Good morning everyone and welcome to TRATON's Q3 2025 results conference call. My name is Ursula Kroeber-Riel and I am Head of Investor Relations at TRATON SE. With me on the call today is Christian Levin, our CEO who's dialed in from Sweden. Dr. Michael Jackstein, our CFO and CHRO, is here with me in Munich. Christian will start today's presentation with some introductory remarks and will present the key results and highlights of the third quarter. Michael will then guide you through the financial performance and outlook in more detail. As always, we will conclude the call with a Q& A session open to financial analysts, investors, and media representatives. You may already queue for questions during the presentation by pressing the blue Q& A button in the webcast and following the instructions.
Please note that this call, including the Q& A session, will be recorded and a replay will be made available on our website later today. You can find our nine months interim statement, which we published this morning, and the slides to this call on our IR website. Before we start, let me remind you of the disclaimer with respect to forward-looking statements on page three of our presentation and with that I hand it over to Christian.
Excellent. Thank you very much, Ursula. Welcome also from my side, everyone. The third quarter was marked by significant challenges, including the political unrest and regulatory changes in trade and emissions, leading to some customer hesitancy across all our core markets, but especially in the United States. Despite these setbacks, we remain firmly committed to our growth strategy, which we, as many of you remember, outlined at our 2024 Capital Markets Day. International is an iconic American company with a very strong brand and with an enhanced product offering. It is really ready for the next chapter. Just two weeks ago, I hosted the opening celebration of Scania's new industrial hub in Rugao, China. That installation is much more than a factory. It's a strategic, complete innovation and industrial hub.
It produces Scania trucks to start with, but serves all of TRATON brands and adds features to the TRATON Modular System. Meanwhile, our newly established centralized Group R&D organization is working towards launching MAN’s connected trucks with a lot of communality in the EE architecture, in chassis, and on cabs, building on what will be TRATON Modular Systems at the end of this decade. This is a crucial part of our future efficiencies and bringing faster innovation to the market. Today's figures will show that our strong and expanding services and solutions portfolio is vital for customer loyalty and for the resilience of our business. At our Bankers Day on October 8th, the CEO Matsuko Nesson of TRATON Financial Services presented how we are delivering on our growth plan, with real success stories emerging from the financial services business.
On several occasions during the quarter, we advocated for EU policy actions. Our focus is on the enabling conditions for faster adoption of electric commercial vehicles, staying true to our sustainability mission. Yes, the transformation comes with high investments and challenges, but I remain confident in our company, in our people, and in our future together. Let's move to the next slide. I also want to express our confidence in delivering on this year's guidance despite the ongoing North American market uncertainty and the Section 232 proclamation. Let me walk you through the key figures on this slide. First, unit sales were down 16% to 71,400 units in Q3. That's seasonally weak, but the decline was driven solely by North America and Brazil.
In fact, both Scania and MAN delivered growing unit sales in Europe and with intensified sales efforts, the year-end rally is underway to finish the year with a strong Q4. In terms of sales revenues, we were down 12% to EUR 10.4 billion in Q3, while our services business provided solid support. Also, thanks to a favorable product and regional mix, our revenue performance held up better, as you can see with the -1 2% versus the - 16% that our unit sales number suggested. The margin, though, is suffering. The adjusted return on sales declined by 3.2 percentage points to 6.4%, which is mainly due to lower volumes and under-absorption in fixed cost. That said, we have taken several steps to manage costs better, like postponing projects, reviewing our IT spend, implementing hiring freezes, and of course reducing production capacity.
Net cash flow at trade and operations level remains at low levels. If we look at the nine-month level, we are slightly positive at EUR 28 million, so there is definitely some catching up to do in the fourth quarter. As most of you know and as we have always said, cash flow is back-end loaded. Earnings per share, of course, also declined much in line with the operating result and the last figure on this slide. The incoming orders, like in the previous quarters, ordering momentum has leveled out in Europe. In Q3, while the European order income was still up 21% year- to- date, it dropped 5% sequentially compared to Q2, which to at least some extent is a summary effect. However, we saw a mixed picture. Scania actually saw European orders pick up sequentially, whereas MAN experienced a downturn trend due to Q3.
Finally, the weak markets in North America and Brazil led to the overall decline of order intake by 3% and to the figure you see here on the slide, 62,500 units. However, the current order book, our inventories, and our production pace should be strong enough to support the year-end sales push that I mentioned earlier. Delivering on our promised financials and on our equity story will only work if we keep investing into our future. In my introduction, I also mentioned our Scania China plant opening on the 15th of October. The total investment into this new production hub will amount to around EUR 2 billion. It gives us access to the world's largest commercial vehicle market and substantially shortens our lead times to key Asian export markets.
By being in China, we also get access to the new technical capabilities that make us stronger all over the world in areas such as electrification, digitalization, automation, and connectivity. We also strengthen our regional supply chains and thereby increase our resilience. The production plant will be running on 100% renewable energy, supporting our decarbonization strategy for both scope one and for scope two. Two complementary commercial offerings were revealed at the launch. I mentioned earlier Scania with its global premium solutions that can be customized for all demanding applications for both tractors and chassis, and we had a preview of the next era, which is a tractor with a more limited specification range and specially developed for China's volume long haulage segment. Production just about started, and we're aiming to come up towards 1,000 Scania trucks by the end of this year.
Of course, the proof of the pudding, the real ramp-up, starts in 2026. The next highlight of the quarter features MAN and our participation in the Bus World Europe Exhibition in Brussels at the beginning of October. This year, the spotlight was on MAN’s very first fully electric long-distance coach, and I'm very proud to say that it won the Sustainability Bus of the Year 2026 award, which is not all. Our innovations in safety and digitalization were also recognized, and our MAN received the Digital Bus World award for its Safe Stop Assist system. These achievements really show how, across all our brands, we're committed to leading the transformation to sustainable mobility through electrification. Smart technology also characterizes the third highlight on this page. In September, International launched real-world fleet trials of its second-generation autonomous tractors in the state of Texas.
The trials are conducted in partnership with Plus AI, and the vehicles incorporate AI software developed by Plus. They also feature multimodal sensors for safe autonomous operation. To support this initiative, International has also established an autonomous hub in San Antonio to collaborate with fleet customers and speed up the adoption of autonomous technologies in real-world logistics operations. Volkswagen Truck & Bus is always committed to enhancing its offering both in terms of sustainability and efficiency. With the recent launch of TRATON Financial Services Brazil, we can now also provide tailored financing solutions to support customers and dealers locally. I'm super proud to share that just three months into operations, Banco TRATON Brazil earned a AAA rating from the local Moody's agency, reflecting the high standing of our commercial vehicle finance offering. Let's look at our BEV progress.
I spoke earlier about our efforts to advocate for battery electric vehicle growth in Europe's commercial vehicle sector, and a key moment in that sense was the Heavy Duty Vehicles Roundtable, a very focused discussion on the EU Commission level where only the commercial vehicle OEMs and infrastructure operators were present. This took place just a day before the broader automotive strategic dialogue with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, where we of course also participated. Our industry needs and our customer industry in the transport logistics sector needs incentives such as tax breaks, toll exemptions, and low emission zones. More charging stations require investments and investments are needed in grid upgrades. We also need faster homologation and certification processes for new BEV variants. All of this would give us planning certainty and boost innovation in our industry.
Year- to- date September, TRATON's European battery electric vehicle sales ratio is approaching the 2% mark. This is not even close to where we need to be to meet the EU's CO2 reduction targets. If we look globally, we sold around 2,100 BEVs in the first nine months up until September, which is an increase of 83% year- over- year, which only corresponds to a global battery electric vehicle sales ratio of 1%. In fact, regulatory changes in the U.S. have impacted our sales in this region and we cannot expect our ratio to rise there soon. Also because of this, we decided to discontinue a specific battery electric vehicle development project for the region. Demand simply isn't there right now. Let me be crystal clear, we have not abandoned the market. We are convinced that total cost of ownership parity will come also in the North American region.
At the same time in China, adoption of e-mobility in the trucking industry is racing ahead. In Europe, we find ourselves in the middle searching for the clear path forward. Nevertheless, in TRATON we stay focused, we adapt, and we continue to push further sustainable transformation in our sector. Okay, let's turn to page number nine with the good news that both European order intake and deliveries were up by around 20% year- over- year in Q3. Starting on Europe, the growth in unit sales was strongly driven by an outstanding performance of the bus sales at MAN. Also, van sales strongly supported the growth. At the same time, the European truck market remained subdued, with some encouraging signs. Truck registrations were gradually improving.
In September alone, we saw an increase by 13%, which brought the year-to-date number up to - 11% from the - 16% it was standing at by the end of June. At TRATON, we reported a 7% year- over- year increase in truck deliveries in Q3. While the absolute number was lower than the previous quarter, it still reflects a resilient demand base. In contrast to the deliveries, the European order intake was mainly driven by trucks. Here, the order intake rose 24% year- over- year. However, we must note that the quarterly momentum is slowing, especially in Germany. In Q2, our truck order intake in Europe was up 44%, in Q1 by 62%. Turning to North America, the picture is very challenging. We saw a sharp decline in our deliveries, particularly in trucks, which fell by 64% year- over- year.
This drop was amplified by a negative base effect following, if you remember, the resolution of the mirror supply problem that we had, which inflated our Q3 2024 figures. Incoming orders also reflected this weakness in our truck market, with truck orders down 30%, while September brought a strong improvement. There is additional uncertainty now after the Section 232 announcement. To finalize with South America, the downturn is less pronounced. Truck deliveries declined by 9% in Q3 and incoming orders fell by 5%. Brazil remains the primary driver of the decline as economic headwinds and policy uncertainty weigh on fleet investments. One region where we experience an encouraging performance and two regions where we could say, not as good performance. Let's have a look at the overall market performance on the next page. As usual with our Q3 results, we present the refined outlook range for our core regions.
Start again with Europe. 27 +3. As of September, truck registrations above 6 tonnes reached 247,000 units. As mentioned before, that corresponds to an 11% drop. Looking ahead to the full year 2025, we expect registrations to end up somewhere between 320,000 and 340,000 trucks, which means a year-over-year decline of around 10% or in the range of 12.5%- 7.5%. I know that there's a lot of interest in where we go from here. We will be publishing our market outlook for 2026 in March next year. Let me say this much. The recent demand signals, the planned infrastructure investments in Europe, and the push towards regionalization suggest that a slightly growing truck market is the most likely outcome for 2026. Let's turn to North America. In July, we shared a reduced outlook for the Class 8 truck market.
We stick to it, but we narrowed down the forecast to a decline in the range of - 15% to -1 0%, while the midpoint level remains at -1 2.5%. We have adjusted our expectations for Class 8 to a bit lower, to 272,000 units. We're seeing a bit more resilience in the medium-duty truck development. At the end of September, Class 8 retail sales in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico reached 200,000, representing a year-over-year decline of 12%. There is quite some catching up needed before reaching year end. Here, we need to consider that there is still a high level of dealer inventory, which is expected to meet retail demand. Prospects for 2026 in the North American truck market remain highly uncertain. Supportive business policies such as deregulation and tax incentives could encourage growth. Ongoing concern around the impact of tariffs has a negative impact.
The unclear scope and timeline of the EPA 27 emission regulations further adds uncertainty. Finally, in South America, year-to-date truck registrations above 6 tonnes at the end of September stood at 131,000 units, which represents a year-over-year increase of 6%. Due to the strong divergence between market development in Brazil and the rest of the continent, we decided to maintain the original larger outlook range for the South American market, which forecasts registrations to come in between - 5% and +5 % in 2025 compared to last year. Given the ongoing political and economic uncertainties in several South American countries, including Brazil, we see no real growth prospect in this region for 2026. Before I hand it over to Michael, let me just reaffirm that despite the current market headwinds, our commitment to the transformation to sustainable growth and to partnership with our customers keeps us firmly on track.
Michael, over to you.
Yes, thank you very much Christian, and as always, warm welcome from my side as well. Starting with the top line of our Q3 results on Slide 12. As already mentioned, our unit sales declined by -16% in the third quarter. This was mainly due to a sharp drop in North American volumes, with the freight recession and tariff-related uncertainty significantly impacting demand. Additionally, negative base effects played a role, including the resolution of the mirror supply issue at International in Q3 2024 and the Pre Buy in 2024 in Mexico ahead of the Euro 6 introduction. At the same time, we saw strong growth in European unit sales, which were up +20% for the quarter, led by strong bus deliveries. This was not enough to offset the downturn in North America.
In South America, the ongoing decline in the Brazilian truck market continued to weigh on our unit sales, affecting both Scania and more recently also Volkswagen Truck & Bus. However, this was partly offset by healthier performance in other South American markets such as Peru, Chile, Colombia, and by a continued strength in bus deliveries. Group sales revenue fell by EUR 1.4 billion, representing a -12% decline. As shown in the right-hand graph, the decline was less pronounced than in unit sales, largely because of a favorable product and regional mix. Moreover, our solid vehicle services business helped absorb some of the decline in new vehicle sales, and trade and financial services, thanks to the successful ramp-up strategy, supported the group revenue development with a year-over-year revenue increase by 10%.
Turning to the bottom line of our results on the next page, our adjusted operating result for Q3 decreased by -41% year- over- year, outweighing the decline in revenue. Clearly, the most important factor impacting our profitability was the decline in unit sales, with lower volumes leading to reduced fixed cost absorption across our production network. Customer and market mix effects also had a negative impact on the operating result. Additional negative effects came from ongoing foreign currency headwinds. Like in the previous quarters, we felt cost impacts from the China project. However, with the opening of the production facility, direct construction-related expenses should fade out in Q1 next year. Last but not least, higher direct and indirect tariff costs in the U.S. market are adding to our overall cost. Together, these factors contributed to the decrease in our Q3 margin.
The adjusted return on sales dropped by 3.2 percentage points to 6.4%. On a more positive note, some of our recently initiated cost measures are now taking effect, influencing the sequential development of our quarterly RS. Additionally, the sequential recovery in Scania's margin has provided support. For the first nine months, our adjusted RS stood at 6.3%, which is well within our guidance range. Let me remind you that the challenges just mentioned will persist in the fourth quarter. In particular, tariff-related costs are projected to rise. To provide full transparency, the adjustments to our operating result are higher than last year's Q3. This is mainly due to the write-off of a BEV development project at International as well as increased restructuring activities at Scania. Before we move to our usual brand and segment overview, let me briefly explain our updated segment reporting structure.
This comes into effect now that the carve-out of major parts of the brand's R&D development has been completed and the new centralized Group R&D organization is operational. Previously, until the end of June 2025, cross-brand R&D projects were led by a single brand, most often Scania. For example, Scania led the development of the common base engine. The associated R&D expenses were substantially charged to the other brands through license fees during the use phase of the products. This legal entity view, as we call it, is illustrated on the left-hand side on this slide from 1st of July. Such cross-brand R&D projects are now executed and recorded centrally by the new R&D organization. The cost of this development work is then allocated to the participating brands based on a predefined mechanism.
This leads to the so-called Management View, which is depicted on the right-hand side and shows how we will report from now on. In principle, you will receive the same kind of segment transparency as before in the restated figures. On the next slide, you will see the effects of the new way of cost allocation starting with the restatement of Scania on the left. Let me focus on the third quarter numbers shown by the lower bars in the chart. Taking this year's Management View, you can see that Scania delivered an adjusted operating result of EUR 468 million in the third quarter of 2025. That's a margin of 11.1%. If the centralized Group R&D organization had already been operational last year with the same kind of cost allocation, Scania's Q3 2024 adjusted operating profit would have been EUR 618 million.
This translates into a 14.7% margin according to the Management view, slightly above the reported margin at that time of 14.0%. The reason for last year's lower margin under the legal view was because Scania carried a greater share of TRATON Modular System (TMS) development costs than other brands. The new Management view reporting comes at the right time as R&D activities for TMS are ramping up. Now let's turn to MAN. If we had applied the Management view already last year, MAN's third quarter adjusted operating result would have been lower at EUR 160 million with a margin of 5.3%. The reported legal view at that time showed a slightly higher margin of 5.6%. International saw a similar effect in Management view. Last year's Q3 margin would have been 10.3%, not 10.7%. I hope that this clarifies the new segment management.
You can find more details with restated brand figures in the backup section of our Q3 results presentation. Before I pass to the next slide, one more important information on TRATON Operations level. The brand restatement effects are eliminated so Management view and legal view are the same. Having said that, let's move on to the next slide. In the third quarter of 2025, TRATON Operations achieved a margin or an adjusted return on sales of 7.4%, 3.3 percentage points lower year- over- year. All brands contributed to that margin decline. The deltas versus last year on the slide are based on the restated Management view. Starting with Scania, Scania generated a year- over- year stable revenue development with a 3.6 percentage point lower adjusted return on sales of 11.1%. Compared to Q2 where the Management view adjusted ROS was at 9.8%, Scania is back to a double-digit margin.
I already mentioned Scania's positive margin effects such as a supportive vehicle services business, cost containment measures and capacity reductions, and negative margin effects such as the China Project and currency headwinds. Let's have a closer look at MAN. In Q3, MAN impressed with a significant increase in sales revenue by 11% driven by a strong momentum in the bus and van segments. Bus revenue actually more than doubled compared to last year. Now that the regulatory software issues have been resolved, vans rose by more than 50%. However, on the truck side, revenue decreased by 3% where especially the German truck business contributed less. Despite these positive developments, MAN's margin felt some pressure mainly due to the product and regional mix. On top of that, production costs went up because of lower capacity utilization and higher labor costs.
Please note, last year MAN used short time work to manage the declining demand. On a positive note, the vehicle services business helps offset some of these headwinds and not to forget MAN's ongoing cost management measures. Turning then to International, here the third quarter sales revenue was sharply down by -49% mainly due to trucks. Don't forget that Q3 of 2024 saw a strong revenue catch up following the previous mirror supply issue. The weak market environment also comes with a decline in International service business. In addition to the top line pressures, tariff costs are increasingly taking effect, also with suppliers now passing on higher costs. In Q3, the incremental tariff costs amounted to around $30 million. This together with low capacity utilization led to poor fixed cost absorption with International's manufacturing operations.
As a result, the margin came under more pressure so the Q3 adjusted return on sales was at 0.8%. Looking ahead to Q4, the full run rate of 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as additional reciprocal tariffs will now impact International and Section 232 tariffs will lead to further margin pressure. However, we expect to reduce the Section 232 tariff impact through offsets and U.S. content. Next brand is Volkswagen Truck & Bus. As in the second quarter, sales revenue declined in Q3 by -10% reflecting the ongoing challenges in the Brazilian economy and truck market. Despite this and higher product costs and currency headwinds, Volkswagen Truck & Bus achieved high 11.3% margin thanks to its flexible production system. Last segment on this slide is TRATON Financial Services. TRATON Financial Services delivered a 10% revenue increase in the third quarter on the back of a growing portfolio.
This portfolio growth mainly stems from the solid and continued performance of Scania Financial Services, while MAN Financial Services showed strong momentum as they scale up their operations. Additionally, following the start of operations in July, the TRATON Financial Services setup for Volkswagen Truck & Bus in Brazil also contributed to the portfolio growth. That said, as we continue to ramp up these operations, higher costs are weighing on our results. Consequently, the Q3 return on equity stood at 9.1% in Q3, which is 1.9 percentage points lower year- over- year. Turning now to the cash flow and our balance sheet position, over the first nine months of 2025, trade and operations generated a net cash flow of EUR 28 million. This is significantly less than last year, mainly due to the business and market challenges we discussed earlier which have put pressure on our profitability.
A build up in working capital of EUR 1.3 billion also weighed on our nine month cash flow alongside our significant investment activities. When factoring in our dividend payout in May and other negative cash flow impacts, our industrial net debt position, including corporate items, increased by EUR 1.7 billion in the nine months compared to the year end 2024. Unfortunately, we also foresee an increasing net debt on a full year basis. Nevertheless, we remain committed to our net debt zero target towards the end of this decade. On the financing side, we have access to a variety of public and private funding sources. Additionally, as announced yesterday, we now also have a green finance framework in place. This new framework is specifically designed to support investments in battery electric mobility. Now let's move to our final slide which covers our guidance.
As Christian mentioned in his introduction, we are confirming our outlook in July. As you recall, we had revised the outlook downward to reflect greater than expected customer hesitancy driven by the challenging market conditions and ongoing uncertainty around U.S. tariff policies. Even now that the Section 232 tariffs have been published, the uncertainty continues, it may take several months before the full impact is understood. The implementation of these tariffs and offsets will be crucial to define compliance strategies and evaluate ways to mitigate costs. Also, the mandatory review of the USMCA could introduce further changes and renewed uncertainty towards the end of next year. For this year, we believe we can manage the additional tariff costs expected in the fourth quarter, including additional Section 232 tariffs.
To a certain extent, however, this means that we are targeting the lower end of our guidance ranges at least for adjusted return on sales and net cash flow. The adjusted return on sales for the TRATON Group at 6% and for TRATON operations at 7%, and TRATON operations net cash flow at EUR 1 billion. For the unit sales and sales revenue outlook, we maintain the guided range of -10% to 0%. With that, I hand it over back to you, Ursula, to moderate our Q&A session.
Thank you, Christian and Michael. Before we start with the Q&A session, let me remind you that you need to press the blue Q&A button on the webcast and follow the instructions if you want to ask a question. You will see confirmation that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may press cancel. You can ask your question after I announce your name and you are live. Now let us take the first question, which comes from Daniela Costa. Daniela, please.
Hi, good morning. Is that working? You can hear me?
Yeah, we hear you.
Perfect, thank you. I just wanted to ask some short term questions regarding the tariffs and then one more longer term question. In terms of what you commented on the guidance on passing through Section 232 to some extent, can you. Does that mean you would rule out going loss making in International this in the fourth quarter and how you commented that you could offset with more U.S. content? I'm just looking into 2026. What can you do to have more U.S. content given, if I understand correctly, Class 8, you export entirely from Mexico. What are the levels offset that you can do? I'll ask the longer term question after this.
Yeah, thank you Daniela. Maybe I can start to kick it off. I can answer super short and put a little bit meat around the bone to your first question. No, I cannot rule out that we end up in a loss making situation. That candid direct answer. What do we do to offset this? To some extent we move production here regarding the medium duty and the vocational segment to the U.S. There are some things that can. If I'm not that short in my answer, then I can give you a little bit more content as I indicated. When we talk about tariffs, you recall that we worked with some surcharges and what we can say when we start in the second quarter this year, we were able based on these surcharges to offset tariff costs.
When we now look into the third quarter, we still work with surcharges, but because we had the tariff also regarding steel and aluminum kicking in with 50%, we were able to, let's say, offset a significant amount, but we were not able to offset tariffs to the full extent in the third quarter. Now when we move and look ahead towards the fourth quarter, of course the tariffs on steel, aluminum, they remain. We have reciprocal tariffs in addition that affect us regarding imports coming from, for example, India and Brazil. We have the further margin pressure which is linked to the Section 232 tariffs where we expect that we have an effect somewhat in the mid double digit range. This is what we anticipate to give you a little bit more content around your question.
Coming back, we are working heavily to offset this in the best possible way. I cannot rule out that in the end there is no black zero at this point in time. Looking at you Christian, if you want to add something or Daniela if you want to as the more long term related question.
Yes, just to make sure I understood one thing. You mentioned sort of Q4 incremental impact, Section 232, mid double-digit cost range. If we think about an annualized value, we should just multiply that by four and that gives us an idea of what an annualized value is. Is that fair to say?
You have like this, you have some sort of the cost effect. Of course, many things come into play. The one aspect is that we work with a different surcharge taking that into account. We have just announced the new surcharge a couple of days ago. Just to give you an idea here, for the heavy-duty surcharge, it was on a level of $3,200. Now we moved it up to $9,500. For the medium-duty surcharge, it was $2,000 and now we moved it up to a level of $7,000. There are the surcharges and then there are a couple of things that we have to look into in the next couple of weeks and months.
Very clear. The longer term one was just regarding autonomous, I saw in the slide you mentioned sort of the collaboration with Plus AI. I think overnight Aurora was talking about buying some International trucks as well. Can you kind of explain the differences and sort of what's the timeline of autonomous commercialization for you?
Yeah, Kristian, I.
Can.
We hear you, Christian. Now we don't hear you. Before, we heard you.
Okay, sorry, I touched the wrong button. How hard can it be? Yeah, on autonomous. The bigger picture is that we're shifting gradually our efforts over towards the U.S. I think we've said before that we're working on a common autonomous ready-based vehicle. We're working on a sensor set and a computer and a software that is independent of region and brand, and then we bring it to be finalized into that region, whether that then be the U.S., Europe, or China. We are seeing very good legal framework in the U.S., as everyone in the industry and especially in the southern parts of the U.S. It makes a lot of sense to focus more of our efforts right now to get autonomous trucks on the market. It's still in development phase. It's not ready for commercialization.
When we say real world test, it means that we go in together with customers, transporters who actually do transport, but we still operate with a safety driver on board. Software is partly produced in-house and partly done by Plus, former Plus now called Plus AI again, which is good. We are here learning from each other and we're coming faster towards market. We've talked so many times about when is this really going to be a driver-out commercial solution. I will not give you a date. I can only say that that time will come and it's getting closer. I hope that answered your question.
Yeah. Just regarding Aurora, they're just a buyer of your trucks. There's no specific.
Yeah, we have no partnership with Aurora. We're solely working with Plus AI at this point.
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you, Daniela. The next question comes from Alexander Jones from Bank of America.
Great, thanks very much for taking my questions. If I can follow up quickly. First on Daniela's question on tariffs, you talked about this mid double digit in Q4, I guess into 2026. Do I understand correctly? The one offset to that on the positive side is surcharges going up.
Clearly, the other side, you'll.
Have more than two months of impact from Section 232 and have worked down inventories. If you could give us any color on sort of the net effect of that as we try and annualize that into 2026, that would be helpful. The second question just on Chinese costs.
I think you talked about direct costs.
Coming down from Q1 onwards. I understand there's a little bit of phasing between Q3 and Q4. Can you just help us understand how we think about that in Q4? Thank you.
Michael, you want to start with Section 232?
I can start with that. I would like to ask you a little bit for your understanding, coming back to what I said during the presentation that we have to some extent more clarity regarding the Section 232 tariffs. Based on the proclamation that is out now for roughly one and a half weeks, before that we had basically just the pure announcement of the tariffs. We have a better understanding, but there are obviously various constituents in this Section 232 proclamation as far as we know it right now. For example, USMCA compliant trucks will only be subject to tariffs on the value of non-U.S. content in the vehicle. For USMCA compliant parts, the tariffs will not apply immediately, but there is an exemption linked to the Secretary of Commerce.
There is some sort of an offset program which is linked to the value of all trucks assembled domestically between 2025 and 2030. We are looking into this right now. Coming back to the word uncertainty during the presentation, there are still some unknowns. We are looking into various options and calculations. What we can grab at this point in time is the potential impact that we foresee in Q4 this year. This is why we want to give you here an understanding of the impact, as I mentioned, with the mid double-digit figure. There is really the question mark what the impact of next year is going to be. I would not simply multiply the impact from Q4 times four into next year. From my point of view, that would be oversimplified.
This is why you hear me talking a little bit careful about this and giving you some of the constituents that we are really looking into. I would say it's quite obvious that there is a substantial impact next year, certainly in the triple-digit range. I would be really hesitant at this point in time because we are really looking into various options and possibilities and calculations right now. Also, we have to get a better understanding here with the administration. At this point in time, I believe like when the tariffs were announced the first time, if we shoot out a number that can only be wrong at this point in time.
Thank you. We have the question on the China margin impact. Michael, do you want to start with the financial perspective, and maybe Christian, you want to add a bit on what's really happening over there?
Yes, happy to start. Also here linked to what we have said in previous calls, if we look at our China investment then the total amount of investment is around EUR 2 billion. For CapEx and R&D we said that roughly half of that, roughly EUR 1 billion, we have spent in 2024. Most of the rest, you can say almost the other EUR 1 billion, will be spent until the end of this year while half of this will be directly expensed, and then we see that there are some small minor shifts possible into 2026. It's quite clear with the planned opening that took place as Christian was into with the inauguration just two weeks ago, the construction-related expenses are fading out clearly here in the first quarter, 2026.
Yeah, if I continue, Christian here. First of all, let me support Michael a bit here on the tariff question. I think you don't need to excuse yourself. It's an absolutely impossible situation to give a firm answer on. Not only are the prerequisites clear, but also there is an element of negotiation which we're fully engaged in as all OEMs. Everyone is there, of course, trying to get the best outcome depending on their geographic footprint. It's quite an awful situation, to tell you the truth. Not at all what you would like to see to give a forecast here of the outlook. We work with scenarios; I suggest you do the same. It's absolutely impossible to give an outlook, especially for 2026 on China. Yeah, it was a fantastic week. Two weeks ago, we had more than 3,000 customers on spot.
We, of course, launched the factory, but as I said in the beginning here, this is much more than a factory. This is a complete value chain. We go much deeper into R&D, into sourcing, meaning that we can take down risk in our supply chain, meaning that we can leverage Chinese innovations. Of course, we will start by doing that through the new product, the next era that we just showed very briefly because it's still not available, but that is where we can incorporate a lot of Chinese technology and target especially the Chinese market.
Very good feedback from customers, and of course, it's exciting to see the first orders flowing in now from Chinese customers but also from the bigger Asian region, where we gain so much lead time and can shift our business model to the normal Scania model, which is delivering customer-specific trucks with short lead times. Michael was into the figures there. Just to complement a little bit, we have been cautious in our approach. We have been taking a lot as cost, meaning that we don't burden the balance sheet more than what is, of course, the machinery, equipment, and buildings, which will be written off over many, many years. Said that, we should, of course, realize that this is a huge capacity buildup. We will not fill this in the f irst couple of years.
We're aiming up towards 1,000 trucks this year, as I said, but we also aim at 10,000 trucks next year. The facility is built for 45,000 currently. Of course, it's going to be a couple of tough years ahead where profitability will, of course, be impacted depending how the volumes are going. It's a long-term investment. We do it to be part of the world's biggest market. We do it to be part of a very fast-growing technology cluster. We do it to create resilience for markets and access to markets where China is the dominating trade partner. We do it, of course, to gain scale and gain volume. It's a big capacity buildup for us. We're adding on another product line, which we will be proud to talk more about during the first quarter of next year, 2026.
I hope that gave some more flavor to the China topic as well.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Christian. We have the next question comes from Karl Bolquist from ABG Sundal.
Thank you. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Very good. It's just a question on the TMS rollout and what you're talking about here in terms of R&D efforts. The first one just has the rollout of the TMS and the milestones in that program been affected at all by the recent geopolitical turmoil. The second one then would be how we should potentially think about the benefits on the cost side from this program.
Yeah. Christian, do you want to start with the first one, and then Michael continues with the cost?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
It is not getting any easier to run a global R&D organization with the colleagues sitting in different geographies when there's more and more export control issues coming on the table and other limitations that are actually targeting not going global. It's not getting easier. At the same time, it's of course a tremendous advantage that we have presence in all the main regions of the world now, including China and the U.S. of course. If you ask about impact in terms of time frame or impacts in terms of cost, no, not so. We are on target in this big project for everything that we're set up out to do. It's a long-term project, as we said, we're targeting towards the end of this decade. There is of course a lot of time and a lot of effort that needs to be spent and a lot of thinking happens.
We knew that when we have experience from running these big projects before, but so far it looks really, really good and we continue to prepare for a difficult environment in terms of export control, et cetera. I hand to you, Michael, for financial view on this.
Yes, thanks Christian. Thanks for the question, Karl. What I can say is that we are aiming for 25% efficiency here using the TRATON Modular System. Where is this efficiency coming from? To try to explain it in a simple way, you can say that before we took the decision to go for the TRATON Modular System, we basically developed a chassis, a cab, two or even three or four times. Not only the cab and the chassis, also the electric electronic architecture and our common-based engine is the, let's say, only common product that is on the road so far. I would say, hopefully goes without saying, once you don't develop a chassis, cab and so on twice or even three or four times, but only once, then of course you create some synergy scale effects that lead then to one aspect of the 25% efficiencies.
The other aspect comes from also working differently together, harmonizing processes, etc. These 25%, these are completely baked in, as we say, into our planning round. Now there are of course various ways how to deal with the 25% efficiency. The one is that, let's say, you see the full effect and we see lower R&D investments. That is not the case. We took the decision to, of course, let's say, increase the value of the TRATON Modular System to bring better performance steps into the TRATON Modular System on the one hand side and then as we are in the transformation, we are talking about electrification. There was a question beforehand about autonomous driving and digitalization is of course another aspect. The efficiency gains that we create here thanks to the TRATON Modular System, we use them, of course, to invest into the future technologies.
We see those effects internally in our planning. As Christian said, both regarding time and also costs, when we look at the targets from today's perspective, we are quite satisfied and on track. It goes without saying we see the first products at the end of this decade. There is clearly focus on this most important project for us that we sustain where we are right now, that we keep to make good progress regarding time and costs. That goes without saying.
Understood. Thank you for that.
Thank you. We still have four questions in the queue. Next one from Harry Martin from Bernstein.
Yes, good morning everyone. The first question I had, I just wanted to pick up on the market outlook in South America. The guidance range, +5% to - 5%, given we're + 6% already through the end of September, leaves the door open for a meaningful decline in Q4. Is that something that you're preparing for? I guess a related question, how much of the move of the full year guidance on the margin to the low end of the range is a slowdown in Latin America versus the impact of the Section 232 tariffs? A longer term question, you mentioned the acceleration in the battery electric truck penetration in China is something I've also been watching. I wanted to ask your thoughts on a few things here.
Firstly, has the TCO equation in China now flipped towards battery electric after the investments in infrastructure and supply chain that they've made?
Secondly, we can see there's new entrants i n China that are taking share in battery electric who don't produce diesel trucks. Is that something that you think will also happen in the West? Finally, do you see anything today that changes your view that the local service and maintenance networks are a key defense to the market share of yourself and your brands from export of Chinese trucks? If we look forward a few years. Thank you.
Thank you.
Should I start with Brazil and Latin America perhaps on the market outlook? In a way, that -5%, +5% indicates that we believe in a rather slowish Q4. It is troublesome, especially in Brazil, because we see, of course, positive momentum like in Argentina. It was fantastic to see the Malay victory and we immediately see an effect of more demand of trucks, also with a stronger peso. Brazil is so dominant in Latin America as total, and especially for us, TRATON, with Volkswagen Truck & Bus being such a big player in that market. We are expecting a rather weak Q4. We have adapted our production rate. We do not want to sit with inventories. You know that Volkswagen Truck & Bus predominantly works with pre-produced trucks and stock sales to private dealers, whereas Scania works more with customer order trucks.
We want to trim down, so we have adapted the production pace both in the Scania and in the Volkswagen Truck & Bus industrial system to make sure that we are not overstocked and that we are in line with the market demand that we deem to further decrease. The reason for Brazil is, of course, the very high interest rates and the uncertainty around whether investments make sense or not in the geopolitical turmoil with trade tensions with the U.S. There is a lot of wait and see among Brazilian customers and it's hard to see that offsetting by the smaller markets in Latin America. I stop there unless you want to add something on that one, Michael, but I hand over to you also as there was a follow-up question again on the 232.
Yeah, exactly. If I understood your question correctly, Harry, then it was also linked to the South American region, asking to what extent have we factored this in when we look at our guidance, especially that we guide now towards the lower end of our guidance range. Maybe two answers. The one is, of course, as you can imagine, we factor, of course, everything in. That's a given. South America does not play a major role. Let me put it like this because, as you heard from us, I mean, we have said we projected the market to end between -5% and +5%. We have not changed this guidance range here. The conclusion is that predominantly, that we guide towards the lower end of our guidance, the predominant effect comes from the Section 232 tariffs.
Here, maybe also as a side note, when we issued the profit warning after Q2 H1, we confirmed our guidance, laid out the new guidance, and we said that the new guidance excludes any effects coming from tariffs. What we are saying is that we are sticking to the guidance including the 232 tariff effects. We factor them in and therefore we see the lower end of the guidance range for return on sales and the net cash flow. That's the predominant effect.
Christian, do you want to take over BEV, China, TCO?
Sure.
The question was are we seeing the TCO parity coming faster in China? The answer is obviously yes. They have several methods there to make sure that TCO parity or TCO advantage even is reached for the battery electric vehicles. That happens regionally and then that happens in application by application. So far this year we see on the heavy commercial vehicle side we see around 20% penetration. We saw for instance in Q4 last year up to 30% because there was a huge scrap scheme put in place with short notice in order to take away all trucks and replace them by financially supported new BEVs. There is a movement. It will take some time. It's inevitable of course. In the segments we are targeting right now, we are pretty comfortable to be supplying combustion engine vehicles, both with Scania, with the next era.
We are of course preparing and the week I was in China for the launch of the factory, we had an ongoing homologation process to prepare that factory also for a license to produce battery electric vehicles. That is something we're targeting. Let me come back to that. There was the question of the startups and you're right, there are a couple of interesting names in China. Of course, the one you cannot call a startup, BYD, is firmly established, but they do only battery electric trucks. Let's see how far they go into the heavy side. Then you have names like Windrose and others who are more like real startups right now. The question was really, will we see them also in the West? I think yes, we already see some of them in the West trying their wings, so to say.
Our network footprint is a very, very difficult hurdle for them to come behind. It's possible. We have seen that on the city bus market, where many of the Chinese OEMs find partners outside of the traditional OEM circle. Some go with our suppliers, our tier one suppliers, some go with independent chains of services, and some go directly into the workshop of the bus operators. We need to watch them closely, we need to talk to them and we need to be prepared that we will meet new competitors like we always have been. We should be humble also towards the technology development. That's why it's also important and interesting for us to be in China, because a lot of things go very, very fast there. Not all of them will make it. That goes without saying, but.
It's interesting to see how quickly things are moving in China, and I think to conclude, maybe that's the most important today. The most important reason for us to be in China is to learn from that China speed and how technology development is emerging. There's nowhere else in the world, maybe with the exception of the Valley, where technology happens at this pace.
Thank you. Thank you, Christian. Next question comes from Nicolai from Deutsche Bank. Nicolai.
Also, two quick ones. Only net cash flow, basically you're guiding towards the lower end. If I just look at the working capital outflow year- to- date, which is EUR 1.3 billion, and the normal seasonality suggests that you would all collect it in Q4, wouldn't that already point towards the kind of limit of the free cash flow guidance? Also, on MAN in Germany, you say that momentum is slowing down a bit, so probably no real improvements to expect in Q4, but should be a bit more hopeful for 2026. Thank you.
Cash flow, Michael.
Yeah. Let me put it like this. You are right, of course, you mentioned the working capital and what I can say is clearly that we have increased year inventories until end of Q3 by roughly EUR 0.5 billion. Also, we have increased receivables and therefore it's quite clear that the focus for us in Q4 is to optimize all major positions like, of course, inventories, payables, and receivables. That goes without saying. Again, taking into account what we believe regarding the operating result, also taking into account the Section 232 tariff effects that I mentioned before. At this point in time, we believe that again our guidance range sustains, but we do the right thing to indicate that we believe that we end up towards clearly here the lower end of the guidance, which is the case for return on sales and for the net cash flow.
Maybe quick one to start also with MAN. I mean, as we said during the presentation and you are asking not for the fourth quarter, you are asking for 2026. When we look at now Q3 and potentially then also Q4, we see that there is somewhat an unfavorable product and also market mix. As we clearly stated, MAN has done a fantastic job regarding the buses where we have solved the cybersecurity so-called LSO topics. Also, as we stated, the vans performed quite strong but the trucks were not as strong.
There is a topic on the product side and then we talked about the market and there you know that especially MAN also operating in all kinds of regions of the world, the strong exposure is linked to Europe and especially here the German market as the home market, or we say the DACH region, meaning Germany, Austria, Switzerland, plays a significant role. This is then also the segue to talk about 2026 a little bit. At least when we look at the European market and especially at the German market, at least from today's point of view, we are still missing, let's say, the silver lining. As you know, we said a couple of times that we believe there should come some stimulus because indications were quite clear from the new German government to invest significantly into infrastructure and into defense.
Just what I can say at this point of time is that we don't see that materializing in Germany with regards, let's say, to a higher order intake. I certainly will not rule out that 2026 can be better. You heard also Christian Levin saying during our presentation that we don't give an official guidance yet for the markets next year. We will do that as always during our annual press conference in March. You heard Christian saying that at least there are some positive signs regarding Europe. If we relate to this, then yes, there is some hope for better margin in 2026. To state that crystal clear on the German market, we don't see the progress we are waiting for since quite some time yet.
Let me just add on the MAN topic that we are now going into a full year where MAN has the new Group driveline with significant fuel efficiency advantages, which has also been proven now in independent press testing. We have been able, thanks to that, also to keep market shares up at MAN. We certainly expect that we will be able to grow in Europe now and gain back market share not just in the DACH region, but especially outside of the DACH region where we have also now financial services lined up to support MAN in the same way as it supports Scania.
Thanks, Doctor.
Thank you. We turn to the last question, which comes from Hampus Engellau from Handelsbanken.
Thank you very much. I'll keep it short. I'm sorry to come back, but if.
I remember correctly.
You removed short-term working week before summer. Now we have under-absorption of fixed costs, Germany slowing down.
Even if you're hopeful for next year.
Do you feel you are at the right run rate currently in ML coming into Q4, or how should we think about that?
Okay, good. I can take that one. Yes, I think we are actually, it's been a bit back and forth. You're right. We went up with a very good momentum we had in Q2 order intake, and then we had to slow down a bit. The advantage of having part of the production system now in Krakow in Poland helps us to be more agile also on the MAN side like we're used to on the Scania side. I feel now that we are in both European brands, we are perfectly balanced for delivering both Q4 figures. We are basically sold out in both brands, but also coming into 2026, and it's kind of the first time in many years that we're actually in full balance with short lead times to customers, and the under absorption should go out of the system now.
I feel that we are finally in Europe, at least where we should be. We need to continue to prove our flexibility, of course, because there will be more moves. We expect them to be up in Europe. You follow this industry as long as I do, you know, it could also be down, that we of course have to prove going forward. I have a good feeling here both for Q4 and for startup 2026.
Thank you.
Yeah, we now have Michael Aspinall who reappeared in the list. Michael, why don't you then ask the last questions.
Thanks, Ursula. I'm not sure what happened there. I'll keep it quick, just a quick one. Now that you have your own kind of direct business in China and deleveraging's.
A pretty core focus of yours, how?
Should we think about your stake in Sinotruk?
I think it's worth about EUR 2 billion.
Euros at present, which is, could go a long way to reducing that debt level.
Yeah,
Okay, Michael, you take that one.
Yeah, I can take that one. I mean, what I can say is that we have a good partnership here with Sinotruk since quite some time, as you know, and we see that there is also a clear value. That's pretty much what I can say at this point in time. What we do constantly, and this is now not linked to Sinotruk, but what we constantly do, of course, at least on a yearly basis, is we always look at all the options that we have. This is usual business. If we look back in time, then that was and is certainly something where we got quite some value out of it. That's what I can say.
Okay, great, thank you.
Thank you. With that, no more questions in the queue. Thank you everybody who is still in the call for joining us today. Over the next two days, we will conduct two post Q3 investor calls, and for any questions, like always, please contact the investor relations team. Enjoy the rest of the day and goodbye.
Goodbye.