Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. I am Francie, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining Audi Q2 2023 Investor Relations conference call and webcast. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participant will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star and One. Press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. It is my pleasure, and I would now like to turn the conference over to Robert Schwarzl. Please go ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Audi Investor Relations conference call for the 2Q of 2023. Thank you for dialing in. I have Jürgen Rittersberger, our CFO, and Christian Bauer, Vice President, responsible for Sales Planning with me. After their statements, you will be able to ask your questions. The slide deck for the call is available at the Audi Investor Relations website, alongside the quarterly update in the fact pack for the 2Q. Please note the disclaimer on page 2 of our presentation. Now I will hand over to Jürgen. Ladies and gentlemen, warm welcome to our conference call. 2023 so far has been both quite promising and challenging. Macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges persist. The current German Purchasing Managers' Index is now equal to peak pandemic levels. In the first six months, Germany has slipped into a recession, and growth expectations for the U.S. and China are well below the prior year levels. Interest rates have increased substantially. The prime Eurozone rate has climbed to 4.25%, which directly impacts the purchasing power of our customers. At the same time, we see semiconductor supplies improving. Nevertheless, we still continue to face challenges in some other procurement areas. Logistical capacities are strained, which has driven up costs. That being said, we are now better, better equipped to meet customer demand, and as our figures clearly indicate, the measures we have implemented to offset any parts and logistical limitations are working. The overall improved supply leads to stronger competition and mixed normalization, which impacts the average, average transaction price. Our investments are peaking ahead of our significant portfolio expansion, first and foremost, our new models based on our PPE platform. The decline in raw material prices is generally a positive development, but typically this will become visible in our product costs in about 6 to 12 months. However, for now, it does weigh on the valuation of our hedging positions. Despite notable volume growth, the combination of these effects has led to a lower operating result. Additionally, higher CapEx, elevated tax payments, and a buildup of inventories has burdened this quarter's net cash flow. Nevertheless, Audi has demonstrated remarkable resilience in recent years. Our other bank is still solid, and our customer demand continues to be strong. We are optimistic about the second half of the year, and we are confident that we will achieve our set guidance. Christian will run through our sales figures, and then I will take over again to go deeper into the financials. Christian, your turn. Thank you, Jürgen, A warm welcome and a hello from my side as well. The Audi brand drives the performance of the Brand Group Progressive, Thus, let us first focus at the four rings. The increase in the Audi brand sales performance reached 60% in the first six months of this year. In the second quarter alone, we achieved a strong performance, with 491,000 cars, which is 23% above the previous year, Importantly, an 18% increase quarter-on-quarter. In terms of deliveries to customer, Audi can announce the best June ever. The strong demand is a testament to the attractiveness of our products, despite the high portfolio age of our model range versus competitors. Sales within the C and D segment grew by 27%, with the CD share improving by 2.3 percentage points to 25% in total. The best-selling models continue to be the Audi Q5 family, closely followed by the A6 and the A3 and the A4. Monthly figures show a definite positive trend. This is driven by an improved, however, not yet optimal, supply situation. Logistics continue to be a challenge, as Jürgen previously mentioned. In the second quarter, we continued to improve the delivery times to customers. We have, however, advanced the fulfillment of our order backlog. The order intake is weaker compared to the prior year level, but it is still on a strong level. Within the European region, deliveries to customer grew by 24%. The best-selling models were A3 and Q3 families. BEV sales in the region grew by 34%, despite the model changeover in the 1st quarter to the Audi Q8 e-tron. In Germany, we could increase sales by 20%. In the 1st half of the year, we were number 1 amongst the premium OEMs in our home market. Deliveries to customers in France grew by 15%, and in the U.K. by 27%. With 327,000 vehicles deliveries in China in the 1st 6 months, Audi came in 2% ahead of the prior year level. After our slow start in the 1st quarter, we see a positive trend with a 39% quarter-on-quarter growth. The share of imported vehicles for the 1st half year grew to 9%. The Chinese market remains extremely important for Audi, and therefore, we are looking forward to substantially improving our product offer, especially in the BEV segment. A milestone for this will be the Q6 e-tron family, which will be ramped up in the Audi FAW NEV company site in quarter one, 2024. The site is already well advanced. In addition, we are working on improving our digital offer, CARIAD partnerships with the leading Chinese IT specialists will help to improve the functionality and reduce time to market of innovations. So far this year, USA was a strong driver of our global growth performance. The 30% increase to 108,000 cars is driven by improved product availability. The Audi Q5 family continues to be the best seller in the market, with 36% increase in sales compared to the prior year level. Deliveries of our C segment SUV models, Q7 and Q8, have increased substantially as well. For the full year, we expect very strong growth in the market. This is supported by improved parts availability, and from a global perspective, we continue to work on the next steps on our regional strategies in order to regain momentum in China, expand our presence in the U.S., and defend our strong position in Europe. Deliveries of the fully electric cars increased by 51% in the first 6 months of 2023 to 76,000 cars. The Q4 e-tron is the main driver of this performance, with sales increased by 160% to 48,000 cars. The model changeover from our pioneer e-tron to the Q8 e-tron facelift is well underway. This led to the year-on-year decline in deliveries. Quarter-on-quarter, deliveries grow over 160%. Strong demand for Audi Q8 e-tron underpins the successful launch. In China, especially, we have seen a very strong growth in BEV deliveries, admittedly against a low base, driven by the Q4 e-tron and the market-specific Q5 e-tron. We continue to work on reducing waiting times for the BEV models, and the order intake is still solid, even though below previous year. Looking forward, we expect a very strong BEV delivery growth this year. The model introductions scheduled for the next year will power further transition towards BEV. Overall, automotive deliveries to customer reached 920,000 cars, driven primarily by the Audi growth, as well as the positive sales development of Lamborghini, with only a slight decline on Bentley deliveries. Quarter on quarter, the sales performance trends were positive as well. We expect automobile deliveries to customers to be between 1.8 million and 1.9 million units. The growth in deliveries so far and the current status of our solid order book provides the necessary business confidence within the company. U.S. and European markets are expected to power the growth. Nevertheless, around 900,000 cars in the second half of the year is an ambitious target, given the continued logistics bottlenecks and suboptimal parts supply. We reiterate our full year deliveries guidance. In closing, I would like to give you an outlook on the largest product offensive in Audi's history. We will introduce around 20 new models by 2025, more than 10 of which are electric. The portfolio will also include the successors to our best-selling ICE models. The current Audi A4 will be followed by Audi A5, and current A6 will be followed by the A7. These product families will continue to contribute to a high performance of our company for the upcoming years. At this point, I would like to hand over to Jürgen to run you through the financials. Jürgen? Thanks, Christian. Now let's go to the financials. In the first six months of 2023, revenue for the Audi brand reached EUR 34 billion, which is 14% above the prior year figure. At the same time, car wholesale grew by 20.3%, with motorcycle wholesales increasing by 11%. Revenue per unit decreased slightly. This was driven by mixed normalization following the 2022 supply limitations, above average A-segment wholesale growth, as well as a higher share of lower-equipped Audi cars. Selective pricing adjustments were made to account for evolving competitive environments in various markets and increasing interest rates. Just to give you an example, the current lease rate for an Audi Q8 e-tron in Germany is 60% above last year's rate for a comparable car. However, starting next year, we will begin to benefit from new product momentum, as Christian just mentioned, which will improve our averaged pricing. The full year guidance for 2023 is confirmed. We expect our revenue to come in between EUR 69 billion and EUR 72 billion. For the first six months, operating results came in at EUR 3.4 billion. The 31% year-over-year decline was mainly driven by raw material hedge effects. In the first half of 2022, it was positive, with EUR 382 million. However, in the first half of 2023, with raw material prices normalizing, we saw a negative effect of EUR 748 million. Additionally, we had no contribution from the residual values development. The prior year figure included EUR 485 million. Therefore, our underlying performance is strong. Adjusting for these effects, the operating result for the first six months came to EUR 4.2 billion, compared to EUR 4.1 billion in 2022, which is a 2% increase. The underlying margin was 12.2%. Looking at the operating profit bridge, we see a volume, price, and mix item that was positive year-over-year with EUR 46 million. The positive volume growth contribution of EUR 1.1 billion was mostly offset by several factors, starting with a less favorable mix, the aforementioned lower contribution from our residual values development, and finally, our pricing effect, which, when compared to the very strong prior year level, was slightly negative. On the other hand, the improved performance of our brands had a positive contribution. In a year-over-year comparison, our raw material hedges and currency effects were negative, with EUR 1.2 billion. Product costs worsened by EUR 670 million, driven by battery and component prices, as well as freight costs. Fixed costs and other items had a positive EUR 0.2 billion effect. Increased R&D costs were offset by overhead costs outside of technical development. With EUR 3.4 billion, the Audi Group achieved a reported operating return on sales of 10%, which is in line with the full year guidance. The result from our China business came in at EUR 457 million. Looking at the full year, we are confident that we will achieve the full year return on sales guidance of 9%-11%. We anticipate strong deliveries in the second half of the year based on our order book and order intake. At the same time, we do not expect the pricing pressure to let up. Product costs should improve year-over-year, driven by higher production volumes, as well as reduced raw material prices. R&D-related fixed costs will be higher, while we expect a decline in other fixed costs. Where exactly we end up in our guidance range will heavily depend on the further development of the raw material hedge effects. Given the headwinds our industry is facing, we are confident that we will achieve a solid operating result in 2023. Cash R&D remained roughly at the prior year level, with EUR 2.1 billion. Due to revenue effects, the R&D ratio declined to 6.2%. Capitalization rates declined slightly, which is in line with the product life cycle. For the full year, we updated our guidance and now expect the R&D ratio to be slightly above the 6%-7% range. In absolute terms, we expect investments to peak in the next few years. CapEx increased by 46% to EUR 1.2 billion. This was driven by investments related to models close to the start of production. The ramp-up of the Audi FAW NEV Company in China alone accounts for roughly EUR 200 million. We are making good progress with this production site. In November 2022, the third phase of the construction was completed with the topping out ceremony. This year, we are proceeding with the equipment installation, and plan is to start pre-series production towards the end of the year. This essential capital expenditure burdens our net cash flow. Another cash flow effect comes from the increase in inventories. Inventories grew by 13% during the first six months, reaching EUR 9.4 billion. This was mostly due to new cars. The higher production rate is driven by underlying demand, combined with improved parts availability. We are also currently increasing our production, so we have enough cars in the pipeline leading up to the August holidays. Persistent global logistic delays contributed to inventory build-up as well. Reducing waiting times and fulfilling our order book is high on our list of priorities. We therefore require more cars in the pipeline to achieve this goal. An additional monetary increase came from the higher valuation of our inventories, as well as a higher share of BEVs, which has a higher bill of materials. Audi is optimistic about significantly reducing inventories towards the end of the year. We are actively working on measures to limit the impact of logistical issues, and our order book still indicates sufficient demand to sustain our growth in deliveries. The six months net cash flow declined by 27% to EUR 1.9 billion. Due to the lower operating results, cross-cash flow declined by 9%, and elevated CapEx level, as well as higher new car inventories, further burdened the net cash flow. Driven by higher wholesales, receivables grew moderately. An increase in payables, on the other hand, had a positive impact on working capital. Overall changes in working capital came to a - EUR 1.2 billion, remaining almost flat compared to the prior year. Another negative effect was due to changes in participation, such as acquisitions related to our Formula 1 engagement. The low net cash flow of EUR 172 million in the second quarter was driven mainly by higher tax payments, as well as by cash outflow for employee performance bonuses. In the remaining six months of 2023, we intend to reduce inventories, which alongside the operating performance, should be a main driver behind the net cash flow improvement. We reiterate our net cash flow guidance of EUR 4.5 billion-EUR 5.5 billion, but we are currently counting on reaching the lower end of the range. Looking at the brands, Bentley delivered 7,096 cars, which is 4.1% below the exceptionally strong prior year level. The revenue decline of 1.5% is driven by volumes, but at the same time, revenue per unit increased year-over-year due to the significant interest in Mulliner personalization, derivatives, and options uptake. The operating result was strong, with EUR 390 million. The corresponding return on sales reached 23.2%. For the full year, Bentley aims at coming close to the record profitability level we saw in 2022. Lamborghini deliveries grew by 5% in the first six months of 2023. The brand delivered 5,341 cars to customers. Revenue reached EUR 1.4 billion. Profitability in the first half of the year was once again impressive. Operating results increased by 7% to EUR 456 million. The operating return on sales surpassed the prior level, reaching 32.1%. The order book is exceptionally strong. Current models of Huracán and Urus are sold out until the end of production. The new Revuelto has over 24 months worth of orders, with market introduction planned for the end of this year. In 2023, we will see the usual seasonal fluctuation in the return on sales. For the full year, the Lamborghini brand plans to achieve a level of profitability roughly equal to the record prior year level. This will once again confirm Lamborghini as one of the leaders in the automotive luxury segment. With roughly 35,000 motorcycles, Ducati has achieved record deliveries to customers in the first half of 2023. The revenue increase of 22% was mostly driven by volume and mix. The brand's revenue reached EUR 633 million in the first six months. The increase in revenue per unit was due to the updated product range. Operating results grew by an impressive 70% to EUR 116 million. The corresponding margin reached 17.6%, which is 5 percentage points above the prior year. Just like Lamborghini, Ducati has a pronounced seasonal pattern. Last year, seasonality was impacted by the semiconductor supply. For the full year, the brand aims to achieve the prior year margin level. To wrap things up for 2023, here is the summary of our overall guidance. Despite the challenges we continue to face, we are aiming for strong volume growth and solid profitability. At the Capital Markets Day of the Volkswagen Group, the updated mid- and long-term targets were announced. By 2027, the Progressive Brand Group aims at an operating return on sales of around 12%. Building on the success of recent years, the Luxury brands should maintain their strong operating returns. The Audi brand looks to benefit from the improved product momentum, the scale effects of the BEV portfolio, consistent use of synergies within the VW Group, as well as efficient cost measures. With the BEV business model maturing and the SSP platform taking shape, a step up in return on sales is targeted towards the end of the decade. Our ambition is to reach a 14% operating return on sales for the Brand Group by 2030. China is an important pillar for Audi. As you might have read, we have made some major decisions to reach the next level in our biggest market. We have deepened partnerships with our long-term partners, FAW and SAIC. This supports the implementation of our In China, For China strategy. Together with FAW, we will complete the existing product portfolio for the new mobility era in the Chinese premium market. Furthermore, we will continue to strengthen our cooperation in production and further develop the sales organization for an optimized go-to-market. The Audi FAW NEV Company is on schedule. We will start production of PPE vehicles for China by end of the year 2024. At the same time, after the first two successful years of collaboration, we are strengthening our long-term commitment with SAIC. The jointly developed e-models will be equipped with state-of-the-art software and hardware, which provides Chinese customers with an intuitive, connected digital experience. The teams on all sides are now detailing the collaboration. Just like the whole industry, Audi is facing significant challenges: best transition, digitalization, decoupling of the global economy, and increased competition. Nevertheless, we are implementing measures to regain lost ground and to increase our lead in areas where we are already ahead. As Christian mentioned, at the end of 2023, we will begin to launch more and updated models than ever in the Audi history. 10 new models in 2024, and 20 new models by 2025, more than 10 of which are BEVs. We have laid the foundation to boost performance in China. Additionally, we have initiated the Performance Program 14. It will support our path towards 14% return on sales in 2030. The target of the program is to address risks we are facing and leverage the potentials we have, improve our pricing, focus on product profitability, further tap into new business models, and strengthening our after-sales businesses. We also look to further improve the resilience of our business by balancing our regional footprint and improvements in our fixed costs. The performance program will be up and running in autumn this year. The combination of these measures will no doubt put us in a strong position to boost the overall performance of the Audi Group moving forward. Thanks for listening, and now Christian and I are looking forward to your questions. Thanks, Jürgen. Thanks, Christian. Francie, we can now start the Q&A session. Yes, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Horst Schneider, Bank of America. Horst, please go ahead. Yeah, thank you so much for taking my questions. I have got a few, the first one is related to the outlook. I'm not sure if I got that right in your comments, that you aim for the lower end of the guidance range. I'm not sure if that was for net cash flow or operating margin. Maybe you can make the statement again or repeat that. Then the second one is then, when I look at the outlook for H2, Volkswagen said yesterday for the group, that basically Q3 should be potentially weaker because their production cuts, and they expect Q3 in total to be below the guidance range for the full year, and then a strong recovery in Q4. Should we assume the same also for Audi? That's another question. When I also look at your bridge, and you just showed that for H1, I calculate basically, that in Q2, you had a negative impact from volume markets, despite the revenues went up. I want to understand how the pricing has developed in Q2. Do we see here a negative price or negative mix impact? Because the volume leverage should be positive. Then sorry, the last one, I've got this time a little bit more questions, is we have got now a new management. We had already some press reports, what could change at Audi. The saying was that, "Less is more," so that there is a higher focus on the essential model launches and not on the non-core or rather, periphery model launches. You stressed in your speech again, that you are planning to launch 20 new models until 2025. Just want to understand if the model launch schedule should be again reviewed, or that more refers basically to the midterm perspective? Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Horst. I hope we got all the four questions right. The first one was about the outlook and the guidance. Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. Hello, Horst, thanks for your questions. You are right, the guidance, so the lower range for the guidance was regarding the net cash flow, EUR 4.5 billion-EUR 5.5 billion, and we are now expecting to be at the lower end. For return on sales, we expect to be within the range of 9%-11%. Outlook H2 sales figures, we expect to have a strong second half of the year. We know first half of the year, we have roughly 900 million, 900,000 cars. Our guidance for the whole year is still 1.8 million-1.9 million cars. You can see it's more or less on the same level than the first half of the year. Mix and price, maybe Christian? Yeah. So far... Hello, Horst, Christian speaking. Hello. First of all, we see stable pricing all over the world. We have done a lot of price measurements in the last few months and even years. So far, there is no planning to decrease prices. In some areas, of course, we work with tacticals, but that's on a low level. Actually right now, no big issues on the pricing side. Maybe I can add some points. Horst, we have a positive effect from volume, but on the other hand, we had a negative mix effect. Pricing is not really relevant, but we have again a negative effect from the evaluation of our residual values. You know, in the last year, we had a very positive effect here in the first half of the year, roughly EUR 500,000, EUR 500 million, and now we see the counter effect, and we have in the, especially in the second quarter, a negative effect here. How much was that? Can you disclose that? Hmm. Can you. roughly two, roughly EUR 200 million. Hmm, okay. Mm-hmm. Negative. Negative. Okay. The mix was negative as well. Can you... I don't know, that, that negative mix is coming from BEV, or is it coming from a higher sales share of smaller, less profitable vehicles? Exactly. You know, in the last year, we have, we are heavily burdened by the semiconductor supply situation. We therefore allocated most of the semiconductors to our high-margin cars. Now we have a significantly better supply situation, and we are now also producing more A segment and B segment vehicles. Okay. I would like to take, Christian again, the, the, the last question. As far as I understood, you, you want to know some information about our product offensive. To be very clear, we are really looking forward, not only on the OEM side, as well on the dealer side and on the customer side. Everybody is expecting that we are updating our actual model range, and it will be distributed and equally balanced over the next 2 years. Some of them are totally new models. You know about them, Q6 and A6, but we also have a lot of product improvements within our model range. Everybody is right now on the way to prepared. We are in close contact with our, with our dealer organization, because it is a common approach to bring the, the models into the market, and we are really confident that everything works in the right way. Maybe I can add one point, so the, the, the 20 new models include includes also facelifts and derivatives. It's not all new models, base models, it's also including derivatives and facelifts. How many new models would you say? Then I'm done as well. Sorry. Can you split it up between the 20, between new models and facelifts? Roughly 1/2 of them. Okay, great. Thank you. Of course, all the best for these model launches. We are all looking forward to it. Me too. We take the next question here, its Stephen Reitman from Société Générale. Stephen, please go ahead. Yes, good morning, and thank you for doing this call. As we're still some way away from your, your group equity story, it's very useful having these calls at least in the interim. I wanted to ask you, first of all, the, your Q4 e-tron has been one of the most in demand of the Volkswagen Group BEVs, and has had the longest delivery delays, people waiting the longest for these vehicles. Have you been able to exploit, maybe the, the issues that Volkswagen has been having with demand for its ID.4, where they've cut production a bit, to get reallocation of capacity for the Q4 e-tron? Could you also update us on the progress of your Q6 e-tron, the sister model and the Macan Electric, how is that now proceeding through the development to launch phase, please? Okay, Christian is speaking. I would like to take the first question, talking about the Audi Q4 e-tron. Actually, right now, we in the last month, we could really reduce our waiting times from around before nine months to right now, around four to five months, which is on a good track. On the other side, we are really looking forward on our, or we are very impressed about our huge order bank. Right now, we have more than 30,000 orders on our order bank, which gives us the confidence to fulfill the production. Luckily, based on the good production situation, and luckily based on the supply situation, because we have been heavily impacted by some special components, we could right now bring it in an equal balance. We have a good lead time for the customer, and on the other side, a appropriate order bank. Your second question regarding the Q6 launch. We are, at the moment, in the final phase of the development, and yes, it is challenging, especially on the, on the software side, but we are pretty confident that we can, have the start of production as planned, end of this year. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Stephen. I will pick the next one. The next one is Michael Tyndall from HSBC. Michael, please, the stage is yours. Hi there. Yeah, thanks for taking my question. It's a slightly left field one. I was looking through your, your data. Michael, could you go a little bit closer to the mic because you are, you are a little bit difficult to understand. One second. Sorry, one second. See if I can figure this out. Sorry. That's going to be better, I suspect. Yeah, sorry. Just it's a slightly left field question. I was looking through your data pack and noticed that the number of employees in your German plants has fallen by circa 5%, as has the number of apprentices. I just wonder if you could give us some backdrop to that. Because, I mean, given the growth that we've seen in volumes, it strikes me as slightly odd that the number of employees is actually going down. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Michael, for your question. I think our headcount on, on, on the Audi AG side, so especially for our German plants, Neckarsulm and also Ingolstadt, was down from 57 to 54,000 employees, if I have the right figures in front of me. Yep. It's roughly minus 30%. Yeah, of course, at the moment, you know, we are still, we have still burdens from the semiconductor situation. We are at the moment not on the full capacity line in our production sites at Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm, and therefore, we have adjusted also especially our direct workforce. Got it. Okay. Thanks, Mikey. Now it's time to take the next question. Just forget one point. Maybe I can add one point. This is also fully in line with our, you know, our program, Audi.Zukunft. We have planned to reduce our workforce by 9,000 employees and to invest 2,000 or 2,500 employees in new areas like digitalization. Thanks. On track. Thanks, Mikey. The next one I'll pick is the question from George Galliers from Goldman Sachs. George, please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Obviously, as we get closer to the Q6 e-tron launch, you have a strategy which is local for local, to produce locally for the car. Can I just ask, did you do the analysis on the potential to produce that car in China for shipment back to Europe? If you did, would there have been a notable cost advantage? Somewhat related, obviously, we're seeing an extremely competitive environment for battery electric vehicles in China today. Could the China plant be an export hub for other parts of Southeast Asia for that vehicle, and is that part of your plan? Thank you. Okay, George, it's about putting the local Q6 e-tron from China to the world, and maybe also to other region in the Southeast. That's, I would pass over to Jürgen. To your first question, we have, at the moment, we have planned to build the Q6 e-tron in two production sites. We will start the production in Ingolstadt end of this year, and then we are building our FAW NEV Company in China. Start of production in China is planned for end of 2024. There are no plans to deliver cars from our plant from China to other regions. I know we have a clear strategy In China, For China. I'm not sure if I get your second question. Maybe, maybe sort of related to that, Obviously, you have a clear strategy to produce in China for China, but it would there be an economic and business case to produce in China for export to other parts of the world, particularly if the pricing in the Chinese market is very competitive? Again, so far, there are no plans to export cars from China to other regions. Understood. Thank you. Thanks, George, and- Maybe I can add one point there. You have to take into account that the, the cars in, in China are produced in our joint ventures. And I think from a commercial perspective, we have more profit, to say, in, if we, if we produce the cars in our own factories. That's maybe also the reason that we don't plan to export any cars from China to other regions at the moment. Okay. Thanks, George, for your question. I'm looking on the question queue. There's already no question in our queue. This is the last chance for those who are fast to raise the last question. Yes, the next one comes from Arya from Barclays. Please, please go ahead. Hi, morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Firstly, could you maybe discuss the SAIC platform rationale in a bit more detail? You know, I think some investors are worried that this might potentially imply that the SSP is at, at risk of being potentially delayed or is perhaps not as competitive as you would have liked. So could you discuss that in a bit more detail, please? Secondly, when, when we look at the margin gap of the Audi brand to BMW and Mercedes, you know, it's still quite, quite large, and I think you mentioned, you know, your upcoming product momentum, more synergies with VW, the Performance Program. You know, maybe if you could discuss what you see as the most important steps to close that gap in the coming years. Thank you. Oh, thanks for your question, so I, I take the first one, regarding our cooperation with SAIC. First, first of all, our models based on MEB PPE, and in the future, also SSP, will continue to be the backbone of our electric offensive in China. At the moment, the Chinese EV market is growing fast, and there are more opportunities. Together with SAIC, we, we want to address new customer segments and new market segments, and that's the idea, to bring new models in segments where we aren't present at the moment. Okay, your second question, sorry, could you point it out once again? Because, we didn't get your, your second question right. Yeah, the second question was, what do you view as the most important, you know, levers you have to close the margin gap of the Audi brand to BMW and Mercedes? You know, I think you mentioned, you know, your product momentum and, you know, synergies with VW increasing. You know, if you could give us an overview of what you view as the most important steps to close that gap in the coming years. I think we have, we have opportunities, especially on the side of product profitability. We can use the synergies, the platform synergies within the group, especially with our new PPE platform, and then following by the SSP platform. I think that's the biggest lever that we have. Combined with scale effects, especially for the batteries, also using the synergies within the VW Group, coming from the PowerCo and also from CARIAD on the software side. Yeah, thanks for the question, and thanks for repeating the question. I would pick the next question here. It's once again, thanks for that, Horst Schneider, Bank of America. Horst, please go ahead. Yeah, thank you. If I have got the opportunity, of course, I want to ask more questions. The first question that I have that relates to hedge accounting. What I'm asking myself all the time: what happens if basically the hedge accounting gets implemented beginning of 2024? When we don't have any more these hedge losses, basically do get the raw material prices and freeze towards the end, and then you have got going forward continuously, then every month, a raw material price advantage that you basically book in the vehicle business, or is there a kind of reset beginning of 2024 that we could get a major positive effect? That's more technical question, number one. The number two is, basically, again, following up on the other question that I had related regarding to model launches, if anything is changing, changing, and you said no. Of course, we had a management change again at Audi now. CEO has been replaced. What do you think needs to change at Audi versus the previous strategy, that Audi is getting again on a better track? Is it just really execution from here, or you think there's also need for some more strategic change, and what could that be? Thank you. Thanks, Horst. To your first question, regarding hedge accounting, we will start gradually for new contracts to use hedge accounting. Step by step, you can say, phase in, phase out, and we will keep transparency for you to be able to adjust your figures. If you have more detailed questions regarding hedge accounting, then feel free to contact Robert. I think I need an hour's education for that, but I do that with Robert. Pretty complex, yeah. I will take the time, Horst. Thank you. Second question. I think our strategy is pretty good, yeah, and I'm really convinced that it's the right way forward, yeah. We are focusing now on execution, you are right, yeah, because it's now very important for us to bring especially the new models, the Q6 e-tron, followed by the A6 e-tron, onto the roads. That's, at the moment, our, yeah, main target for the next two years to successfully launch all these cars. Mm-hmm. You also stick to Formula 1 in these activities, right, going forward? Yes. Okay. Okay, all right. Clear statement. Thank you so much. All the best. Thank you, Horst. I will pick the next one. It's Stephen Reidman, Société Générale. Stephen, go ahead for your second attempt. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Yeah, this is a bit more also of a philosophical question, really, and that is, obviously, looking at the very strong margins that you're getting from the specialist brands, from Lamborghini and from Bentley, obviously, there's quite a... Even the gap is widening with these companies and with the Audi, I wouldn't call it a volume business, or with the premium business. Do you think that the, again, that these, the Progressive structure is, as it stands today, is the correct way of managing these businesses, given the very different volume and the market, sort of like outlooks and requirements of these brands, Audi on one side and, as I said, these, premium- these super premium luxury brands on the other side? Yeah. I think, yes, it, it, it is the right way to steer the, the brands and to work together with the brands, and I think those brands. I think the, the, the success in, in recent years is the best proof of concept. Especially to, to realize synergies between those brands, yeah, it's, it's, from my point of view, maybe the biggest success factor, yeah. The, the luxury brands can use the platforms from Audi, especially the, the BEV platforms in the future, but they can make luxury cars, let's say, based on premium platforms, yeah. For example, RS Q8, Urus and Bentayga are the best examples how to utilize these, these synergies within the, the Brand Group Progressive. Especially in the BEV business in the future, I think the, the synergies are even higher. Understood. Could you also just You mentioned about Lamborghini, that, obviously, you're, you're hinting towards that a significant reduction in the margins in the second half of the year in order to get to the sort of like the, the, the, the, sort of like the, the target range of the earnings. You mentioned that the vehicles are basically sold out, so what are the aspects that are going to be the drag on the margins in the second half of the year at Lamborghini, specifically, please? Normally, we see these, these, seasonal pattern at, at Lamborghini, and normally the second half is, is somewhat weaker than the first half of the year. It depends on the cost side, and also, the, the balance between 2023 and 2024. Normally, the brand, plans to have a quick start in the, in the following year, so that means on the one hand, or that, that means shifting some, some, sales from 2023 to 2024. Normally, that's the, the pattern in the, especially in the last quarter. I see. Thank you very much. In addition, maybe we are now starting at Lamborghini with the development of the fourth model line. Right. That's nice perspective. Thank you, Stephen, for your question. Now we came to the end of this Q&A session, and I would like to close this Q&A session. Thanks, Jürgen, thanks, Christian, for being with us and answering all these questions. Thank you very much for your time and joining us today. Should you have any follow-up questions, feel free to contact us at the Audi Investor Relations team, and we all wish you a nice weekend. Take care and bye-bye. Thank you, all together. Bye-bye. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you very much for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.