Polestar Automotive Holding UK Limited

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the POST Star Business and Outlook Update conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press Star 11 on your telephone keypad. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press Star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Bojana Flint. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. I'm Bojana Flint from Polestar Investor Relations. Thank you for joining Polestar's Business and Outlook Update Call. Joining me today are Thomas Ingenlath, our CEO, and Per Ansgar, our CFO. Before handing over to call to Thomas, I would like to remind participants that some of our comments today will be considered forward-looking statements under U.S. federal securities laws. and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause Polster's actual results to differ materially from what we have been communicated. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the future financial performance of the company, production and delivery volumes, near-term outlook and medium-term targets, fundraising and funding requirements, macroeconomic and industry trends, company initiatives, and other future events. Forward-looking statements made today are effective only as of today, and POLSTER undertakes no obligation to update any of its forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause our actual results to differ, please review the risk factors contained in our SEC filings. As POLSTER is adjusting the release date for the 2023 preliminary unaudited financial and operational results to a later date, in order to complete the first full year of compliance required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, we won't be in a position to discuss the matters pertaining to those results today. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Thomas. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Bojana. Good morning, everybody. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our call today. And as Bojana mentioned, I'm sitting here together with Per Ansgar, who joined our company in January as the new CFO. I know probably some of you have met before, but of course, this is our first analyst and investor call together.

and yeah i'm delighted to have you here with us there and of course happy for you to have joined us please if you could do a brief introduction of yourself yeah thank you very much too much and good morning and good afternoon to everyone here when two months approached me not so long time ago i was very happy and excited to get the question i have been following polestar quite a long time and i think polestar is a very interesting and great brand and i definitely believe in Polestar's future. I have close to 30 years in the automotive industry, in Volvo Cars, Ford Motor Company, and also in Geely. So with that experience, I think I can add quite a lot to the Polestar business. And I've also seen, of course, Polestar from those angles quite a lot. So I am very well aware of what we are doing here and what the future looks like. I know quite a lot of the people in the team here, so I'm happy to work with Tomas and his team. And I will also look forward to interacting with you going forward here. And by that, let me hand back over to Tomas.

Yeah, thanks Per. Yesterday, we have made announcements that are very important for the future of Polestar. And I will start here today with the funding part. Now as you know since we presented in November the strengthened business plan we have been very clear that we will require 1.3 billion dollars in additional external funding to reach that cash flow breakeven moment in 2025. These were the two really main important anchor points of this announcement. And we always said that, yes, we are actually making good progress when it comes to this external funding. And of course, you can imagine, very happy now that yesterday we could announce the secured syndicate of leading global banks that comes together to approximately one billion of dollars through a three year loan facility. And that represents, of course, a very strong statement of confidence in Polestar and in our future. Now, with this majority of the required funding secured, we will now focus on delivering on the business plan, including the cash flow break even, and second important part, the high teens gross margins in 2025. Alongside the funding, we set out other key actions within the plan, and I want to update you on our progress on those. We will benefit from a richer product mix, obviously, with the two SUVs coming in with high margins. And Pulsar 4 sales are accelerating around the world. Pulsar 3 is now in production in Chengdu. And on both cars, we will offer greater personalization for the customers, increased packs and options. And with that, of course, that will lead as well to higher margins in this premium luxury segment. It doesn't stop here. We have the poster five that will be in production next year. And the prototype manufacturing is accelerating over the course of 2024, leading to the start of production in 25. The expansion of our manufacturing footprint is on track. We have hit important production milestones for both the poster three in South Carolina, U.S., and for the Polestar 4 in Busan, South Korea. Both developments, they are, of course, very important steps for us to create that more diversified and de-risked manufacturing footprint, which will, on one hand, improve profitability in some of our core markets, such as US, but as well, as I said, de-risk our company, Polestar. marketing distribution we're making good progress we have advancing efforts in optimizing our sales footprint to improve the profitability as we scale of course now with the cars in our portfolio um scaling the business now significantly this work is led by christian alberforce who is our new head of sales joined us well earlier this year together with pear And he has made already in very short time lots of progress. For example, in Europe where we are shifting some countries from a direct to an importer model and in the US where we are transitioning towards a wholesale model. Cost management, of course, remains a priority and our efforts are delivering results. In summer last year, we announced our first round of cost optimization and the 10% headcount reduction. And now Peer is driving the work here even further. And we recently announced an additional 15% headcount reduction. And of course, Peer is always focused on the capex, working capital inventory management, all in order to become leaner and more efficient as we continue to grow. Now, before we move to the outlook, let me say a couple of words about last week's announcement regarding the future ownership structure. First foremost, of course, very pleased to have Geely Sweden now as a major shareholder. It's a more independent, a stronger pollster, the position we are in now with having Geely in the ecosystem. And as Geely has stated, we will have, of course, stronger technological collaboration that has developed over the course of our product development very naturally over the last year. But they also confirmed, of course, the ongoing financial and operational commitment to Polestar, including future fundraising activities. We welcome new shareholders, both institutional and retail, and of course, we maintain our great relationships with Volvo Cars. Volvo Cars will retain 18% stake in Polestar and On top of that, they have extended the shareholder loan by 18 months to the end of 2028, which is, of course, a clear sign of their continued trust and belief in our future. So let me hand over now again back to Per to give an update on the 24 outlook.

Yeah, thank you, Tomas. And as you heard, Tomas described a lot on our production and ramp up of Polestar 3 and Polestar 4. We have started production of Polestar 3 in China. Polestar 4 has also started production and we are delivering that to our Chinese market. Of course, now with lead times and logistics and also expanding to different markets of the world, we will see the global deliveries of those cars to commence in the summer here. And obviously right now we are fully focused on doing the final investment for those cars, building up the production capacity and also launching activities to secure strong sales in the second half of the year. Of course, now you understand that this year will be basically two different characters. The first half of the year will predominantly be based on Polestar 2 sales. While the second half of the year will be completely different with the actions we have taken both on the cost side but of course much more importantly so on the deliveries of the two high margin SUVs. This combination will give a volume momentum and drive higher margins into the second half of the year. And as we guided yesterday in our release by the end of this year we expect the volume growth that supports the 2025 targets on the volumes. And we also expect a double DD gross margin in the later part of this year. With that, let me hand back to Thomas for concluding remarks, and then we can go on to your questions.

Yeah, thanks, Per. So poster three production has started. Preparations in the US planned. The second manufacturing footprint are in full swing. Poster 4 sales picking up rapidly. Customers are falling in love with Poster 4. And Poster 5 final prototype series are being built this year in that purpose-built factory dedicated to this sports car aluminum bonded technology. We have secured funding, we announced yesterday, and three cars in production. So we're making really major progress this year. Two words, cash flow break even in 2025. Our model lineup positions Polestar as the performance car brand in the electric age. And with the news of yesterday, we look with great, great confidence into the future of our company. So with that, hand over to the operator for the Q&A session.

Thank you so much, dear participants. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by. We'll compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. And now we're going to take our first question. And it comes from the line of Tobias Bass from Redburn Atlantic. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Thomas, Per, Bjarne, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. Pages 87 through 91 of the facilities agreement disclosed on form 6K yesterday outlined the covenants on the new debt. Given volume declined sequentially in 4Q23, despite having the full effect of Polestar 2 refresh, and that retail sales in January appear to be weaker year on year, what gives you confidence that you're able to meet minimum revenue threshold of $5.4 billion this year? which estimates is equivalent to retail sales of about 100,000 units.

Yeah, this is Per. I can take that question. Obviously, when we closed the club loan here, which we have been very happy to get, we are, of course, aware of the covenants and the covenants are built on the business plan that we presented late last year. That business plan took into account the somewhat more difficult BEV market. So this is completely in line with our expectations. We don't see a problem from that perspective.

Okay, understood. On a pro forma basis, assuming all outstanding credit facilities are drawn, I calculate that Polestar can onboard about a billion dollars of new debt without breaching the total indebtedness covenant. Is the plan now to raise incremental capital via equity and use the headroom for refinancing and resizing the short-term working capital facilities outstanding?

As we said before when we presented our business plan late last year, we talked about getting more money into the company, a combination of loans and equity now we have almost a billion dollars of loans obviously we are looking into more equity if you ask me as a CFO would I be happy to have significantly more equity yes I would like to have that so we are preparing ourselves to fund more equity as soon as we think it's the right time to do that talk here comes here about the right time I mean obviously the order that this came now is

the debt financing now and us progressing the company. This year, the two SUVs coming to the business, really using now the system that we have installed in the sales organization in all the 23 countries. Of course, we feel that that year will be very important for Polestar to develop as a company to actually prove the points that we have been always making about the advantage of an asset-light model and that our company will, with the three models in our lineup, be in a much better position to actually portray that successful business model. And we are feeling much more confident that the equity round at that point in time will be a very good time to address this question.

All right, thanks. And just one last question. How does Polestar think about branding? If I have a look in China, for example, the new Polestar 4s were duly badging at the rear. Do you think this causes confusion?

Since it's not a badging, it's a principle that the car industry is very familiar with. We are sharing technology with Volvo, we are sharing technology with Geely, we are building our Pulsar 3 on technology that we share together with the EX90. I think the proof point of us building a very strong identity as a Scandinavian design brand with our very unique technology features obviously always very customer oriented technology that you can experience and the poster for as a highlight I mean really introducing the virtual rear window with a much much better rear view through the camera view than through the very limited view that you have through a real window these are unique features that of course make the make the brand shine I'm certainly very much driving the strong brand expression of each and our cars supporting that. And when you see how the Polestar 4 shines as a star in shows where people are very, very pleased about it, have very good comments about how the car looks, how the car puts together a very attractive offer to the customers and i certainly think that especially the poster 4 does a great job for our brand and positioning and offer all right appreciate the answers thanks all thank you now we're going to take our next question just give us a moment

And the next question comes from Alex Porter from Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Perfect. Thanks very much. So maybe the first question is on the headcount reductions. I'd be interested in hearing, I guess, the job functions that you're going to be reducing headcount in. What had these folks been working on and what sacrifices, operational sacrifices, do you think you'll be making now that they will no longer be with the company.

A little bit twofold answer here. I mean, big time, this is a fairly general reduction in order to drive efficiencies. A company that has been growing that fast as Polestar, I think even every company, of course, I mean, if you look into it, you have this potential to drive efficiencies. That is not an unknown tool. And as I said, and as unfortunately this measurement is for the organization, having said that, and each and every individual having said that, it is not bad to once in a while actually squeeze these efficiencies and get this higher performance out of the company. Having said that, There are certain elements of the build-up phase within Polestar, which, of course, reached a certain degree of completion, and we are turning towards a different era in Polestar, and that is after building up all the tools and all the systems. We are, of course, now going into the phase where we are using them, and, of course, the strengthening of what it takes to sell the cars, to actually be out there in the market, and drive drive profitable sales is what we concentrate on now and for example building up a digital system that's that supports this is of course rather in the completion phase and of course there you have probably a higher portion than the 15 of the head count reduction that you can execute

Okay, that actually is a good segue into my next question. You mentioned in your prepared remarks a focus on the sales channel. I think you mentioned something about going to a wholesale model in the United States. Can you elaborate a little bit on how your go-to-market strategy is changing or growing?

Yeah, I'd love to do that. To the U.S., In the very beginning, we took the decision to not go to fall for the 100 percent direct sales model as we had it in the rest of the world in the US because we just simply felt it would hinder us to go fast to market with all the lawsuits and whatever that would have been connected to pushing that through. So we indeed already had kind of a hybrid model working with dealers that sell our cars in a more traditional wholesale way. But we implemented still and hold on to some direct sales principles that we had here in Europe. And we actually found that that is a very inefficient combination. And in the case where we have the dealers out that we really embrace now that we use that to the full benefit of that wholesale model. and really um don't try to make a mishmash but to to go for this uh very clear principle there in the rest of the world especially of course now here europe where we have our direct sales model we see that the fairly theoretical idea of the beginning needs the evolvement that evolution that we actually uh enable a certain degree of higher autonomy within the space, less central steering, a bit more responsibility into the markets and into the individual spaces just in order to drive performance. And we are very convinced that Christian will drive this into a very successful business model for us. So there's definitely a big, big plus to be gained working on this side.

Okay. Excellent. Thanks. Maybe one last one. Maybe it's a slightly unfair question because Polestar 4 hasn't really been in the market for very long yet. But I know that you had mentioned Polestar 4 was going to be a major tool, especially in China. Obviously, it's being produced in China. So any of maybe the initial Anything you can say about how Pulsar 4 is being received specifically in the Chinese market? Thanks.

Yeah, the question is a bit early because, of course, it's at the moment in the phase where we see how journalists' test drive results give feedback for us. While for the sales, of course, this is still a bit too early to have a conclusion on that. We have from the test drives, from the feedback of all the journalists, all the opinion leaders there in China. And I say now it's surprising because this car, gets a lot a lot of credit for being actually a performance car which we shouldn't be surprised about because that's what we are a performance car brand but obviously this was never before that much in the focus in China and that they actually see now the actual great attribute and the performance of this car And what we made out of this technology in terms of being a performance car, I think it's a very, very good starting point. Why that second element, which we think will be very crucial as well, is not quite as dominant yet. And that is the Polestar OS, the software index car, and its combination to the technology that we bring through the JV with Meiju, the mobile phone company. I think this is well, very clear. The mobile phone is in the event just in front of Beijing Motor Show in April coming to launch. So that element is actually going to be deployed only in the very near future. So I think then this smart device aspect of the Polestar 4 having this full integration of its own phone will be much more tangible and that experience is still to come. So we definitely see this market now building up. They have to do a lot of work in terms of building out the network. So the JV is very busy in launching the product, launching the phone, and, of course, investing and building into the sales network of Polestar in China. But Polestar 4, first reaction of journalists and people who drove the car, very positive.

Great. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. And the next question comes to the line of Whitney Dong from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Hi, thanks so much for taking the questions. I was wondering if you can specifically comment on the order pattern or the demand environment that you're seeing specifically for, you know, post-art two for the year, given that, you know, a large quantity of volume for this year is going to be, you know, coming from that vehicle and post start three and four in the second half. So I was wondering if you can maybe, yeah, basically comment on the demand environment for that one.

Excuse me. We didn't understand here. Nobody in the room. Which pattern? We just couldn't hear it properly.

Winnie, is it the quarterly phasing? Is that what you're asking?

So just the... demand environment for that vehicle and order trends for that vehicle.

Polestar 2. Polestar 2, you're right.

Polestar 2, yes.

Well, Polestar 2 is good. We have obviously now this year a full year of the upgraded Polestar 2. And what we see is that it's it's equally working on one hand the long long range that we achieved with the rear wheel drive very positive reception for that but at the same time and especially since we made this now a very competitive offer kind of like okay either you take the range um longest in the rear wheel or you go for a higher performance in the four-wheel drive um that's something that is um finding great interest but I would love to emphasize as well one thing obviously in 2023 our company Polestar was very dependent on that one car and we were very much interested in selling a very high number of Polestar 2, which, of course, in a difficult environment and us being very careful about the margins, led us to a situation which was volume-wise, of course, always a bit tricky. That's totally different in 2024. We have a year, as Per explained, which is a bit split between the first half, where we're one car company, second half, three cars. Obviously, with Polestar 3 and 4 joining over the course of this year, the volume proportion that the Poster 2 has to take in our holistic sales is less than what the car had to perform in 2023. So that gives us, of course, a much greater chance to work with the car in a very favorable and good way. So we will see, as we said, a growth of volume in 2024, which is, I think, very nice differentiator to a lot of others. And of course, that is due to the fact that we invested in that this product portfolio is coming alive and three and four join and we can enjoy that kind of volume growth purely because we have now this three cars in our toolbox.

I think to add to that one, I think it's also very interesting to see that when we now launch the new cars, the interest for Polestar 2 also starts to pick up. We saw when we launched Polestar 4 here in Europe on our website and on our configurators and people were putting in orders on Polestar 4. We definitely also saw more interest in the Polestar 2 with test drives and all the picking up and so on. So we expect the Polestar 2 to benefit from the launch of the other cars because more people will just see that Polestar is a very nice brand.

Yeah. Thank you very much for that. And then my second question is on the gross margin directional guidance you have for the year reaching, you know, double digits by the end of this year and in high teams in 2025. I guess first on the double digit toward the end of this year, you know, I understand the, you know, coming on of the higher margin vehicles is going to help with that. Is there any other drivers maybe on the cost side that you can also explain to that you know, help you get there end of this year and into next year?

No, no, that's a good question. Obviously, SUVs generally have higher gross margins than other cars. So it's like that is one of the main driver. But we also have worked quite a lot of with how the revenue, how we package the cars in terms of options and packs, et cetera. So that will improve our revenue. We are also working very hard on the product cost that will also support the other thing, which is also very important going into our sales and marketing strategies. Like we are also working very hard to really find what I call the right sales channel to really make sure that we sell cars where they are most profitable customers are existing. So all of these three things will add to it. And the fourth thing.

Yes, totally. You should really put into that equation as well the start of production of Pulsar 3 in Charleston. Let's face it, being in the US, producing for the US, of course, gives the Pulsar 3 as well a complete different base when it comes to duties and stuff. That, of course, is a good factor.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone keypad. Now we're going to take our next question. And the next question comes from the line of from CT. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Great. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Just actually want to follow up on the gross margin question. I was hoping you could maybe provide a little bit more detail on kind of what you're assuming for your kind of general EV pricing by the end of the year versus now, as well as roughly what kind of sales mix you're assuming across the portfolio, percent of Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 perhaps, as well as roughly if you can share any kind of high-level thoughts on the regional mix kind of that you're assuming to get there.

I can start a little bit on that one. Obviously, we talked about Polestar 2. They are kind of like being there on similar levels through the year. And then we add on the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4. They have, of course, significantly higher mixes. So that will definitely help. And yeah, I would say that, of course, if you have the same level of Polestar 2, you will see that the increased volumes then will basically be done on the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4, obviously. From the regional mix, we see that we don't really have a lot of sales last year in China, so that will be a pickup. My view is that Europe will be a very important market, and also the US. Especially, as Thomas said, when we start to produce Polestar 3 in Charleston, that is a really good car for the US market, being produced in Charleston with no duties, etc. That will be a significant improvement on our gross margins and mixes.

We have for 2025 that mix of 40, 30, 30 in mind, which is Europe 40, 30 US, 30 China. And 2024 will be the transition year towards that when we come from a situation in 2023 where obviously Europe was overwhelming portion. China, very, very little. And then U.S., there is kind of this constant 30%. So it's a transition year where we go towards this 40, 30, 30. Perfect.

That's a hard thing. Thank you. That's very helpful.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the next question comes from the line of Dan Levy from Barclays. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you for taking the questions. I wanted to follow up, and I think you made comments earlier. Perhaps you could comment on the expected channel mix in 2024. Obviously, you've been a little more reliant on the fleet channel in 2023. I think you gave some media comments that you would reduce reliance. Maybe you could just comment on channel mix in 2024. Mostly for Polestar 2, but any comments on dynamics for 3 or 4 as well?

Thanks for that question. Obviously, we have been from time to time dependent on on larger fleet sales. That is a position where we are moving away from, as I said, we are improving our sales channel mix. We expect now when we launch cars in the US, Polestar 3 and later on also Polestar 4, which are very good for the US market, they will get a lot of customers in the lease channel, which is a normal way to sell cars in the US, which we think is a good good margins on. In Europe, you have completely different setups. We have put in a lot of more focus to really get to what we call smaller fleets, like small companies or medium-sized companies where we sell 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 cars, because that's where we can really get good margins on those customers. So that has been a clear effort, especially in the European region, to get into that sales channels in a more clear way.

Okay, and as far as the mix into the company fleet, which is a little different from something like rental car, how does the profitability of sales into company fleet, how is that compared to retail?

Not bad at all. I mean, it's very important that you make that difference because indeed, this is actually very healthy and good business. So we have, I think, invested a lot of effort and manpower in actually establishing these contracts and be out there and be in a lot of company caskings because this is a very good and profitable business. So that's where I think the strength of Pulsar in Europe as well comes from because we have that understanding that a big, big portion of What you think is the private customers actually reached through this company channels and you have to be active and have contracts to be on the radar of these customers.

Understood. And then maybe we could just follow up with the announcement from Volvo Cars from earlier in the month. And, you know, they're refocusing. Perhaps you could just give some parameters on how, if at all, this changes the operational relationship between yourselves and Volvo as far as the manufacturing, the platform sharing, and the other resource sharing as well. Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm almost tempted to make a complete statement distinction between the one thing which is how much shares Polestar, Volvo has in Polestar. And on the other end, our contracts, our arm's length relationship with Volvo when it comes to developing cars, manufacturing cars, and as well servicing cars. I mean, these are the three major areas where we of course have on both sides the intention to keep it flowing and continue with that without any disturbance of the amount of shares that Volvo would have in Polestar. I mean, it's almost strange to think in the very beginning when we were listing Polestar, it was one of the stories to be told that Volvo's ambition is not to keep forever that big amount of almost majority of shares of 48%. almost a promise to the market to say that Volvo at some point would reduce their ownership and there would be a bigger free float and more other investment possible into Polestar. Now, this came maybe from a strange angle when it comes to communication-wise, but it's the same effect. Our company growing up, opening for other investors the opportunity to invest into Polestar is one thing. Our relation when it comes to working together operationally with Volvo is untouched of that and we just come from our regular alignment meeting where we go through our contractual business and stuff this is of course something which will completely continue and we have to give that confirmation to each and every our business partners our customers this is of course something which they can build on where we can build on and the business as well important for Volvo they can build on having the revenue of servicing our cars manufacturing our cars and when it comes from time to time engineering our cars we have already before had of course as well other relationships we have a poster for being produced in a Renault factory in Busan and we have a uh of course big big benefit of particip participating in the tech and innovation that's happening there within geely and i think we would be very falsely advised if we would not embrace the speed and the the power that there is on that side when it comes to electric technology and and software and stuff so um that type of So diversification of our relationships with other parties, not only doing things together with Volvo, but using a bit the broader Geely group. I think that's absolutely a good and healthy and beneficial development for Polestar.

I think it's important to add also that the cooperation with Volvo, which is very close, doesn't. stop here. As Toba said, we had our alignment meeting earlier today. We discussed some of the future steps of the development of the cars, future modular upgrades and so on. But we were also talking more distinctly about what are the next steps in our commercial operations. Can we work together in some markets, in the retail network, in some of being in Fortress. So it's a continuous dialogue. It has not stopped at all. So from that perspective, no change at all has happened.

And let's elaborate on that. I mean, you know that we have built our network in Europe, in the U.S. about, even despite the fact it was a direct sales model, but we always contacted, reached out to Volvo retailers and invited them to become poster investors. I mean, investors in terms of investing into a poster space. And that was a very good beginning. It has evolved. been successful for both parties. And when we now, with the free cars, with the volume growing, discuss expanding our network, our presentation in the markets. Of course, we do that together with the Volvo dealers and they are our partners in going further in that. So this is just one example where hopefully people see that this is actually continuing to be a very fruitful cooperation with Volvo.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone keypad. And now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Andres Shepard from Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Hi, good afternoon everyone and thank you for taking our questions. Just wanted to follow up on the capital raise. I think we touched on this briefly, but would you mind just reminding us or refreshing us? What is the expected outstanding amount that you'll need to to raise still and how are you thinking about timing uh for that i know we touched on equity but just curious on the timing and curious on the uh incremental amount that you think you'll need to uh fulfill thank you andrew very happy to come back to this very important point today because let's face it i mean that is the for us a very important moment where we

cover of the 1.3 billion that we have as the funding until we have cash flow break even, that we have covered 1 billion of that. Okay, to be precise, 950 million. So you can do the math, what's left, and Per can answer all these things about handling the rest.

No, and of course, there are different angles to that one. Of course, we are looking through all the time. trying to see, can we improve our cash flow limit, our investments, et cetera, to make sure that we are even limiting this gap. Having said that, though, as I said before, as the CFO, I would like to have more equity into the company because we, over time, we need to have a different structure with the balance sheet. So again, as we see the opportunity, we will take that and try to do some equity raising here to both to make sure that we We don't have this remaining need and also to strengthen our balance sheet.

I would love to pick one thing up here, and that is, of course, this question about the 1.3. We have one of 1.3 covered. And then the elephant in the room, yeah, OK, but is this 1.3 real? And I really would love to emphasize how serious we take that and how much when we develop sorry as a company and when we face that the next month ahead for us is an incredible serious and important task to keep this maintain that holy that we say okay this is the frame which we have and that's where we work in and all the billions that we invested they of course are invested into good stuff our product portfolio the five cars that we will have developed to 2025 and this is very predictable very predictable costs that we have very unpredictable investments and we know exactly 2024 2025 what is still to be done other factors Yeah, I mean, other factors, sales volume stuff. I mean, yeah, of course, that can fluctuate. But this is stuff that we can handle and which will not create the big black hole that there's talked about. So we are very serious and very confident about this 1.3.

Got it. That's super helpful. I appreciate all that color. Maybe just as a quick follow up. With the incremental 15% reduction in the workforce, you know, I know you're not guiding OPEX or gross margins, but I'm curious, you know, how should we be thinking about OPEX and gross margins for 2024, given this reduction in terms of maybe modeling? Thank you.

If you do a little bit of the math, we did 10% last year, which kind of like starts to flow through from a headcount perspective this year. When we now do 15%, there is obviously a delay on it. It's like some markets or countries, you can do it quicker. In Sweden, you need to go through like a process with union negotiations and layoffs and so on. So you will gradually see that coming to the year. And hence, that we see that the later part of the year will be significantly stronger than the first half of the year.

Got it. Okay. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Thank you. Now I would like to hand over to Bayana Flint for retail shareholders questions.

Thank you, Nadia. And thank you to everyone who has submitted their questions. As usual, we're going to take top three. These are top three voted questions by retail shareholders. I'm going to read them out and then Thomas and Per will answer them. So the top question was, share prices continue to be catastrophic. Despite Polestar 4 launch and strong TV advertising, there appears little hope for improvement. I'm sure this concern is shared by fellow investors. Please explain the causes and define a convincing plan for recovery. Thomas, would you like to start?

Yeah, right. I take this one. Obviously, we strongly believe that our shares are undervalued. And whenever we talk about it, try to find out, it is, of course, the very big thing was always the overhang with our question mark behind the funding. And it's rarely that we had a question about, you know, our brand. It was so many people love our brand who love our cars. There's always a question about, but the funding, but the funding. Now, I think that is, of course, as much as it's important for us to have the money for the for the remaining investment it's as well an incredibly important moment in order to give that opportunity for our share price to develop because that big question mark is gone then we have um the other effect free float was another thing that the free float of course is not sufficiently big this will be a six percent plus for our free float So we end up, of course, with, at the end of the day, an 80% free float, which is a much healthier figure than we had before. So that should, of course, help as well and be a big game changer. Yeah, that's my answers for this one.

OK, great. Second question is, with recent changes in funding, do you think the previous statement of making a profit by 2025 is still achievable? And I think, Per, we talked about you maybe answering this, but profit, we have always guided to cash flow break even. So our answer is going to land on that.

No, that's correct. Thank you, Bojana. What we said in our press releases and what we talked about today here is really that We are confident on achieving our 2025 targets on our volume guidings and on our gross margin targets. And basically what we are also saying is that with the launch of the Polestar 3, Polestar 4 coming into production firstly and then starting to be sold and hitting the roads during the second half of this year, we see that the gross margin and the volume will pick up very nicely. So leaving this year, we will more or less be on the trajectory to meet 2025 targets. So we are confident of meeting that cash flow break even for 2025.

Great. Thank you. And then the third question is, what's the future of Polestar after Volvo exited as a partner? We have already had that question earlier. So it's not an exit and nothing changes?

No, just to clarify, it's still our strategic partner. It's not an exit. Close collaboration continue. I just use the time now and to extend and go again back to the share price. The two things that I said is one thing, but there's, of course, another thing. 2024 back to it. We will have the extension of our product portfolio. We have two high margin SUVs joining in the time where it's very difficult to anybody to achieve. We will achieve volume growth. We will achieve margin growth. I mean, that year will just simply be much, much more of a proof point of the asset-light model that we have been promoting for such a long time. So I think time will tell. I think that time has come, 2024, that it becomes that much more as well in our figures, in our financials, readable, what kind of good company we are building here. So I hope that that will, of course, attract people to buy our shares.

Perfect. And with this, we are done. Thank you very much for everyone who's joined the call, both on the call and the webcast. And we're always here with any additional questions that you might have.

Thanks a lot. Thank you very much for taking the time.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a nice day.