Aeva (AEVA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

DATE

Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Senior Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development - Andrew Fung
• Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer - Soroush Salehian Dardashti
• Interim Chief Financial Officer - Rupesh Maheshwari

TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $6.7 million, representing an increase from $3.6 million in the prior year period and setting a new quarterly record.
• Product Shipments -- record quarterly volume, growing over 50% sequentially as manufacturing capacity aligned with rising demand.
• Non-GAAP Operating Loss -- $27.7 million, compared to $27.2 million in the prior year period as the company maintained expense discipline during scaling.
• Total Available Liquidity -- $272.5 million as of Sept. 30, 2026, comprising $147.5 million in cash and marketable securities and a $125 million undrawn facility.
• Micro Epsilon Order -- initial order for multithousand sensors, following a new multiyear supply agreement for factory automation and automated quality inspection.
• Optical Connectivity Potential -- potential for multiple millions of units annually starting by 2028, with commercial negotiations currently underway with a second hyperscaler customer.
• High Power Optical Performance -- over 600 milliwatts per channel delivered, addressing a critical bottleneck in high-speed bandwidth for AI data centers.
• GAAP Operating Loss -- $39.1 million for the third quarter, compared to $33.1 million in the same period last year.
• Basic Net Income Per Share -- $0.06 per share, influenced by a change in the fair value of warrant liabilities.
• Non-GAAP Net Loss Per Share -- $0.39 per share, adjusting for stock-based compensation and valuation changes.
• Research and Development Expenses -- $28.9 million, reflecting increased investments in silicon photonics and the expansion of the optical connectivity portfolio.
• General and Administrative Expenses -- $10.9 million, compared to $9.6 million in the third quarter of 2025.
• Gross Cash Used -- $30.6 million, defined as operating cash flow less capital expenditures for the quarter.
• Full-Year 2026 Revenue Guidance -- tracking toward a range of $30 million to $36 million, supported by increasing product volume.
• Long-Term Growth Framework -- annual growth rates between 70% and 100%, driven by expanding programs in automotive, industrial, and optical connectivity.
• Daimler Truck Progress -- increased shipments of production-intent Atlas sensors, which are now being shipped directly from a fully automated facility in North America.
• Bendix Collaboration -- completed a development program for an integrated multimodality ADAS solution, transitioning into production supply agreement negotiations.
• European Passenger OEM Milestone -- successfully passed the VDA 6.3 audit on the first attempt, a mandatory European standard for evaluating manufacturing processes.
• Optical Connectivity Revenue -- realized first revenues from shipments of ultra-high power chipsets to a joint development agreement customer for validation.
• Inventory -- $6.8 million as of Sept. 30, 2026, compared to $5.8 million at the end of fiscal year 2025.
• Debt Facility Extension -- extended the maturity of the $125 million available facility by two years in November to support long-term execution.
• UHP Chipset Performance -- achieved over 350 milliwatts at 50 degrees Celsius, meeting performance requirements for next-generation AI data center architectures.

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RISKS

• Salehian stated that "one of the biggest bottlenecks facing AI data center build outs is the limited supply and the options for reliable high power laser sources," identifying a critical market constraint for AI infrastructure.

SUMMARY

Aeva Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AEVA) reported record quarterly revenue and product shipments driven by scaling manufacturing and commercial momentum across automotive and industrial markets. Management stated that the company is expanding its perception platform into the AI data center market with ultra-high power optical solutions while maintaining progress on production programs for Daimler Truck and a top 10 European passenger vehicle manufacturer. The company reported first revenues from its optical connectivity business and is currently in commercial negotiations with a second customer for deployments starting by 2028. Management noted that the recent joint development selection by the US Air Force and US Navy demonstrates the versatility of its frequency modulated continuous wave technology for airborne autonomy and remote sensing.

• Management reported that the VDA 6.3 audit success with a top 10 European OEM validates its manufacturing maturity and processes on the first attempt.
• The company is collaborating with NVIDIA as the reference 4D LiDAR sensor for the Hyperion platform outside of China, targeting OEM deployments between 2028 and 2029.
• CEO Salehian indicated that the ultra-high power chipset is a new laser device that achieved over 350 milliwatts at 50 degrees Celsius during performance tests.
• Aeva expanded its optical connectivity portfolio with Spectrum multiwavelength arrays and MESA multichannel assemblies to meet growing demand for AI compute.
• The company is securing additional supply capacity through long-term agreements with foundry and manufacturing partners to support projected volume ramps through 2028.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• 4D LiDAR: Sensing technology that measures position and instantaneous velocity simultaneously for every pixel.
• FMCW: Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave, a method of LiDAR that uses a continuous laser to measure distance and speed.
• Silicon Photonics: An integrated circuit technology that uses light instead of electrical signals to transfer data.
• VDA 6.3: A rigorous European quality management standard for the automotive industry's product development and manufacturing.
• JDA: Joint Development Agreement, a partnership to co-develop specific technologies or products.
• ADAS: Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, electronic systems that aid vehicle drivers in safety and control.
• OSFP: Octal Small Form-factor Pluggable, a type of optical transceiver used in high-speed data center networks.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Please standby, your meeting is about to begin. Afternoon, everyone. My name is Soroush, and I will be your conference facilitator today. I would like to welcome everyone to AVA Technology's Third Quarter 26 Earnings Conference Call. During the opening remarks, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Following the opening remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and simultaneously webcast. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Andrew Fung, Senior Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Please go ahead, Mr. Fung.

Andrew Fung: Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to Aeva's third quarter 26 Earnings Conference Call. Joining on the call today are Soroush Salehian, Aeva's Co-Founder and CEO and Rupesh Maheshwari, Aeva's Interim CFO. Ahead of this call, we issued our third quarter 26 press release and presentation. We will refer to today and can be found on our Investor Relations website at investors.ava.com. Please note that on this call, we will be making forward-looking statements. Based on current expectations and assumptions. Which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements reflect our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representative of our views as of any subsequent date.

These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For further discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our financial results, please refer to our filings with the SEC. including our most recent Form 10-Q and Form 10-K. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Which we believe are useful as supplemental measures of Aeva's performance. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our GAAP results. The webcast replay of this call will be available on our company website under the Investor Relations link.

And with that, let me turn the call over to Rupesh.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Thanks, Andrew, and good afternoon, everyone. Q3 was a standout quarter for Aeva. Driven by growing demand for Aeva's 4D LiDAR and optical solutions, and our team's ability to execute on our strong commercial momentum. Reflecting the ongoing scaling of our manufacturing, we achieved a new record quarterly revenue product shipments growing by over 50% sequentially. to also a new quarterly record. Aeva's unified perception platform and core silicon photonics technology continue to prove its power and versatility. From enabling ADAS and higher levels of automation in automotive to a new win for precision manufacturing and our expansion to airborne autonomy in defense. Our momentum in optical connectivity is also accelerating as we deepen our collaboration with our JDA customer.

And advance on other customer engagements. Including entering commercial negotiations with a second customer. As indicated by record quarterly shipments in Q3, we are progressing on aligning manufacturing with our growing demand. We are installing additional manufacturing capacity for our CoreVision LiDAR on chip module. And plan to continue to scale as we enter 2027. To further position Aeva to support customer deployments and commercial momentum. Now let me highlight some of our recent achievements and business developments in the last quarter. Let's start in automotive, where we are achieving important milestones that demonstrate the maturity, quality, and ability of Aeva to support our major automotive production programs and additional engagements.

In trucking, we continue to work closely with Daimler Truck and Torc on sensor integration for validation and other milestones towards the commercialization of Daimler Truck's autonomous production program. In support of this production work, we increased shipments of our production intent Atlas sensors to Daimler Truck. These sensors are manufactured and tested at our fully automated assembly line at Jabil in North America. And as we continue to ready for Daimler Trucks production program, as well as others, we began shipping directly from this facility. In trucking, I am pleased to share that we have successfully completed our development program with Bendix, on an integrated multimodality solution for commercial ADAS applications.

Bendix is now working closely with multiple large commercial vehicle OEMs on securing production deals and we are in negotiations with Bendex on a production supply agreement to support these OEM volumes. As we announced last quarter, Bendix is the industry leader in commercial vehicle ADAS. And is using Aeva's 4D LiDAR and perception software to develop its next generation ADAS series production system. This is an exciting expansion opportunity for Aeva and another example of how our unique silicon photonics architecture enables us to bring new levels of perception in a cost effective and scalable solution even for ADAS applications where LiDAR has traditionally not penetrated yet.

In passenger vehicle with a top 10 European OEM, we continue to ship our Atlas Ultra systems to the OEM, and work jointly very closely on integration and stack development. I am proud to share that this quarter we also successfully passed the OEM's VDA 6.3 audit. A key milestone for commercial deployments. The VDA 6.3 audit is the European automotive industry's rigorous standard for evaluating product development and manufacturing processes. Aeva was also the first LiDAR company to successfully pass the VDA 6.3 audit on the first attempt. This is strong validation from an industry leading OEM of the quality and maturity of the processes Aeva has in place.

And along with other qualifications such as ISO 9 thousand and TISACS, point to Aeva's commitment to meeting stringent automotive standards. Outside of these specific programs, we continue to progress with NVIDIA and its Drive Hyperion platform. With a growing number of leading OEMs and industry players, using it to develop L3 and higher autonomy, for production vehicles. As announced earlier this year, NVIDIA selected Aeva's 4D LiDAR as its reference LiDAR sensor on this platform for markets outside of China. We have delivered the first unit and are working together on integrating and evaluating our 4D LiDAR data for OEM development and simulation.

As we deliver on milestones of Drive Hyperion, we continue to believe that Aeva as the platform's core LiDAR supplier ex China is in a strong position to secure additional program wins with the OEMs and together with NVIDIA. Moving now to our optical connectivity business. Following the official launch last quarter, we continue to see growing traction and have advanced on multiple customer engagements including with AI-chip companies and optical solution providers to hyperscalers. In particular, we are now entering commercial negotiations with a second optical customer for another hyperscaler deployment. Similar to our first JDA customer, this program has the potential for multiple millions of units in volume annually starting by 2028 and ramping from there.

Aeva's accelerating momentum is driven by our ability to deliver an ultra-high power optical solution at more than 600 milliwatts using technology that we have proven over the last decade and industrialized to meet the rigorous requirements for our automotive and industrial customers. 1 of the biggest bottlenecks facing AI data center build outs is the limited supply and the options for reliable high power laser sources. This is especially the case for optical sources capable of delivering more than 200 milliwatts which is critical to support the increasing bandwidth demand of AI data centers. Aeva's Technology Foundation enables our solutions to achieve the required combination of high performance, demonstrated high yield, and proven reliability.

To support our momentum, we announced this morning an expanded portfolio of solutions all built on Aeva's common high optical power and silicon photonics technology. Our offerings now include ultra high power chipsets, multiwavelength laser arrays, and multichannel external laser source modules. These provide our customers greater flexibility in integrating Aeva's technology in the hardware stack and across successive generations of AI data center architectures. With the opportunity to win additional multi-$100 million programs annually, We are also working diligently to secure incremental capacity to augment our existing long term supply agreements. with our foundry and manufacturing partners. As we pursue additional opportunities with other potential customers, we are also progressing well with our first JDA customer.

A leading provider of high speed optical engines where we are working together on integrating Aeva's sources into an MPO solution for a major hyperscaler. We realized our first revenues in optical connectivity as we began shipping Aeva's ultra-high power chipsets to our JDA customer. For system integration and validation. We continue to target qualification with the hyperscaler starting by mid-2027. For planned commercial deployments as early as late 2027 and early 2028. In addition, we are also expanding our collaboration with this customer to work together on leveraging the same platform that we are building for other interested hyperscalers.

Aeva is also growing in defense where the performance advantages of Aeva's 4D LiDAR can be leveraged for mission critical operations. In particular, I am honored to share that the US Air Force together with the US Navy, have selected Aeva for joint development using our 4D LiDAR to enable new remote sensing and advanced air operations. This is because 4D LiDAR directly measures both position and the velocity of surrounding objects which provide real time situational awareness needed for autonomous aerial operations. In addition, 4D LiDAR's ability to operate without detection from night vision systems can support stealth operations.

Besides our work with the US Air Force, we are seeing significant momentum with leading primes and others to leverage Aeva's technology for drone and additional aerial applications. On land, our partnership with Forterra continues to strengthen. We have been shipping a significant number of sensors for Forterra's AGVs which use Aeva Atlas LiDARs as part of its autonomous vehicle system, AutoDrive. This is for long range and velocity prediction, vehicle positioning, and stealth operational capability in GPS denied environments. We are also actively pursuing new opportunities together where we can offer a differentiated joint solution for defense and security related applications. Moving now to precision sensing. Where we are growing our shipments for commercial programs with multiple industry leaders.

As we just announced, Micro Epsilon a global leader in factory automation, has selected Aeva's high precision technology to power their next generation of solutions for factory automation. Micro Epsilon is a trusted leader by major companies across the world, ships more than 100 thousand precision sensors annually for factory automation, and automated quality inspection. Such as distance and thickness measurements. Its sensors are used across a wide range of industries, from automotive and robotics to electronics, and semiconductor manufacturing. The future of factory automation requires sensing solutions that improve speed and accuracy. Aeva's FMCW based technology offers coaxial measurements at best in class speed and accuracy regardless of materials, standoff distance, and lighting conditions.

This enables fast, reliable, and precise measurement that can improve throughput quality control, and cost in manufacturing. As part of our multiyear supply agreement that we just signed, we have already received an initial order from multiple thousands of sensors from Micro Epsilon. And we look forward to our collaboration together to deliver new capabilities for factory automation. In summary, we have been incredibly busy with our results highlighting the broad uses and growing demand for Aeva solutions. Whether in automotive, defense, or factory automation, or AI data centers, we are executing delivering to our customers, and expanding our market presence. I will now turn the call over to Rupesh to walk through our Q3 financial results.

Rupesh, over to you.

Rupesh Maheshwari: Thank you, Soroush, and good afternoon, everyone. Overall, Aeva's Q3 financial results highlight our increasing shipments as we scale manufacturing to meet more of our growing demand across broad range of markets. As well as some investments to support our significant momentum in optical connectivity. Specifically, revenue was $6.7 million in the quarter. Which represents a new quarterly record for Aeva. Including within this, a new quarterly record in product shipments. Non-GAAP operating loss was $27.7 million in Q3. Which continues to be similar to prior year levels as we remain disciplined on operating expenses while scaling the business. Q3 gross cash used which we define as operating cash flow less CapEx, was $30.6 million.

We ended the quarter with total available liquidity of $272.5 million. In November, we extended the maturity of our $125 million facility for an additional 2 years. The facility remains fully undrawn and at management's discretion to draw. As demonstrated by growing adoption of Aeva's solutions, from automotive and industrial to defense and optical, our commercial momentum is growing. We continue to believe our liquidity position and disciplined approach to spend enables Aeva to execute on our mission. With that, I will turn the call back over to Soroush for his closing remarks.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Thank you, Rupesh. In closing, Q3 was a strong quarter with record quarterly revenue and new wins, clear indications of the significant commercial momentum of our sensing and perception business. And the expansive opportunity as we grow our optical platform. It is also clear validation of our execution and I want to thank the Aeva team for their ongoing dedication and contribution. As we head into the final quarter of 26, we remain focused on the objectives we set this year, including delivering on our production customer milestones, while securing additional wins, scaling manufacturing to support demand, and maintaining our financial discipline as we continue our growth and momentum. With that, let's now turn to Q and A.

Operator: Thank you very much, Mr. Salehian. Ladies and gentlemen, And If you find your question has been addressed, you may remove yourself from the queue. We ask that you please limit yourself to 1 question follow-up. We will go first today to Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer.

Colin Rusch: Thanks so much, guys. And congratulations on all the progress here. Can you talk about the complexity and depth of conversation that you are having or having with incremental customers in the optical connectivity space. Just curious about how mature those conversations are and how quickly they might move into another JDA.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Yeah. Hi, Colin. Thanks for the question. I am happy to answer that. So to be honest, the progress has been amazing and overwhelming. We have had a lot of traction in the outreaches that we have had, but also customer engagements. As well as our current JDA program. So the. As you saw, we just announced a new portfolio of products that help us expand and broaden our offerings in the optical data center market. But specifically on the engagements, we are engaged with multiple of the leaders in AI-chip companies, the hyperscalers, you know, the likes we have mentioned in the past before, the likes of Nvidia and the others.

So that is. and also including some of the optical engine companies. And the opportunity, obviously, for each of these deals is quite massive. I think what is important is that we are seeing you know, 1 of the reasons we are seeing this traction solidify in a very quick manner, if you think about it from last year, it is only been a few months since we announced our expansion this business.

Is that we are able to deliver a proven capability with high power sources what we call the UHP, ultra high power, Now with these other products, the Spectrum-MESA, And we see that actually when the customers go and test this, they see that it is actually working and meeting the specs, which has been a big challenge for the market itself. So this market is 1 that is not just that there is a massive opportunity that is been unprecedented. But there is also a significant gap in terms of the actual solutions, technical capabilities, and availability.

And I think Aeva is 1 of the very, very, very few companies that has been able to deliver on that, show that to them that the actual data, their liability, and the performance that is needed to meet those demands, which I think has resulted directly in the speed of our progress on deals. Obviously, we need to deliver these modules to customers. We need to get into qualifications if there are those timelines that are set. So this is much faster than, let's say, a typical program, especially in other markets. So we are feeling really excited about that. that is why we are expanding offerings there.

And each of these opportunities provide us with you know, volumes that range into multiple millions of units to get to multiple hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue opportunity So that is why we are engaging this market. And I think from here on, we are hoping that our, you know, engagement, including this next phase of contract negotiations with the second customer is going to move in a timely fashion and similar to what we have done in the past quarter.

Colin Rusch: And, you know, I guess 1 of the biggest questions around that market is really about your ability to meet the volume demand. So can you talk about sort of what preparations you have started already as you get a little bit more confidence in the viability and the concrete sales that start to launch next year?

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Yeah. I think you are talking about, like, basically, the milestones from here on to get to qualification launch. Correct. In preparations to meet the volume. From a manufacturing perspective. Yes. So that is a very good point. Yeah. Yes. So I think you bring up a very important point, which is it obviously starts with the demand, which we are seeing, you know, that is very significant. and important. Then it is the actual, you know, walk in locking the customers. Now, we have the first JDA, and we are now in multiple and we have now a second customer on the line. We are in contract negotiations.

But, of course, from here, is very important to set up the supply. Right? I think Aeva, besides having the capability of actually meeting the performance requirements, we also have a unique approach in terms of our supply base. We provide offerings that may not always share the same let's say, Foundry as some of the other folks that are captive or you know, pretty loaded up already in the AI data centers. We have a strategic relationships and agreements, long term agreements with our partners in the foundry and fab space as well as our manufacturing partners.

We have already established those and strengthened those since the last quarter that allow us to have visibility of capacity and supply availability in the next multiple years, 2 to 3 years. We are also in parallel now working to expand that supply capacity so we can really flex up the volumes as we are adding more and more customers. So that is, I think, something that the work has been done-- and ongoing. And as we were able to provide more updates, we will also share on that. So that is, I think, an important topic where the supply capacity and availability also showing that to the key customers is important.

And we have already been doing some of that, which is why, you know, those JDA customers already were comfortable enough to give us a first agreement award and go from there.

Colin Rusch: Thanks so much, guys.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Thank you.

Operator: We will go next now to Joseph Moore of Morgan Stanley.

Joseph Moore: Hi. You have This is Mason on for Joe. I wanted to ask another question on the optical connectivity business. As you move from a single engagement now talking about multiple engagements, multiple products, has your assessment on the level of investment required to this? Has that changed at all? over the last 6 or 9 months? And can you give us any, color on, how Aeva internally just needs to change as a business in order to kind of effectively go after this opportunity, especially given, the size of the market and the size of some of the incumbents kind of competing in the space as well. Thanks.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Sure, Mason. Yes. Happy to answer that. As you mentioned, I think it is important how we structure so that we can, 1, deliver on our existing programs across automotive, industrial, industrial, and others, but also you know, the reason we are entering this market and expanding on it now is because it is a massive opportunity, but also 1 that is near term. Right? So on your kind of first question in terms of investments, yes, we are increasing some of our investments to make sure that we can go after and deliver on these very large customer opportunities and actual agreements that we have now.

Then also working on committing some of our supply capacity so that we can secure that, you know, and I mean, I mean, you probably heard that the, you know, other folks talk about some of the sources from a availability standpoint being booked up till 29 now. So think that provides us both an opportunity, but also important to be able to show that to our end customers the capacity that we have. So are making some of those investments. We think that is already part of our plans. And as we have talked about, some growth in our investment there that we are doing, and we are going step by step with the customers.

But obviously, where we have to invest in long lead or doing long term agreements, we are putting those in place now so we can have the capacity we need already for the back half of 27 and then ramp up in 2028. So that is 1. And then on. From a team structure, absolutely right. We have already defined a team, obviously led by Pradeep, to drive and lead the optical connectivity business. This is a separate team that is working through the product portfolio that we talked about, developing these UHP chipset, the chip arrays, but also the Spectrum and MESA platforms. And then as we expand on that, more on that.

And we have already hired folks in this area, and we are going to continue to do that. And that is going to be its own team and business that is going to continue to grow. And likewise, as we go along, we are going to also be at some adjustments across the company to make sure that we have the right structure for all the other business that we have across automotive, industrial, and have that focus in a few key areas that really help us expand and grow and capture the market with our perception platform.

Joseph Moore: Thank you.

Operator: We will go next now to Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs.

Analyst: Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the questions. And good to hear about the progress in the data center space. I just have 1 on the auto market to start was hoping you could give a bit more color and context on the engagement with the European top 10 OEM and if there is been any changes in when and how that OEM made a deploy your LIDAR. I know you mentioned that Aeva's development is going very well, but if you could put that into context with the broader program, as well as just the volatility in the European auto market that is been happening with the higher competition from the Chinese OEMs.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Yes, Mark. Sure. I think, first of all, as I mentioned on the call, we are making progress really well across automotive. So. And I will touch on that. But to answer your question first, the top 10 European OEM first, you know, obviously, in the past quarter, we have been working. You know, obviously, every day, we work closely with them. But the past quarter, we have had some important milestones, including achieving the VDA, audit passing on the first attempt. And on the OEM itself, you know, they are on a very accelerated timeline to get this product to market. We are working very closely to enable that.

And there is obviously critical functionality for autonomy that I think our technology helps enable. And that is why that is a core part of the strategy for the OEM in terms of their let's say, feature set. So I think for that, you talk about the overall competition in the auto market and the volatility. I think the OEM sees ability to bring a new technology that really enables level 3 automation on the roads, on the highway, and then, you know, eventually the urban.

As a critical differentiator and that is why the timing of this program and the importance of this program is very high and is right at the center of providing that capability for the non China market. So where the teams are progressing really well working together, we feel good about the OEM's timeline. They are on track for their launch, and, you know, we have some important milestones coming up for the next number of months as well that we are working very close to get it delivered. But overall, it is progressing really well.

Also working together on the next generation already which we see that it is going to continue to expand the business and also in turn to a number of the high volume models as well. that is on the top 10. And then maybe just on the other automotive side, The last quarter also we progressed really well with the other side of the market, including with trucking. We completed a development program with Bendix, and that was important to be able to showcase that our sensors can fit in for the ADAS applications working with other modalities together.

Using our sensor and software Now we were able to showcase and prove that the additional functionality for, for example, automatic emergency braking or passenger braking. Functions are adding value, and that is something that is important. And Bendix already is working out with multiple OEMs on the next phase of the production deals, and we are actually now entering the commercial negotiation contract phase with Bendix as well. So multiple engagements there that solves it then.

Analyst: Thanks for all that color. My second question was on the financial outlook. For 2026, is the company still tracking to that $30 million to $36 million revenue range that was previously communicated? And any initial thoughts on 2027 and whether the framework of roughly 100% annual growth per year applicable for 2027. Thanks.

Rupesh Maheshwari: Yes. Vivi, thanks for your question. Feel good about the quarter. The business is getting momentum, and we had a record product shipment in Q3. As you have seen in our press release, we also launched our optical connectivity offering and signed contracts with Micro Epsilon and defense customer. We are also seeing a lot of-- strong inbound interest and actively working with number of potential opportunities. So all of us gives us confidence in the opportunities ahead. Thank you.

Analyst: Thank you.

Operator: We will go next now to George Gianarikis at Canaccord.

Analyst: Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to expand upon the previous question a little bit, and I am not asking for explicit financial guidance, but as we attempt to frame your multiple design wins, all the traction that you have, how should we think about broadly the impact to 2027 and 2028 of all the industrial partnerships, you know, trucking, passenger auto, data center, etcetera. Like, is this sort of a hockey stick moment in 2027 and then and then especially in 2028 as all the work that you have been doing for the last several years builds up? Thank you.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Hey, George. Yes. This is Soroush. Happy to answer that. Look. Obviously, we have. We are firing on multiple cylinders. Right? We have as we discussed on the call and as you alluded to it, there is momentum contracts, and that is now translating into our product shipments and then revenues directly from multiple segments. So we are feeling good about not just obviously where we are in this period, but really good about what is ahead. You know, with, obviously, we do not provide, you know, guidance for future years, but we have set the framework at our investor call, investor meeting earlier in the year, and we are feeling good about that.

You know, rate of growth in the 70% to 100%. But I think beyond that, any 1 of these, if you look at other opportunities, across defense, but also very importantly on the optical connectivity market is really not baked into that. Right? So that I think is something that 1 of those, you know, converting and scaling, especially in the back half of the year, then it will result in that hockey stick curve that you are talking about. And that is why we are investing in this, and we are feeling that, and we are seeing that feedback now directly from the customers.

And, that I think is going to have a game changing effect for the company that will directly show up in our growth in a very strong way that is not baked into plans today. Thank you. And maybe just to focus in on passenger auto for a minute. I mean, there seems to be maybe additional momentum in Western OEMs, exploring accelerating their pathway to additional advanced autonomous solutions. Are you seeing any increase in conversation volume from some other passenger auto OEMs outside of the 1 you already have in terms of the deploying your solution? Thank you. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I think overall, yes.

I think we are seeing-- you know, where we are is we are feeling really good about on the automotive side, as I mentioned. You know, we are the first top-10 passenger European OEM on the trucking side. Now also in our collaboration with NVIDIA, I remember that we are the core sensor of choice outside China for the Hyperion platform. So NVIDIA obviously is securing a number of OEMs, and as OEMs, across the globe are deploying with Hyperion between 2028 to 2029. We expect that multiple OEMs also going to be adopting that. And that I think is going to be also a sales channel for us and help us expand into number of other OEMs.

So that is why I think that is already. The progress that we are making there is very encouraging. And I think focus for us is deliver on the first engagement, the first production program with the top-10 OEM. I think from there, we are going to expand pretty quickly in multiple OEM programs. So that is also why, of course, we are hiring in that area as we expand there. And I think separately from that, you asked about kind of OEMs in North America and the US. I would say generally, yes, we are seeing some revival of interest for RFI, RFQ programs also coming.

And some of those already touched the NVIDIA platform and, you know, a few do not, but we are involved in both camps of that. And so that is the. that is why we feel good about our progress in auto, which also allows us. If you recall, our schedule has always been work with the leaders in their respective fields that have the volume, the capability, and scale to get us to market and you know, build on that and land and expand. So we are-- we are done in automotive now. Great. Executing on that, and we are now also able to do that now in other markets, including optical connectivity as well. Thank you.

Analyst: Thank you.

Operator: We will go next now to Richard Shannon with Craig Hallum. Hi, mister Shannon. Your line is open. You might be on mute, sir.

Richard Shannon: You are right. I was on mute. Apologies for that. Rupesh, thanks for letting me ask a couple questions here. The first 1 I will ask on your press release today about expansion of your optical connectivity portfolio. Maybe actually a 2-parter, and apologies if I stumble through this here. But first part of it is looking at your ultra high powered chipset here. Is this different than what you-- you have kind of-- you-- you have announced earlier in the year? You are had that paper in January that talked about an SOA. I think the solution you are originally talking about was a laser combined with an SOA here. This 1 does not describe an SOA in it.

So is this a this just a branding mechanism for that, or is this an entirely new chipset? And how. And if so, how are they different? And then the second part of the question is on the product here where it says more than 600 milliwatts per channel. I guess I thought that kind of power was gonna actually going to melt or degrade the fiber. So if you could address that as well. And I have 1 follow-up. Thank you.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Sure, Richard. Yeah. So first of all, I do want to mention 1 thing. 1 of the core capabilities of Aeva, why we are entering this market, why we see the significant interest and the actual traction now resulting in contracts and growth is that we have a unique capability that fits this market gap with high power sources. So obviously, we are working on. You know, we had to go develop this for, you know, about 10 years. because nobody had it. So we are not, like, coming up all of a sudden with a random thing that says we have a bunch of power that we can output. We had to develop this. We have significant IP.

We have all the field data, good reliability, and the many, many thousands of hours of testing and actual field which is very rare in the market. it is obviously, you know, very well from the space. So I think that. I just wanna highlight that. And naturally, obviously, have been developing higher and higher power sources because that is a requirement for the next generation architecture is going from 800 to 1.6, 2.2, and beyond that. And then, you know, specifically, for the UHP, this is a new chip. This is not just a rebranding of the same thing we announced. This is actually a laser device.

And we, you know, are saying that we can achieve what we see as industry best performance. Over 350 milliwatts at 50 degrees Celsius. With very low noise and low RIN and performance that is needed for data center market. And we actually are seeing greater than that. We also have runway with our products to go beyond that. And I think that also is looking ahead in the architectures as folks are needing it. that is 1 of the other important things with customers is like, you are not just delivering something that kind of gets close or barely needs it. But you can do it reliably.

You can do it with yields, and you have the data and lifetime offering test and they show all that to prove it. So that is why. And then you have the better capability then to continue growing on that road map, on that pathway of keeping creating performance. So that is the kind of folks that, you know, customers wanna work with. So that is why we are seeing that So it is a distinct new offering, and we are excited to provide that now to the market.

Richard Shannon: And then on the on the. They were touching on the Mesa platform with the multichannel.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Obviously, that is something that is important. As we go for the next generation of architectures in this market, especially for the ALSFP and what we see on the ability to actually generate high power in the 600 milliwatts becoming a requirement for next generation architectures as folks go to 1.6T and above. So. But the key there is ability to actually integrate this as a pluggable ready module inside the OSFP. So that is effectively what we are offering here is now besides just a chip, we have a multichannel module. That you can do at 4, 8, whatever it is, inside the LSFP module ready to go that can generate high powers for those architectures for higher speed.

Transmission.

Richard Shannon: Okay. Okay, great. Soroush. Thanks for all that detail. My follow-on question, I sort of think you provided a couple of tidbits to it, but I wanna ask it more holistically here. Your announcement, coincident with last quarter's call, was a JDA with a direct customer who is gonna supply a product to a hyperscaler. You just mentioned today. about hoping to be qualified with the hyperscaler by the middle of next year. So maybe you could talk about the milestones you have to go through first with your direct partner and then eventually with the hyperscaler.

And to what degree does that, you know, overlaps some of the reliability testing you have done just supporting the automotive LiDAR market versus kind of new types of testing required there? Thank you.

Soroush Salehian Dardashti: Yeah. Sure. So with the JDA partner, I think it is important to mention that you know, within a course of a few months, we obviously launched the business, signed the first customer. And now in this quarter, we actually generate our first sales and revenues for the optical connectivity business. So I think that is a milestone for us because it is also important that, you know, this is, you know, transacting the real way, and it is actually showing up. For us. Obviously, we need to then work on the qualification and then from there, the ramp up. So that is important. So with this JDA customer, we deliver the first chipsets already to them.

They are working on the integration. And, you know, integrating their own integrated module and doing the tape outs for that. It will happen in the next few months here in the beginning of the year. And from there, the milestone is together, we are gonna be going through the qualification. So we have done our own validation. Our customer will do their integration, and they do their own validation that, then we enter the actual qual with the end hyperscaler, as you mentioned. And our target is still the same by middle of next year to get into that call, and then by late next year, it will be complete.

And from there, we will switch over to start a production, late 27 and maybe early 2028 goes straight to ramp up. So that is where it is a very fast paced timeline. Which is why we had to also go secure our supply base by doing these LTA agreements. To get us the. What we need for the end customers. that is on that. In the last period also, in this period also, already started engaging with our customer to come up with a platform for other hyperscalers.

So there is there is another hyperscaler that also that they are working with and we are starting engagements with that so that we can also apply our solutions together for another hyperscaler, which I think is a good sign of both the performance and ability to deliver to this first customer, but also our traction within hyperscalers. So that. that is what I would say about the JDA. And, of course, we already talked separately about a second customer that we are working with that is in the optical side. on the contract negotiations.

Richard Shannon: Thank you.

Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for questions this afternoon. So that will bring us to the end of today's Aeva Technologies Third Quarter 26 Earnings Conference Call. We would like to thank you all so much for joining us this afternoon and wish you all a great remainder of your day. Goodbye.

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