, but short term it will still be high. We will also see over time into 2023 a gradual decline in other raw materials because they have peaked on spot levels. There is also a certain time lag, both due to different contracts.
There are in some cases, depending on when the previously high prices hit our PNL, so to speak, and also that we have components in stock, for cars that we will produce during Q4. I would say that the raw material levels will still be at a quite high level in Q4, but are expected to gradually come down, especially into 2023.
At the same time, the dynamic on that is even if the raw materials stay even at the same levels of Q3, we'll start to see some of that pricing that we put into the market come through in Q4, which we've not quite seen come through yet as well. Some of that will be offset. In addition to that, of course, we continue to drive efficiency and productivity within our own facilities. All these are targeted to offset those higher raw material prices, which as Johan alluded to, will probably last to the end of the Q4 . On your second question around strategic securing of key components. Again, obviously, that topic is something that takes a lot of our attention.
One of the reasons we did the Northvolt joint venture a few six or nine months ago was specifically because we think battery supply will become a constrained commodity for the future, or maybe a commodity, a constrained component for the future. Therefore that served two purposes. One, it allowed us to really understand the full supply chain. When you make your own batteries, you really start to understand the full supply chain that goes into that product. Secondly, aligning ourselves with Northvolt, who are heavily invested in this space and have great contacts with many of the raw material suppliers for the batteries as well. Then the second agreement that we have with Northvolt is a joint venture in terms of technology.
That technology allows us then to understand next generation battery chemistry. That's important because in order for us to understand what components and what materials, and what minerals that we need for the future, we need to first of all understand where the direction of travel is in terms of next generation, chemistry and battery technology around anodes and cathodes and all of those things. At the same time, we've already started negotiations, and in some cases they're fairly well developed, with the raw material suppliers themselves. In some cases that will go right back to the mine, where we will be putting in direct agreements and direct supply agreements over long periods of time with some of the mining companies which are responsible for some of these key materials and minerals.
We'll probably release more on that in the Q4 , maybe the Q1 next year. In addition to all of that, we've layered over the top of our current supply chain an analytics engine. We're in the process of layering an analytics engine that sits on top of our supply chain, which is solely designed to extract where we think those, let's say, supply chain gaps may appear by using computational analytics across our entire supply chain network. That kind of combination of Northvolt for batteries, understanding chemistry, understanding next generation battery chemistry and technology and minerals, as well as the strategic alignment with some of the mines around the world, and then an analytics engine that sits on top of that, is something we're paying a lot of attention to.
Hopefully that helps answer the question, Erik.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's take another question via the chat then. This is from Göteborgs-Posten. How will you increase the overall market share?
Well, I think we alluded to that earlier. I mean, the overall market is first of all, BEV is growing. We've got to talk about two things. One, the premium market that we play in, and two, the BEV market that we're really interested in taking the market share. That BEV market is exploding, which is great to see. We're well positioned for that. The way in which we'll take that market share will be of course, to bring out more and more products that our customers want. That starts with the new EX90 as well, the C40, the XC40, EX90, the smaller SUV which will come next year as well. Then beyond that, a car and a brand new BEV car every year for the next four or five years. That's really.
In the next year, that's really the game plan.
Another question. This is from Henning Cosman at Barclays. Drop-through on price mix seems low, suggesting mix is the majority. Why weren't you able to raise prices or cut discounts more in line with the EU premium peers?
I think we have quite a good drop-through in both mix and pricing. I think that I would say we have quite good effects on both mix and pricing.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
I think maybe you don't see some of those price changes. We are really too early. Some of those pricing changes that we did put in place haven't quite come through. We have a long back order book. You obviously can't go back to the customer and say, "Hey, you placed an order in good faith, and all the pricings have been up, so we want to increase your price." You need to wait until those orders flow through, and you put the new prices on the new orders, and there's obviously a timeline between that, whereas the raw material prices came in really quickly.
We're also in the Q3 have an effect of the, as I said, the unusually low U.S. mix, which has to some extent declined the effect of the pricing because we have had very high pricing in the U.S. on the back of the high demand and also helped by the FX effects. So that to some extent decreases the pricing effect in Q3 isolated. But that's, as I said, more temporary effect. We will see a more normalized geographical mix into Q4 again, and then we'll see this coming through even more from the U.S. as well.
Yes. It's probably worth mentioning that there's some port issues in the U.S. in terms of logistics and import into the U.S. in the Q3 . Of course, in the U.S. as well, we sell a higher percentage of a high-end more expensive products like the XC90 and so on. There was a delay in getting those products into the actual markets and through the ports.
Mm-hmm. Good. We have another caller then on the line. Let's go straight in. This is Dorothee Cresswell from BNP. Good morning, Dorothee.
Hi there, thank you for taking my question. My first one is around IRA in the U.S., and I just wondered how you're thinking about achieving IRA eligibility for your U.S. BEV production. My second point is just a housekeeping one. You've given us those structural cash transactions for 2022 in the back of the presentation, which is really helpful. Can you comment on what's still to come in 2023? Because I think there is still some cash out from the increase in your Chinese joint venture stake. I seem to remember there will be some cash out to come to the purchase of lands and buildings at the Taizhou facility. Any comment around those coming cash outs, their magnitude, and their timing would be great. Thank you.
As you say, we have a few of those transactions left. It's the additional acquisitions of the Chinese JVs and also the additional acquisition in the Taizhou plant in the land, and that is expected to come mainly in 2023.
In terms of the IRA, which I think is now called the IRL, since it's passed into law now, it's so new and it's pretty nascent for us. I guess that it's difficult to make a sensible comment on that at this particular point in time. It's flowing through. We obviously have our eyes on how that will affect sales of BEV in the U.S. At this point in time, I think it's a little bit too early for us to make a judgment on that.
Cool.
The only thing I would say is a lot of our customers are already excluded from that because their household, their combined household income takes them above that threshold. We don't see this as a major event for Volvo Cars. Again, a little bit too early to comment.
Right. This question comes in from Daniel Schwarz, analyst at Stifel. Given the negative free cash flow year to date, are you fully committed to investing more into Polestar in case Polestar raises capital? Will you keep your stake unchanged?
What we have said is that previously communicated intention that if needed, we could be prepared to invest on a pro rata basis in a potential capital raise by Polestar. Other than that, I don't think I will comment on Polestar's funding as such. They are a standalone listed company.
Right. Yeah. Let's take in another question. I think partly this was answered, but I think this is coming up again, so let's address this once more. What about the quality of your order book? Are you seeing high cancellations? Johan, if you wanna
No. Again, we're looking at this, of course, very carefully. The order book, it is, as has been mentioned before, around 2 times the size of the normal order. Looking at the cancellation levels that we are seeing right now, it's nothing other than normal as a percentage of the order book.
All right. We have another caller. This is Hampus Engellau from Handelsbanken. Hampus, go ahead with your question, please.
Thank you very much. Two questions from me. I'm sorry to come back on the EBIT page on page 10 in the report, but the minus SEK 3.7 billion there, you're mentioning used cars. If used cars are negative here, and this is a major one, and maybe could you add some more flavor on how used car prices have developed for you guys during the quarter? That's the first question. Second question is maybe a nitty-gritty here, but given the better component availability, I assume you will have higher run rates coming into Q4. Would it maybe possible for you to guide us to comment on daily rate, how much higher should we expect it to be quarter-over-quarter on an adjusted basis, Q4 over Q3? Thanks.
Okay, if we start with the EBIT bridge, I will say that used cars is still on a high with good used car prices. We have some effects on lower volumes, and that is simply due to lower stock on cars. It's insignificant effects compared to, for instance, what we have said about raw material, et cetera. But it's not that we see a negative trend on used car prices, but we have. There has been a high demand also for used cars, it's more a volume effect than it's driven mainly by availability to cars to some extent, honestly, because it's lower volumes over long period of time on new cars also, of course, decreases the availability of used cars.
The prices are still good.
Yeah.
Okay.
There was another question on raw materials, prices going forward.
Yeah. As we said, I think that into Q4, we will still see quite high raw material prices due to both time lag in the effects of different contracts, et cetera, on raw materials that have peaked somewhat earlier during the year. We also see currently a continuous high price for BEV cars, especially lithium and batteries. It is expected to gradually come down. I think into 2023 we will see gradually lower raw material prices. I think all in all, in Q4 we'll still see quite high levels of raw material.
Yeah.
One can possibly add to that as well, since our order book has a higher BEV share than what we currently are delivering as well, the delivery of BEV share cars into the Q4 will be higher, which will also of course have an influence on the total raw materials, coming back to your point about high lithium prices.
Yeah.
Could you also comment on the production rate Q4 over Q3?
We are seeing a gradual improvement of production, and we will see in the second half of the year in total a growth both in production and wholesale and retail. We have seen a gradual improvement. We will have an improved production in Q4. There is still volatility. There is still uncertainty due to supply, et cetera. There will be a gradual improved production into Q4 and into 2023.
Fair enough. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. Let's take a question online then. This is from Harald Hendrikse, Analyst at Morgan Stanley. Good morning. Can you please talk about monthly lease and loan prices? What is happening to monthly payments, and have you seen any reaction from consumers?
It's more or less the same as we have said in general, that we still see a high demand on the channels where we sell the cars. This is of course driven by that there has been over a long period of time a lack of supply of cars. We, over the whole line of products, you could say that we still see a good and healthy demand.
Harald has a follow-up. At the IPO, you talked about a short-term reduction in gross margins as BEV mix rises in 2022, 2023. Is this still the case or is it better or worse? Has the pricing power helped the relative profitability case for BEVs?
Pricing power, of course, helps the general profitability both on BEV and on other cars. As you say in the question, we do see that we have currently lower margins on BEV cars than we have on combustion engine cars, which is perfectly in line with our plans. We will gradually see that gap close over time when we have new technology. We will first launch the EX90 on the new platform. The ambition to have a parity between BEV and ICE cars mid-decade still firmly stands, but that will happen around mid-decade on the next generational platforms. Up until then, we will see a gradual closure of the gap.
Currently, on these very high lithium prices, of course, the gap short term might have increased somewhat, but as we have said, I think that the general view is that the lithium prices over time are not sustainable, so they will come down. I think from a strategy perspective, we are very firm on our electrification ambitions, and over time, the gap will close.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe I'll just add on that. The way I see it is there's four or five different bridges that build towards that price parity. We need to get to price parity around the mid-decade between BEV and ICE, and there's three or four things that take us in that direction. One is the price of lithium we think will definitely come down, so that's definitely going to help. The SPA2 platform, the architecture of the SPA2 platform takes out cost in terms of BEV because it's fully designed for a BEV manufacturing process, which gives us good economies of scale from a manufacturing perspective and some cost savings along that. That next SPA2 platform that the EX90 is going to be built on will help us.
The next generation platform, physicals and compute, takes us even closer to that and takes out more cost in terms of a truly BEV-designed product. The new technology that we see come into battery and battery technology is bringing down the price per kilowatt hour, so you'll get the same range for less cost, as we go forward. Of course, you get volume and volume leverage. The more and more batteries that you buy or you make yourself, and you start to make them, with Northvolt and that joint venture, that leverage starts to play in. Lithium coming down, the next generation platform, the follow-on generation platform, new technology taking out and more expensive materials, bringing down the cost per kilowatt hour per battery, and eventually leverage across the entire volume.
Though that combination takes us to price parity on BEV at the mid-decade ambition.
I think it's time. Joining us today, we can take one or two last questions then. This comes in from an analyst at HSBC, Pushkar Tendolkar. Does your relatively small size put you at a disadvantage when sourcing raw materials compared to the peers? And he had a follow-up. What explains the widening margin gap versus German peers, which also experienced similar cost pressures? On the raw material front.
In terms of the price piece, on the leverage piece for sure. I mean, I think it's much more than just leverage. It's about the other things that I mentioned that we are looking to get direct relationships now with the mines. We're looking to make sure that we truly understand the supply chain and the architecture, and how we architect the supply chain in region, for region. We take out CO2 emissions as we are taking out cost of logistics. Again, that's something we're spending a lot of time on. This battery architecture, you can take out some cost of that as well. Whilst it's true we will lose out in terms of price leverage because of the volume against some of the bigger players.
I think we can make that up through the nimbleness and through the agility that we need to have as a company that's moving quicker to fuel BEV adoption than maybe some of our competitors in that space as well. The nimbleness and the sheer fitness of moving towards their strategy of a fully electric car company by 2025. They're halfway there by 2025. Hopefully we can make up the scale, if you will, by sheer fitness of execution and the nimbleness of the company.
On the second question, I will not comment on the margins of our competitors, but I will just be confident that over time, as production is increasing, we will see an improvement over time on the supply chain, and we will launch these new products. We see a high demand for our products, and especially our new electrified cars. I think over time, we are confident that we will grow and our margins will improve.
Okay. Maybe we have time for one final question, and this comes from Danske Bank. High price and mix have, among most OEMs, benefited from price and mix during the pandemic. But going into a likely recession and an inflationary environment, do you see a risk for normalization of prices and mix at a lower level?
I think that currently, as we have said, we still see a high demand for the products. That's of course driven also by there has been a lack of supply over quite a long period of time, which means I think there is quite a big backlog on cars in the market, which means that I think the demand will persist, and we don't see any signs of weakening demand for our products. Of course, we are following the macroeconomic environment closely and of course it would be impossible to say that that will have no effect on us or as for everyone else in this and other industries, there will be a recession. We are following the development closely and are prepared for different scenarios, but currently we see a good demand and good pricing.
We don't intend to play in the mass market, so we play in the premium market space. I think that in itself is for us as a company a good place for us to be, especially given the current uncertainty environment. But again, back to the demand piece, we're watching it very closely. We're watching it globally. We're looking at it from different angles. We're looking from the order book intake, from cancellations, you know, and we don't see at this point any reduction in demand. That seems to bode well for the future.
All right. I guess we've completely run out of time. Jim, Johan, Jon, thanks for your time, and thank you everyone who tuned in live and for all your questions. That's all we have time for today. Goodbye. See you another day.