Aptiv PLC (NYSE:APTV) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Adam Jonas : Thanks, everybody. Kevin, I thought your answer to Rob answer, a question — there’s a bit of an echo. On the pulling back on the more conservative EV targets given your experience was really well done. I guess if I follow up on that if there was a scenario where your 2025, and then longer-term EVs assumptions were really dominated by Tesla and the Chinese, like I’m thinking 5% plus share of the EV market being those two regimes, would that be mix adverse for you? Or, Yes. I just kind of leave that open-ended, but just kind of think — curious how you would approach that level of concentration because there may be some scenarios where there’s a win or take most on these global platforms. And then I have a follow-up. Thanks.

Kevin Clark : Yes. I’m not going to talk about specific customers, Adam. I would say when you look at — our revenue mix by region were pretty balanced between North America, Europe, and China growth opportunities in China, I’d say on a relative basis, are more significant. So, from a funnel standpoint, any bookings opportunity standpoint, that is an area that we’re — we’re very focused on. Your comment on a winner take all. Our China high-voltage or BEV customers are very focused not only on the China market but increasingly regarding exports into other markets, which I think is a part of what you’re alluding to. China customers from a system standpoint tend to be more clients to buy a full system solution for us — from us. So, that tends to be a higher margin solution relative to selling component parts. So, I’m not sure if that’s a net benefit for us or just a net neutral.

Adam Jonas : Okay, Kevin. And either Kevin or Joe, on Motional, can you give us the latest update on the capital need there in terms of cash consumption? And then what have you got left in the tank before we need to put more in the kitty? Thanks.

Joe Massaro : Yes. Yes. No, Adam, no changes on that front since the last couple of quarters. They have cash through or at least into Q2 of next year, and continue to make progress on the technical and commercial side of things. And as we’ve said previously, probably not the most receptive capital market at this point. Obviously, our partner, Hyundai, and ourselves are looking at it. I had to call it today, I’d say the partners fund another year of operations. I haven’t made that decision yet, but that would be the most likely outcome. I think if we had to call it today, and they’re going through about $500 million, $550 million of cash per year. So, it would be a split of that.

Adam Jonas : Thanks, Joe thanks, Kevin.

Joe Massaro : Thank you.

Operator: We will take our next question from Dan Levy from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Dan Levy : Hi, good morning, and thank you, for taking the question. First, I wanted to just ask on commodities. It was — you noted it was a headwind in the quarter. Maybe you could just provide us, Joe, with a bit more color on what the drag in the quarter was related to? And more broadly, what are you seeing in semis? Is there — it sounds like the environment is getting better, it’s more stable. Is there any path to relief on the cost pressures that you saw in recent years in semiconductors?

Joe Massaro : So, two distinct questions there. Let me take commodities. For us, commodities is still mainly copper, sort of nothing — nothing’s changed over the last couple of years of that. We copper, we’re indexed to copper with our customers for the vast majority, 80% of our copper buy those prices get adjusted either quarterly or in some cases, semiannually, we have one customer or a large customer, we actually do monthly. So, all we’re dealing with there is really the lag. How much copper do we have in at a certain price before we can pass it along or before we can, in this case, increase the prices. So, you wind up with that lag every once in a while. And copper tends to be more of a margin rate impact in margin dollars.

As it relates to semi, we’ve obviously passed along the price increases that we have received to date. We’ve been sort of direct a chip goes up, we pass that cost along to our customers. We will continue to do that as if and when we see additional inflation coming in the year. I would tell you at this point, don’t see any indications of chip prices coming down. And I think if you look at least in some of the chip folks that are — have a large automotive presence, I think they’ve been sort of echoing that, at least the potential to hold or maybe even go up in some of their public comments. So, we remain vigilant. We would expect to pass additional price increases through to our customers, but certainly don’t see any downside on those prices at this point.

Dan Levy : Okay. Thank you. And then just a related question. If we zoom out and look at the last few years, obviously, the results have been dragged by all the material inflation headwinds, largely semiconductors. And I assume that when you’re booking your bookings that pricing is based on the commodity or input cost outlook at that time, and obviously, it’s progressed to be a bit tougher since then. So, what steps are you taking to ensure that — as your backlog rolls on, as that becomes revenue and launches that you’re going to get the appropriate pricing to ensure that the margins are in line with what you’d like them to be as opposed to being dragged maybe by an input cost outlook from a prior time.

Joe Massaro : So, Dan, we’ve talked about this a couple of times before. So, the renegotiation on price with customers covered in-process products, right, products that were being manufactured and things that were near launch, call it, within sort of 12 months plus to launch. For programs that are longer further out from a start date perspective, we have the opportunity, and we’ve done this even before semiconductors prices have gone up typically, before we really start to put capital on the ground, right, you got a sort of a two-year to three-year window before program start, there are various touch point customers around the economics of the program. Customers need that. We want that. Suppliers want that. Those tended historically to have been around volumes, right?