XOS Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 13, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: Q2 deliveries and revenue fell short as customer delays and acceptance issues shifted orders into future quarters. Revenue was $4.7 million on 30 units, down from $11.2 million and 95 units in Q1, while full-year 2026 guidance was revised to $35 million–$43 million of revenue and 250–350 units.
  • Positive Sentiment: First-half GAAP gross margin reached a company-record 31%, up from 11.8% a year earlier, while operating and adjusted EBITDA losses narrowed year over year. Management attributed the improvement to a richer mix of Hub and powertrain sales, sourcing savings, and cost discipline, although Q2 margins declined sequentially because of delivery timing and mix.
  • Positive Sentiment: Xos launched its 3.1 megawatt-hour Power Hub, an integrated AC-output battery system designed to provide rapidly deployable power for data centers, industrial sites, and defense applications facing lengthy grid-connection timelines. The company cited existing deployments, including support for a hyperscaler data-center construction project, and expects to announce rental, leasing, and deployment partners.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Manufacturing output and product development advanced, with 29 Hubs produced in Q2, progress on AC-export variants, and vehicle-to-grid powertrain kits delivered to Blue Bird. However, some system-level UL certifications remain in progress and could extend into 2027, even though management said current testing is sufficient for certain customer deliveries.
  • Negative Sentiment: Liquidity improved to $13.2 million from $9.8 million through $7.6 million of equity raises, but free cash flow remained negative at $4.3 million for the first half and the company continues to emphasize proactive capital raising and liquidity management. Ongoing operating losses and reliance on additional capital remain important risks.
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Earnings Conference Call
XOS Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Zlotchew, General Counsel. Please go ahead.

David Zlotchew
General Counsel and Secretary at Xos

Thank you all for joining us today. Hosting the call with me are Xos' Chief Executive Officer, Dakota Semler, Xos' Chief Operating Officer, Giordano Sordoni, and Xos' Chief Financial Officer, Liana Pogosyan. Today, after the close of regular trading, Xos issued its second quarter 2026 earnings press release. As you listen to today's conference call, we encourage you to have our press release in front of you, which includes our financial results as well as commentary on the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Management statements today reflect management's views as of today, August 13, 2026 only, and will include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our fiscal year 2026, management's expectations for future financial and operational performance, and other statements regarding our plans, prospects, and expectations. These statements are not promises or guarantees and are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause them to differ materially from actual results.

David Zlotchew
General Counsel and Secretary at Xos

Please refer to today's press release and our filings with the SEC, including our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings for a more detailed discussion of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, Xos' ability to access capital when needed and continue as a going concern, Xos' ability to implement business plans and identify and realize opportunities, potential supply chain disruptions and/or economic downturns resulting from trade policies, tariffs, international conflicts and tensions, and/or shortages of access to oil, energy, and other key industrial inputs. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. You should not put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Further, today's presentation includes references to non-GAAP financial measures and performance metrics.

David Zlotchew
General Counsel and Secretary at Xos

Additional information about these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures, is included in the press release we issued today. Our press release and SEC filings are available on the investor relations section of our website at www.xostrucks.com/investor-overview. With that, I now turn it over to our CEO, Dakota.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Thanks, David, and thank you everyone for joining us on the call. Every company has a handful of quarters that redraw the boundaries of what it can become. Q2 2026 was one of those quarters for us. in June, we launched the Power Hub, the newest and largest member of the Xos Hub family. With it, we stepped directly into one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in American history, the race to power data centers and the AI economy. The through line of the quarter was clear: Xos is becoming a power infrastructure company with the products, the customer base, and the manufacturing capability to grow in the markets far larger than the one we started in. On the headline numbers, we delivered 30 units in the quarter, generating $4.7 million in revenue, and posted our 12th consecutive quarter of positive non-GAAP gross margins.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Deliveries came in lighter than we planned. We anticipated delivering far more units in the quarter, but multiple orders shifted into subsequent quarters pending customer delays and customer acceptance. That is frustrating, and I will not pretend otherwise, but these are deferrals, and we anticipate fulfilling those orders over the next year. Even with the later deliveries, our margin trajectory through the first half remains strong. GAAP gross margin for the first half of 2026 was 31%, the strongest first half in Xos's history, and we are proud of that. Liana will take you through the full financial picture, including our updated full-year outlook, which reflects the timing of those shifted orders. What has not changed is the demand underneath this business. We anticipate a strong second half with multiple opportunities across our growing segments.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

In June, we announced the launch of the Power Hub series, mobile containerized battery energy storage with our flagship 3.1 megawatt-hour unit delivering 1.5 megawatts of continuous power from a standard intermodal container form factor. Multiple units can be combined to power multi-megawatt sites without traditional engineering cycles. This is not just a bigger battery, it is a deployable power system. Here is why it matters. We believe one of the biggest constraints in the U.S. industry right now is the inability to deliver power where it is needed, when it is needed. Data centers and industrial facilities are waiting three to seven years for grid interconnection. The Power Hub lets them energize a site in days. We are not arriving in this market without a foothold. Xos has more than 250 megawatt hours of energy storage already deployed across North America.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Customers in this market do not buy promises, they buy proof, and our proof is our EV charger hubs that are working in the field today. That demand is already converting. The charger hub has already supported a large data center construction project for a hyperscaler customer, exactly the application this product was built for Power-constrained sites, fast deployment, no permitting overhead, and customers who need uptime more than they need theory. We expect to announce rental, leasing, and deployment partners for the Power Hub in the coming quarters. The same demand signal is coming from the public sector, and it grew louder throughout the quarter.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

In May, Xos was selected as one of only 17 finalists from a nationwide pool of applicants at the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command Commercial Capabilities Showcase, where our team ran a live demonstration of the Charger Hub, real-time DC fast charging of an electric vehicle, no grid connection, no setup crew. In June, we made an appearance at the Government Fleet Expo in Long Beach, putting our trucks, powertrains, and hubs in front of municipal, state, and federal fleet buyers. The electrification of the battlefield is one of the most significant operational shifts inside today's military. Unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS platforms, distributed computing at the forward operating base, and expanded telecommunications are all creating load growth that only quiet, deployable power can serve. The Hub was built for exactly that environment, and the reception from defense customers this quarter confirmed it.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Our commercial business kept building as well. At ACT Expo in May, we showcased the complete Xos ecosystem, step vans powered by Xos powertrains, and the Charger Hub at one conference. The proof points behind that ecosystem kept stacking up. Over 100 powertrain orders since we launched the business with Blue Bird in the second quarter of last year, hubs operating with fleets like Caltrans, Duke Energy, Xcel Energy, and Waymo, vehicles in service with UPS and FedEx ISVs, and more than 1,000 Xos units in operation today. The economics underneath all of this continue to move in our favor. With diesel in California averaging north of $7 per gallon during the quarter, heavy-duty fleets running electric are seeing per mile fuel savings of more than 60%. Those savings are real, they are durable, and they do not depend on where federal policy lands.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

The regulatory tailwind may have turned, but the economic tailwind has not. Underneath the growth story, the discipline that got us here has not changed. Gross margin will move with product mix from quarter to quarter, but the structural drivers, higher margin hub and powertrain revenue, lower product costs, and leaner operations are durable, and we continue to expect full year 2026 gross margins to be meaningfully better than 2025. We also strengthened the balance sheet during the quarter and closed with more cash than we started. Liana will cover both in detail. Stepping back, Q2 2026 was the quarter Xos' addressable market got bigger, a lot bigger. Trucks put us on the road, powertrains put us inside other OEM's vehicles. The Power Hub has put us in front of the defining infrastructure challenge of this decade. The second half of this year is about converting that position into deliveries.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

With that, I'll turn it over to Gio to walk through the operational highlights of the quarter.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

Thanks, Dakota. During the second quarter, our operations and engineering teams continued to execute across our commercial vehicle, powertrain, and energy storage product lines while making meaningful progress toward the launch of several new products and configurations. Across our manufacturing operations, we continue to build Xos trucks and powertrain systems alongside our Xos Hub energy storage products. One of the strengths of our operating model is that these products share much of the same underlying technology, supply chain, engineering resources, and manufacturing infrastructure, allowing us to support multiple product lines within a flexible production footprint. On the Xos Hub, Q2 was our highest production quarter to date, with 29 hubs produced during the quarter. This milestone reflects the work that our team has done to improve the Hub production process, increase throughput, and make the production line more flexible. Importantly, these improvements aren't just about producing more units.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

We've also been working to increase the number of Hub configurations we can efficiently build. This flexibility is becoming increasingly important as we expand the Hub platform beyond mobile EV charging and into a broader range of energy storage and power applications. A major focus during Q2 was the testing, validation, and certification of these new Hub configurations. Our engineering team completed a substantial amount of UL testing and certification work during the quarter. This work is critical as we expand the product into applications where customers require certified equipment that can integrate safely and reliably with existing electrical infrastructure. We've also made significant progress towards the production launch of our AC export Hub variants. These products build on the battery, power electronics, controls, and software technology that we've already deployed in the field, but add the ability to directly provide AC power.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

This meaningfully expands the addressable applications for the Hub, including temporary and backup power, industrial applications, and power support for energy-intensive infrastructure such as data centers. On the vehicle and powertrain side, we continued building Xos commercial vehicles while also producing and delivering powertrain kits to Blue Bird. We began delivering powertrain kits with the vehicle-to-grid capability, giving our customers the capability to use the Xos powertrain as an energy asset that can feed energy back into the grid. Running these programs alongside the growing Hub production demonstrates the flexibility of our manufacturing operation and our ability to deploy a common technology platform across multiple end markets. Across all of these efforts, our focus remains on building a more flexible and capital-efficient operating model. The manufacturing improvements we made during the quarter allow us to support a broader product portfolio using our existing team, facility, and infrastructure.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

As we move through the second half of the year, our priorities are straightforward: continue executing on truck and powertrain production, ramp our expanded Hub product portfolio, and build on the manufacturing and certification work completed during the first half of the year. With that, I'll turn it over to Liana.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

Thanks, Gio. Before I go through the quarter, I want to frame the first half, because three things came together that have not come together before. The first half of 2026 produced the highest GAAP gross margin and gross profit in Xos' history, our lowest GAAP and non-GAAP operating loss, and a record half for powertrain and Hub deliveries. Margin expanding while operating loss narrows is the operating leverage we have been building toward. With that as the backdrop, let me walk through the detail, including the delivery timing that shaped the second quarter. For the first half of 2026, our revenue was $16 million on 125 units, down from $24.3 million on 164 units in the first half of 2025.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

Revenue decreased as a result of lower deliveries, primarily reflecting orders that shifted into subsequent quarters pending customer readiness and acceptance, together with engineering resources towards the development of new Hub variants. For Q2 2026, our revenue was $4.7 million on 30 units, down from $18.4 million on 135 units in Q2 2025, and down sequentially from $11.2 million on 95 units. This quarter's deliveries were mainly driven by our Hub and powertrain product lines, including Blue Bird powertrain kits. In the first half of 2026, we generated GAAP gross profit of $4.9 million, a 31% gross margin, compared with $2.9 million or 11.8% in the first half of 2025. That is an improvement of more than 19 percentage points year-over-year and the highest first half GAAP gross margin in our history.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

Non-GAAP gross profit was $4.6 million, or 29%, compared with $1.2 million or 4.9% a year ago, an improvement of more than 24 percentage points. The improvement reflects a favorable shift in product mix towards higher margin Hub and powertrain deliveries, together with continued savings from optimized inventory management and sourcing strategies. For the second quarter of 2026, GAAP gross profit was $0.6 million, or 12.1%, compared with $1.6 million, or 8.9%, in the second quarter of 2025, and $4.4 million, or 38.9%, in the first quarter of 2026. Non-GAAP gross profit was $0.3 million, or 7.2%, for the second quarter of 2026, versus $0.3 million, or 1.5%, in the prior year quarter, and $4.3 million or 38.2% in the first quarter of 2026. The sequential decline reflects the timing and mix of deliveries within the year. This quarter marks our 12th consecutive period of positive non-GAAP gross margin.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

Now, turning to expenses. In the first half of 2026, operating expenses were $17.5 million, compared to $19.2 million in the first half of 2025. The reduction of approximately 9% reflects our continued discipline in managing costs while continuing to invest. Our Q2 2026 operating expenses were $8.5 million, down from $8.7 million in Q2 2025, and down sequentially from $9 million in Q1 2026. Our operating loss for the first half of 2026 improved to $12.6 million, compared with $16.3 million in the first half of 2025, a reduction of approximately 23%. Non-GAAP operating loss for the first half of 2026 improved to $8.8 million, compared with $14.9 million in the first half of 2025, a reduction of approximately 41%, reflecting continued momentum towards profitability driven by improved operating efficiency and cost discipline.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

For Q2 2026, operating loss was $7.9 million, compared with $7.1 million in Q2 2025, and $4.6 million in Q1 2026, primarily reflecting lower volumes during the quarter. Non-GAAP operating loss improved year over year to $6.2 million, compared with $6.8 million in Q2 2025, but increased sequentially from $2.6 million in Q1 2026, primarily due to the same volume dynamics. Our EBITDA loss for the first half of 2026 improved to $11.5 million, compared with a loss of $15.3 million in the first half of 2025, an improvement of approximately 25%. Adjusted EBITDA during the first half of 2026 was a loss of $7.5 million, representing an improvement of approximately 39%, compared with a loss of $12.1 million in the first half of 2025, reflecting the continued benefits of cost discipline and operational efficiency.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

For Q2 2026, EBITDA was a loss of $7.4 million, compared with a loss of $6.5 million in Q2 2025, and a loss of $4.1 million in Q1 2026. Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 2026 was a loss of $5.1 million, compared with a loss of $4.9 million in Q2 2025, and a loss of $2 million in Q1 2026. Turning to the balance sheet, we closed Q2 2026 with cash and cash equivalents totaling $13.2 million, up from $9.8 million at the end of the first quarter, an increase of approximately 35%. During the quarter, we raised $2.2 million under our ATM offering program and $5.4 million through a registered direct offering or $7.6 million in total, net of offering costs. These raises strengthen our liquidity position and provide additional capital to support our growth initiatives.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

For the first six months of 2026, operating cash flow less CapEx or free cash flow was negative $4.3 million, compared with negative $0.1 million in the first half of 2025. The change primarily reflects a significantly larger working capital release in the prior year period, when reductions in inventory and accounts receivable generated $16.3 million of cash, compared with $3.6 million in the current year period. Inventory declined to $23.5 million at the end of the second quarter of 2026 from $25 million at year-end 2025, and $31 million at the end of the second quarter of 2025, reflecting continued progress from our inventory management initiatives and broader operational disciplines. We continue to make meaningful progress in improving accounts receivable turnover. Over the past four quarters, we collected nearly $50 million from both customers and organizations administering state grant programs, including $7.2 million during the second quarter of 2026.

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

Accounts receivable net declined to $4.5 million at June 30, 2026 from $6 million at year-end 2025. This discipline remains central to building a more self-sustaining business with a stronger foundation for long-term stability. As we look ahead, our priorities remain clear. Scaling efficiently, proactively managing liquidity, pursuing strategic capital raising opportunities, allocating capital with discipline, and maintaining our focus on accounts receivable collections. Turning to our outlook. In order to better reflect changes in the expected product mix and volume expectations for the second half of the year, we are revising our full year 2026 guidance of revenue to fall within the range of $35 million to $43 million, unit deliveries to be within the range of 250 to 350 units, and non-GAAP operating loss to be in the range of $14.7 million to $11.4 million. With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Ted Jackson with Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Thanks very much. Sorry about the slippage in units in the quarter, but congratulations on all the progress with the Hub. On the Hub, you said 29 units produced. Is that just produced, or is that the number of units that actually went out the door during the quarter?

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

Ted, that's the number produced. Not all of those count as deliveries, although some of them have been paid for. Some of them are still in the factory, paid for, but yet to be picked up and delivered to the customer.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

On the Hub, you provided some commentary with regards to efforts to get it UL listed, which obviously is critical. Could you outline where you are in that process? Usually there's a fair amount of testing with regards to different components of any kind of equipment, and then after that, you test the unit in and of itself. So maybe some discussion on the different tests that you've taken and passed, the ones you have left, and maybe a timeline to when you complete.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

Yeah. We have UL approval at the component level, as you mentioned. We are using UL-approved components for the most part. We are doing system-level testing. There are a few different standards that we are going after, one of which we should have approval on in the next couple of weeks, and then we are pursuing another standard that will take a little bit longer. It is not gating for customer deliveries completely. With the amount of testing we have now, and especially within a couple of weeks, there are plenty of customers that are willing and able to take the Hub with the level of certification and testing it has now, and we will continue to build and improve upon that.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

As we touched on in our comments, we are making sure to do the testing in a way where it will apply across as many variants of the platform as possible.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

We are building these units with different capabilities. DC charge output versus AC power output, we want the tests and certifications to cover both those use cases as well as different sizes of the Hub. In the mobile form factor, we go as small as a 210 kilowatt-hour Hub and as large as a 630 kilowatt-hour unit. We have made a ton of improvements to the enclosure itself so that our standard middle ground 400 kilowatt-hour unit will come under 10,000 pounds, which is an important requirement for our customers that want to move the unit around with a standard pickup truck. That is another thing that we have been hard at work on in future versions of the Hub.

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

But yeah, going well so far, and it is in no way going to stop us from starting to make deliveries of the new versions of the unit and continue delivering the charger Hub version of the unit, of the product, I should say.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Is it fair to assume that you will have all the UL certification work done before year-end?

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

Well, I think we'll have certain standards done within the next couple of weeks. As far as other standards that we're pursuing, that might push into next year. But again, nothing that's gating us from being able to get up and running.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Okay. Looking at the unit shortfall, can you give us some color? It sounds like, given that you're talking a little more positively with regards to powertrains and hubs, that a lot of the surprise for you is on the chassis side. Is that correct?

Giordano Sordoni
COO at Xos

Yeah. So part of the surprise was interest in powertrain delays. We had some orders that got delayed and slowed down on the powertrain side of the business. There were a few smaller truck orders that also pushed back. But as we highlighted, all of these orders are still expected to come through within the next year or so, some of them probably even within the next couple of quarters.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Okay. My final question. I know Blue Bird's an important customer, and they made a pretty significant announcement when they reported with regards to taking over the chassis operations for Ford for step vans and such. Is there any implication to that as it relates to what they're doing with Ford? I know it sounds like it's just ICE-related, but are there any ramifications or anything that is noteworthy as it relates to Blue Bird and Xos with regards to that development?

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Yeah. I cannot speak exactly to their internal strategy for the acquisition. We view it as a potential complementary piece. Blue Bird has bought our powertrains to sell into the commercial chassis space as well, that is not something that currently Ford has an offering for. In their strip chassis product lineup, they have never built a zero emissions product. Blue Bird looked to us to build their zero emissions commercial chassis powertrain. That is something we view as a potential opportunity in the future. The capacity, we are very familiar with the Detroit Chassis products facility that they bought. The capacity and throughput of that facility is incredible. I think they can produce upwards of 20,000 units a year. It represents some very large volume opportunities that I think are exciting for Blue Bird.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

As one of their potential EV powertrain suppliers, we think it could be a really interesting growth opportunity as we continue to expand our relationship with them.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

That is an excellent answer. All right. Thanks, Dakota. I will get out of line.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Thanks, Ted.

Operator

Our next question comes from Craig Irwin with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Craig Irwin
Craig Irwin
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners

Hi. Good evening, and thanks for taking my questions. Dakota, I wanted to ask a little bit more about the Power Hub. The product in the market that is competitive, that is getting the most attention these days is obviously Ford's unit, where they use CATL cells. I guess they are about 5.5 megawatt hours. Your 3.1 should make you, from a unit purchase price, materially less expensive. I just wanted to confirm that you are going to continue using cells from EVE, E-V-E, which were less expensive than the CATL cells in the first place. Maybe you want to comment on why 3.1 megawatt hours in the box instead of 5.5. I do know you are running it at the same rate, C over two. Can you help us understand the customer conversations that helped you design this product?

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that is an important call-out, and I think is sometimes overlooked in the large scale BESS industry, is that when you are looking at a lot of the traditional BESS systems that are out there in the market from suppliers like CATL or from Ford, they are what is referred to as a DC block. As you know, all these LFP batteries and modules and systems run DC power. When there is a handoff at those systems, it is a DC connection.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Typically, when those BESS systems are connected into utility scale generation or any kind of utility scale load, there is a separate converter and power conversion system that is required to connect it into the grid, which is a very large system, and typically quite costly as well. When you are buying from a CATL or from a BYD or any of these large cell manufacturers, even the Ford system that they are building now, it is what is considered a DC block. There is a new architecture that we have implemented, and there is a couple other folks that are starting to do this, where you actually take the DC block that is in your traditional ESS, and you combine it with the power conversion system, and you combine it with the energy controller, which controls and moderates that power.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Essentially what we are outputting is not just DC power, it is AC power.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

That makes it really effective for a variety of different reasons. One is you are manufacturing the entire system, PCS and controller, all in one enclosure in one factory. It brings the cost down considerably of the actual system as a combined system. In addition to that, it makes them much quicker and faster to deploy. Instead of engineering a site, where you have to design the BESS system connected to the PCS, connected to your controller, connected to your AC transformer or switch gear or removal switch, you are going to now design one system that plugs into the rest of the load. That makes it a lot quicker to be able to deploy these, and we can directly connect to a conventional diesel or recip genset. It makes it very deployable from a power standpoint.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

I think it is important to draw that out because one of the biggest use cases we see is in temporary power. As data centers start to see demand for their product ramping up, they need to get power quickly, and that can take 3-7 years for them to get power from the grid. What a lot of operators are doing is they are bringing in large reciprocating gensets in the 2-4 megawatt range, and they are connecting them directly to the load. But that creates a variety of problems for, basically, AI compute loads. They are very volatile. They are totally different than traditional historical data center loads, where you see a significant ramp up in power, and that ramp up is followed by a very quick fall in power demand.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

They are very volatile, which causes generators to run at very volatile RPMs, which creates a ton of maintenance issues and maintenance costs in keeping those generators operational. The other thing it does is it causes your generator to run at suboptimal efficiency ranges. As it is going up and down in the RPMs, you are seeing incredibly poor fuel consumption. What you really want a generator to do is to run at their optimal efficiency level, which can be at a 70%-80% of their rated load. That is what the BESS system essentially does, is it will allow these recip generators to not only operate more efficiently, but to take away those volatile peaks, reducing maintenance and wear and tear on the generators, and ultimately reducing emissions because the generator is burning the most amount of fuel the most efficiently.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

As you are looking at a lot of these sites, you look at the xAI site in Memphis, and you look at some of these other sites that have been powered by traditional recip diesel or nat gas or propane gensets, the BESS is what is key to keeping O&M costs low and to keeping fuel costs as efficient as they can be. We are not just selling that DC block. A DC block cannot connect into a conventional genset. You cannot drop it at a site and immediately plug it in and have megawatts of power within a few days. You have to install that inverter. You have to connect it. You have to make sure your controller is synced between the generator, the PCS, and the BESS system. There is a lot of engineering and work that goes into rolling that out.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

That's where our system is truly differentiated, is you can actually deliver this to a site, plug it into any conventional reciprocating large-scale genset, and immediately have site power to power these critical loads that have really expensive or costly sensitive electronics that are being powered. Then you had a second question, which is just around cell supply. We've worked with a number of different suppliers over the years. We have great partnerships with a lot of the large tier 1 key suppliers globally, and our primary supplier for this product is Gotion. They've built an incredible facility in Illinois where they're doing domestic production of battery cells and battery packs.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

That was a critical requirement for us as we have a number of customers, including some of the defense customers we talked about, that have specific requirements around U.S. content and U.S. manufacturing of cells and critical components. In order to maintain those FEOC compliance requirements, we knew we had to source a local cell and a local pack. These are all built with Gotion packs, which are still incredibly competitive, being that they're manufactured here, but also by an incredibly experienced cell manufacturer, one of the top 5 cell manufacturers globally.

Craig Irwin
Craig Irwin
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners

Thank you for that. My next question's about inventory, right? You've done a really good job bringing down your inventory over the last several quarters. Then again, even in a light quarter, light revenue quarter, you brought inventory down. What's a fair expectation for inventory liquidation over the next couple quarters? You do expect an uptick from what we saw in the June quarter. Does this help us release cash from the balance sheet?

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Yeah, it definitely does. We've taken multiple steps to improve that. I think one of the biggest things that's shifting in our model is that when we deliver powertrain kits and we deliver hubs, there's not a secondary stage of manufacturing. When those vehicles or those components or those hubs leave our factory, they change hands and title changes to the customer. That's a little bit different with a step van, where sometimes we will sell a complete strip chassis, sometimes we'll sell a completed step van. There might be a few months where that vehicle's in the hands of the upfitter getting delivered to a customer, which greatly increases our inventory holding period and our inventory turnover rates, or decreases our inventory turnover rates.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

As the mix and shift evolves towards increased hubs and increased powertrains, that inventory turnover is gradually accelerated just based upon the type of product that we are selling. Beyond that, we have really focused on optimizing, getting as many things built to order as possible, and reducing the amount of inventory that we carry for demos or sales and marketing type products that we use for events and loaners and that sort of thing. Our focus is to get that and optimize it as much as possible. We hope for multiple inventory turns per year, and we are well on our way and significantly improved from what we have seen in the last two or three years.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

That is something that we think will even get better with the hub and will be supported by having domestic production of a lot of our critical components, including costly things such as battery cells and battery packs.

Craig Irwin
Craig Irwin
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners

Thank you. My last question is a financial question. In the June quarter, you brought your SG&A and R&D down by a few hundred thousand dollars. Can you maybe talk about whether or not these were specific cost-out actions or more a function of the variable expense around revenue generation? Can we maybe expect these at similar or slightly lower levels over the next couple quarters?

Liana Pogosyan
CFO at Xos

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Craig. As far as the cadence, there were some as a result of the functional of revenue, but a lot of the decreases were smaller purchases of R&D materials. Just as far as the cadence of it, I would say we should expect it to be at the level similar to what we had earlier this year in the first quarter.

Craig Irwin
Craig Irwin
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners

Excellent. Well, congratulations on another step forward, and we look forward to watching the progress.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

Thanks, Craig.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dakota Semler for any closing remarks.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

For most of our history, the size of Xos' opportunity was set by how many fleets were ready to electrify their trucks. As of this quarter, it is set by something much larger, how much power this country needs and how fast it needs it. Data centers, defense installations, government fleets, and commercial operators are all hitting the same wall, energy demand that is growing faster than the grid can deliver. In Q2, we put Xos squarely in front of that demand with an expanding product line that is already proving itself in the field. Growth, margins, and liquidity still frame every decision we make, and nothing about this quarter changed that discipline. What changed is the size of the field we play on. The second half of 2026 is where that shows up in volume.

Dakota Semler
CEO at Xos

The majority of the year's deliveries are ahead of us, weighted towards the products with the strongest demand and the strongest margins in our portfolio. We built Xos to move fleets. Now we are scaling it to power far more than that. Q2 was the quarter that the future came into view. With that, we will wrap up today's call. Thank you, everybody.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Analysts
    • David Zlotchew
      General Counsel and Secretary at Xos
    • Dakota Semler
      CEO at Xos
    • Giordano Sordoni
      COO at Xos
    • Liana Pogosyan
      CFO at Xos
    • Ted Jackson
      Analyst at Northland Securities
    • Craig Irwin
      Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners
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