Lotus Technology Inc. American Depositary Shares LD Micro 20th Annual Main Event Conference

Thanks a lot. Thanks for the invitation. It's my second time coming here. Last time was May, and I'm so happy to see so many familiar faces, and actually, I'm no longer so nervous. Anyways, thank you so much for coming. Taking this chance, I see I only have 25 minutes to talk about the company with a 78-year history. It's kind of very limited time. That means I will not be able to give you all the aspects of the company, and everything I talk today, especially for the presentation, you can see this from our website, in the Nasdaq website. Anyway, I'm from Lotus, and most of us, you don't know me, but you know the company, and you know the name very well. We are working in this highly competitive industry, and we are a legendary name with a long history.

I think the industry itself, there are so many interesting things still happening. Today, what I can tell you is about, of course, I will let you know where we were from, briefly, and where we are now, and what's going to be the future look like for us, and what's my understanding to the industry and to the challenge we are having. First of all, I think it's, yeah, my presentation may be kind of boring, but the reality, the industry is not. I think if you know the story, of the Roadster from Tesla, it's what they do. They're having flying cars. It's super amazing. We're kind of really looking forward to happen in a few years, but not yet, so you have to wait. Yeah, we have to wait. I have fully respect to what they have been doing.

That's going to tell us what's going to be the future and tomorrow for our industry. I'm not very sure when it's going to happen, but you'll see so many pioneers making it. We want to be part of it as well, although we are kind of experienced and an old name in this industry. I think we are working together for this. Speaking about Tesla, it's better for a lot of people to know our brand. You know that Roadster, the first generation, that's actually inspired by the Lotus cars. At least and engineered by the Lotus engineers as well. You see the connections. I still want to, yeah, to tell you the first level, still want to talk about the name of this company was born in 1948, and we had a very glorious history for the Formula 1 and later on for the sports cars.

Everywhere I go, I went to the taxi because I'm driving, however, wearing the Lotus T-shirt, so they always know me. So gave me a lot of inspiration. I mean, of course, it's also responsibility for us to be able to run this company through another 20 years, or 100 years. But the Lotus, we have a very good reputation in the Formula 1 and in the racing cars.

But since the 1980s, when our founder, Colin Chapman, passed away, the company, of course, went through some tough time, changing the hands, for the different shareholders, including General Motors, Toyota, and Proton in Malaysia, and also finally in 2017, in the hand of Geely. So we have the year what we call the starting the journey, we call the electrification. So since then, we have the two pillars. One pillar is a traditional one. It's the ICE car, sports car, made in U.K., selling all around the world. Another pillar is what we call the emojis. It's designed and produced in China, sold across the universe as well. So that's the basic story. And starting here is highlight some of the achievement we have. And since then, we expand our sales network to cover over 60 markets, and with over 300 dealers across the universe.

And we currently have the five platform models, five existing models, including the sports car, ICE. We have three electric cars produced in China and U.K. as well. And also, we have one car developing. It's a next generation sports car. It's going to be the hybrid. And also, we have a PHEV just releasing this year. Currently selling in China, and we are going to deliver this in continental Europe in November. So basically, I think in the first half of the year, we make a kind of achievement. Year-on-year basis, we increase our deliveries almost 40%, and our gross margin improved from a single digit to over 10%. And also, we narrow greatly, dramatically, narrowed down our net loss by over 60%. So this is basically what we have for the highlights from the investment perspective.

But today, I think I'm not here to tell you about this. Most of you still want to know what the Lotus was, is, and will be. The Lotus has been the philosophy of everything is made for the drivers. That has been the philosophy from day one until now. And in the history, Lotus made a lot of contributions to the industry. We are the first to launch the concept of aerodynamics and also we are keeping the philosophy for the car to be lightweight. We strive for the durability. That means good handling. I think it's the soul for every Lotus cars. So we have been insisting this for years, we never change. Of course, I just imagine we go through the time up and downs, but we never change our philosophy about the car making.

And also the pioneers who implemented the Formula 1 technologies to the mass production, to the lifestyle cars. That means innovation is something we keep in our heart. They say the car brand is a history. I think I do not have to repeat too much, but we were really still remembered in this Formula 1 and the sports car circles, although actually quit the Formula 1 since 1980s. Starting from the 2020s, we have the new energies and about our new energy cars, we keep in our philosophy of lightweighting. You will see the portals, you will see the aerodynamics, you will see very good handlings. This is what we say we keep the brand consistent and very unique actually as well. Also through the years of operation, we know the market change. The market will always evolve. Our users, they evolve. In order to meet the demand of the customers, we also evolve as time goes by and so we develop.

We are not only a sports car maker, we also produce lifestyle cars which meet the demand of our Lotus fans. We embrace the new technologies. We embrace, for instance, for the powertrain, for the autonomous driving. That is currently what we are. We are producing whatever the clients they need. This is a current product positioning. Brand positioning for us, we are in line with mostly the Porsche. Also we are the pioneer in terms of the technology advancement, especially for the new energy adoptions. I do not have to put up much. Aerodynamics and lightweighting has been the symbols of Lotus.

Starting when we have the new electrification journey, we have developed the 800V and 900V electrical architectures, plus our classic chassis capabilities. So we are really making some pioneer work, especially for the high-end luxury end markets. This is our new technology. I will call it X-Hybrid. It is the new generation of the PHEV plug-in hybrid. These are some of our classical images of the Esprit. It is the Evija, and also the current model you see in front of the doors, it is the Emira. This year, we can make some of the improvement for the Emira. We call the 420. That means the horsepower is 420, so 20 more than the normal Emiras. This is electric cars produced in China and sold all over the world. This is a GT sedan. This is a PHEV. As I said, part of the image of our customers, we do have the Lotus fans, especially in Europe and also in United States.

Also through our lifestyle car, we also identified the new generation of Lotus fans. They are tech savvy. They are high net worth people and especially younger people. Also you even see the difference in China. The age is 10 years younger than the United States people here and the European people. But all in all, I think we have always something in common. All the Lotus car, the users, they have one things in common. They like drivings. Not only just a car, they like the driving the car. So that is the essence of the philosophy and also it is in line with our customer demand. This is longer the past and first half of these 2025 numbers.

I think this is the first number we released after we released our Focus 2030 strategy in May. Actually, last time I joined this conference, I gave the concept of Focus 2030 strategies, including we are flexible in terms of the powertrain because we see the demand for our clients. They not only need the ICE, not only the battery, they want the PHEVs to adapt to the different geographies, different working conditions. Secondly, what we say when something will never change regarding our understanding to the cars. So, this I would say, especially through the half year's operations until since May, I think it's a way understand even more clearly because I know we have the Greek saying that "To know thyself." That means to know yourself is very difficult. We know this. I think now we know much better because even this, we always have the era of the autonomous era of the new technology AIs.

We do embrace AI, and we apply a lot AIs in our operation. We also have a robotics company. So we do AIs. But we also ask question, if everybody use AI, use autonomous driving, at the end of day, people would like to still how to emphasize on the drivability of our car. So our standing is kind of clearer now today. If everybody is relying on autonomous driving, then the companies who has a deep culture and a deep understanding for drivability is going to be even more important. Because I think it's for the within the human natures. For instance, today, this morning, I went from hotel to here. There's a big traffic. Of course, I will say, "Oh, how good if I don't have to drive," right?