Okay, we're getting toward the home stretch here. 52 companies, there's only four left. Thanks for helping hit us home with a big one, Magna International. Once again, I'm Ryan Brinkman, U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan. Very happy to have with us Pat McCann, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, as well as Louis Tonelli , Vice President of Investor Relations. Pat, I don't know if you have any opening remarks, or you're just willing to be fired upon with questions?
Give it to me.
Okay.
Louis has taken them all today.
Yeah.
All right. You know, we're asking each of the companies at the conference to comment on some broad industry themes. And the first one is, you know, one of the biggest changes that's been taking place in the industry, which is the significant reset of expectations with regard to battery electric vehicles. Right? So, you know, for so long, we just kept chasing the forecast up. It felt like it could only go in one direction. More recently, though, there's been a big reversal and, at the start of the year, S&P Global Mobility was looking for a 32% increase in 2024 BEV production. And, you know, I looked at it just a couple of weeks ago, they were looking for 14%.
They came out with their new forecast, now they're looking for 10%. So, you know, what, what do you think accounts for this just really significant reset in expectations? Has the slower growth near term caused you to think any differently about the medium or long term? I think on your earnings call, you did give some indication about 2026. We'll call that medium term. So yes, maybe
give that- complete the thought with the long term. And, and what do you think the, the ultimate implications are for, for your company?
Yeah. I think, and Louis , jump in.
Yeah.
I think right now, relative to where we expected, we're really seeing a slowdown. We're seeing the same data you're seeing, but it's really focused in North America. So if we think about China, I would say it's relatively on track from where we expected, you know, even going back a few years. Europe, it's off a couple of points, not significantly, but the real gap is in North America, where we're seeing these significant declines, whether it's program delays, lower volumes, straight out to cancellations in our world. And I think it's a combination of a bunch. Obviously, affordability is an issue, and range anxiety is the second, and then you get into infrastructure, whatnot. All that being said, there's a lot of negativity right now, but EVs are coming.
We're still seeing growth on a year-over-year basis. You're saying positive 10%. People would be excited for a regular ten percent increase, right? So I think it's coming. We're seeing a near-term degradation, but from relative to where we were in 2023, we're still seeing getting pushing back up into those numbers. To your point, all that being said, as we did update our outlook in 2026 to reflect primarily EV reductions, and in North America, specifically.
In terms of implications, if you look at our portfolio, we're about 85% of our business is agnostic to, you know, the powertrain propulsion system. I mean, you can tell from the update to our outlook that we provided last week, that we have a lot of content on EVs, and that's obviously impacted our business. But if you look at what we're doing, we're gonna need them for. You need seats for body-in-white or latches or mirrors. You need that on any vehicle. So a lot of what we do isn't impacted. About 15% that's left, most of that is our four-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, and transmission. It's our driveline business, and that driveline business is supporting ICE vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and electric vehicles.
You know, another trend in the industry that I'd say is, you know, you know, changing just as rapidly is this tremendous rise in the competitiveness and the sales and production volumes of the domestic Chinese automakers.
Mm-hmm.
You know, they're quick to embrace electrification, which hasn't really reset in China like, like it has in other regions. Their quality and design, you know, demonstrably better, coming out with vehicles, you know, twice as fast as the global peers. BYD's gone from 13th to 1st in just, you know, 4 years or 5 years. Collectively, since the start of the pandemic, they've gone, the domestics, from 35% - 55% or even higher share of the market. You know, still small outside of China, but with some ambitions to export and even build vehicles outside. How do you see this trend evolving? What are the implications for Magna? You know, most of the companies we cover are still underexposed to the domestic Chinese. What's your exposure to them?
I actually met with Pat in China during the quarter, so I know the answer to some of these questions, including that you're the largest supplier of seats to the domestics. You made the strategic decision to get on the Xiaomi SU7, which is like, you know, a $30,000 Porsche Panamera, Tesla Model S combo. And what are you doing to maybe further benefit from this trend?
Yeah, I think—and we loved hosting you. It was fun. It was a metals group, though, so it wasn't that exciting, I would say. But, big picture, when you think about Magna, we have about $5 billion of our $42 billion of sales in China consolidated, so just under 10%. We have another $2 billion unconsolidated. So of the $7 billion, it's about 50% with Chinese OEMs, 50% with international players, which is really drastically different if you went back 10 years. Our growth of the Chinese OEMs is huge. I think everything you raised is bang on. It's such an evolving industry right now in China, 18 months from design to launch. Like, it's really, really quick.
I think from our point of view, when you think about, It's, number one, it's picking the right players. So when you, when you're in North America or Europe, you're thinking about picking the right platforms. You have to take a step back in China and say: "What are even the right players?" So our C-OEMs are the big ones, BYD, Geely.
Chery
Chery, Great Wall. Right, so you're really, s o, of that $3.5 billion, it's fairly concentrated. But our view is to pick the winners. But if you think about BYD, BYD is the most vocal about becoming more of an international player. So how do we leverage our relationships that we have in China with BYD when they want to move into Hungary? So I think their business model, that they vertically integrated a lot about employment in China. When they move into Hungary, I think it's a different expectation.
You know, I think you get a lot of credit for targeting BYD in particular. I wonder if you were a little bit lucky because, you know, obviously, you know, Adient, previously, you know, Yanfeng Johnson Controls basically just dominated that market for so long because of Huayu and Yanfeng's affiliation with SAIC, which was affiliated with GM and VW, so they gave them that business. And by the time you got around to China, because, you know, first you were focused on some other markets. Frank Stronach was a China skeptic at one point, right? And so by the time you got there, you know, these JV relationships were so coveted, you know, they were already taken, and so you had to settle with the domestic Chinese, turned out to be the winning ticket.
Yeah. A lot of our business is actually greenfield, brownfield in China. So, I think our JV structure is primarily in the seating space and in powertrain. So if you think about our BES segment, it's basically all of our metals and plastics is 100% owned. Powertrain, we have two big JVs, and in seating they're much smaller. So I think and when you think about that $3.5 billion of sales, it's across the board. So it's not really we're waiting for an opportunity on the JV side. I think we're really good, and we're— What makes Magna a great company is how quick we can adapt and pivot, and when we have a JV partner, it really slows us down.
So I think maybe we were held back, whether it was because of Frank or whatnot, but it was also just the ability to operate in the country the way we want to operate.
I think there's some opportunity too, because there's some challenges working with the domestics. I think it was Frank O'Brien, sort of clued us in a couple of years. They don't always pay on time, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Another thing is, when they do pay you, they might pay you in
IOU.
Yeah,
Bank draft
Chery, you know, no receivable or something like that.
Yeah.
And then, you know, they want their productivity all up front, you know, and they can dictate these terms 'cause they're so attractive to be levered to because of the growth. But— And then also they're very vertically integrated, which, which, you know, eliminates some opportunity. But I've heard you mention before. Love to hear an update in terms of as they start to export, you know, to Europe you know, they're gonna need to up the game in terms of, you know, the, the seating quality or the sheet metal. You know, you got the relationship with them now. How do you see that maybe evolving as they start to, you know, build vehicles overseas, export vehicles overseas?
Yeah. You know, we were in a facility that builds Body-in-White type parts, and one of the questions from an investor was: Can they do it for $10,000 or 25% cheaper? And my answer was always, "Just make sure the spec's the same." So as you move to homologate a vehicle from China to Europe to North America, the homologation standards do change, right? So the safety standards come up, the insurance ratings. So I think they're gonna have to up that spec. In my mind, that helps us because we're not as Magna in a— We don't want to be the company that's operating at the really low commodity, me-too type products. So in that facility, the focus is on castings. Who can do castings? Who can do hot forming? Who can do, you know, advanced welding-type techniques?
So that, that's just the metals piece of it. You would see that even in the ADAS space. So if it right now, we're seeing a push towards China for China solutions, primarily in e-drives and also in the ADAS space. But more broadly, the, you know, the other 80% of our portfolio, we thrive on doing more complex things. Like, we wanna do things that are hard to do. That's where we bring our expertise.
Yeah. I wanted to ask a question on the outlook for suppliers from the expected interplay between, you know, new vehicle prices and the quantity that's then demanded or produced. And we saw during the pandemic that the automakers can do very well in a low-volume, high-price environment because while they're hurt by the lower volume, they're helped by the higher price, whereas the suppliers, unfortunately, just levered to the lower volume without that leverage to the higher price. And note that, you know, vehicle sales are still about 8% lower in the U.S. than where they were pre-pandemic, you know, hurt by vehicle prices that have outpaced CPI by about, you know, 8 or 9 points. Makes sense.
You know, automakers say they're gonna remain disciplined and hold on to those, you know, relative pricing gains. And alternatively, you know, some, including I think you at the conference last year, thought, you know, they might revert back to old practices and discount more and build inventories, which would be good for the suppliers levered to the production. We have gotten back, like you anticipated, we're back to the pre-chip shortage levels of inventory. We're not back to the pre-COVID.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe there's... to what extent do you think there's some structural change there, some structurally higher price, some structurally lower volume, which could potentially be negative for, for suppliers?
You know, it's hard for us to have much opinion because we don't, we don't influence any of the levers. But I think, as we said last year, it's a pretty competitive market. It's a very competitive market, and it only takes one or two OEMs to, you know, put on the incentives for everyone else to have to follow suit. So I think we're just going to have to wait and see how that unfolds, but it's still— I think the same thing we said last year would apply, would continue to apply.
Great. And by the way, you're the only supplier who said that last year, and I haven't hosted all the supplier sessions this year, but so far, it's more balanced this year.
Mm-hmm.
I think as the, you know, inventories have gone from like, you know, 1.8, you know, to 2.6 or so million. Next, wanted to ask on your complete vehicles assembly business in Europe after a couple of changes there recently. You know, firstly, there was the Fisker bankruptcy resulting in you no longer building the Ocean for them. And now, more recently, you've got the cancellation of the planned INEOS Fusilier. So, you know, where does that leave Graz from a capacity utilization or profitability perspective? You know, are there other programs that you're looking at which could potentially backfill that volume? And, you know, prior to Fisker, I think you mostly built vehicles in Europe for established automakers, including, you know, very sound German luxury and whatnot.
Does the experience with Fisker and INEOS maybe cause you to think any differently about with whom you partner in Europe? And, you know, what does the process look like when it comes to taking calculated risks with some of these more start-up manufacturers?
Yeah, I'll just start with what we're, what we're currently on. So we're launching right now the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, both in the ICE version and an all-new electric version, and that's a vehicle that we've produced for more than 40 years. We're producing the Jaguar I-PACE, which is an electric vehicle, and the E-PACE, which is an ICE version, both on the same line. We're producing the BMW Z4 and the Toyota Supra, and we're going to produce that all the way through to into 2026. So we have got, you know... Let's say we've typically been kind of 110, 120 thousand units. I think this year we're going to be about 75,000 units.
You know, we've done some restructuring to right-size the business, and we're going to continue to do restructuring there. We continue to talk to different OEMs about opportunities, and we're confident that we're going to be able to continue to win, win business there.
And maybe sticking with complete vehicle assembly, but switching to China, you know, it'd be great to get an update there, starting with, you know, the existing Arcfox product. I think they got off to a little bit of a slower start, but also been hearing that it's recently been gaining more steam. And then also, like with Fisker and INEOS in Europe, you know, there are a lot of start-up manufacturers in China. It would have been great to get the Xiaomi, I think, I don't know. But, you know, you don't know which is going to be Xiaomi, which is going to be Fisker, right? But, you know, how do you go through the process in China of deciding who you're going to deal with and not deal with? And I guess it doesn't even relate to just, you know, complete vehicle assembly even a traditional supply relationship.
Yeah, maybe I'll start with the— You know, when we think about, to your point, whether it's Steyr or whether it's System Components Group, it's, we have basically a two-pronged approach to looking at do we want to do work with company XYZ. One is, we would deal with our sales and marketing team and say, "Okay, at the end of the day, the product has to sell." That is the number one priority. Is it a good product, and is it going to sell? So if we check that box, then we get into a financial analysis of it. So when you think about the financial analysis, it's like, it's basically a credit rating review of the partner. You raised some great points in China. Payment terms in China, they just pass around banknotes.
You're talking up to 180 days before you get your cash. So you build that into your quote models. Now, the flip side is we push them downstream as well into our supply base, so it's not as horrible as you would think. But I think, so once you have that check of the product and you look at the credit rating, it's, okay, commercially, what are we doing? So you brought up Fisker, for example. You know, Fisker has a bad outcome. It's in bankruptcy protection right now. This, you know... We'll see where it ends up. But proactively, all those contracts we would have had over the last 20 years -25 years with Mercedes or BMW would have been done on a gross basis.
So we'd buy an engine block, take possession of it, put it in our inventory, and bill the customer for it. So we went in with, to de-risk as much as we could with Fisker, we did it on a pass-through, so everything was on consignment. We weren't interested in going out to CATL, purchasing the battery on their behalf, and then hoping to be paid. So it was a direct payment. So we look at, you know, de-risking that way. We look at cash up front. You look at, is there an opportunity to get corporate guarantees where we're de-risking as much as possible? And that's not China, that's just across the globe.
And the funny part is, if you would've went back before I came back to corporate, people would've said, "You're not doing enough work with all these new entrants," right? "You should be really leaning into this and taking advantage of it because of the speed to market that Steyr brought to it." But I think in hindsight, there are lessons learned, but I think it, it's about doing the right things and, and sticking to the path. I'm not sure if you want to add on, on, China, just with ArcFox.
Yeah, I mean, with Arcfox, we've launched the Alpha S, the Alpha T, more recently, the Alpha T5 and the S5. I think initially the volumes were a bit disappointing, but I think more recently they've started to come up a little bit. They've put more effort into the distribution and to the marketing side, so it's starting to make some progress.
Okay, now regarding the recent changes to the 2026 outlook that were communicated on the Q2 call, you know, I don't think they, you know, should have come as too huge of a surprise, given the evolution in the S&P Global Mobility forecast over the past year, including the EV numbers we're just talking about. And after some other suppliers earlier in the earnings season, for example, Aptiv and BorgWarner, also like took down, you know, their, you know, revenue estimates for this year, while actually kind of taking up the margin. And, you know, because talking about not necessarily taking up margin in Aptiv's case, but there's an offset, there's a partial offset in terms of like reduced spending associated with the megatrends and reduced capital spending too.
And we saw that with Dana too. You know, a few questions around this. First of all, can you just kind of clean it up? Like, the revenue came down at the midpoint by 10%, and that's scared a lot of people, I think investors and others. But it's impacted by the complete vehicle assembly.
Right.
If you strip complete vehicle assembly out, like what's the kind of underlying change, you know, adjusted for that? And then secondly, you know, talk about the headwinds, but also maybe the opportunities in terms of the ability to cut spending and capital outlay.
Yeah, so maybe I'll just reset everybody. You're right, it is a shocking number, but, s o it is about 10% at the midpoint, so roughly $5 billion. Right, so we have a $5 billion reduction. Of the $5 billion, $2.2 billion relates to our CVA business, and that reflects Fisker, where we assume the program's canceled, INEOS, where the program— So Fisker was about 6.25, INEOS was slightly above that as well. That's been canceled-ish, I would say, based on what we've been told. And then the third category was, we have, we're launching the new version of the G. So there's an ICE version and an EV version, and the bill of materials just keeps been up and down.
So I was explaining how we just take by an engine, by an eDrive, whatever it is, they're just floating up and down, but it's zero margin. So when you look through that $2.2 billion, it actually improves our margin at the Magna consolidated level. It's a very, very low-
Margin percent.
Margin percent.
Thank you.
Thank you. So the next category would be our ADAS spend, so that's bucket two. This is where we had already talked about having. We talked about China, China for China. We had some in-sourcing, we had a bit, some program sourcing delays, whatnot. That was about $600. The last category is a combination of two. We have a revenue reduction to reflect our latest estimates on EV penetration rates. So in the case of Magna, it's a little bit different in that we have program delays, lower volumes, but in the case of Magna, we also had some cancellations that impacted us. One in particular is Oakville. So Magna is a Canadian company, we have a pretty significant footprint in the Toronto area.
And whether that was ICE or EV, there was a hole in the facility, and they were gonna be down for 2025, back up in 2026. They've now delayed it, and the other side of it is, what we've done is we've brought the ICE up. So the net of those ICE up, EV down, is another $2 billion, $2.2 billion. That gives you perspective of all the moving pieces, Ryan. You know, I think on the opportunity side. So I agree with you, it's not as shocking when you think. I think the ADAS piece was known, and the e- the-
Complete vehicles
... Steyr piece. Complete vehicle.
Yeah.
I always say Steyr, I should always say complete vehicles. But the complete vehicles number is, it's lower margin. So it's understanding that EV down, but it's still gonna come. So when the flip side to all that was, we are taking out capital up to about $600 over the three-year period. We're gonna reduce our gross engineering spend by up to $500. And I think as far as the opportunities, you know, the one opportunity that's not included that's very clear is the Super Duty going into Oakville. So what's that opportunity? But the opportunity comes at a cost, too. Do we have to put capital in? For example, we're not the incumbent seat supplier on the Super Duty, but we were the incumbent seat supplier for Ford Oakville. So how is that gonna play out? We just don't know.
I think the opportunities are higher content as we continue to see opportunities primarily on ICE, including extensions. And then the other piece is, how do we navigate opportunities to squeeze capital and to further reduce engineering spend? But all that being said, if there's an opportunity that's gonna create value, be in 2027, 2028, we have to review that at, at the same time.
You know, there was some allusion to opportunities to even the 2026 outlook. Swamy, you know, referred to it on the 2Q call. He said, "I want to assure you that we're continuing to explore opportunities that are not included in our revised outlook. So I don't know if you can talk about things that you're not talking about—but, you know, you know, basically, what could these relate to? Like, for example, do they relate more to just, like, digging even deeper into the spending associated with the megatrend areas? Do they—is it realizing maybe higher pricing from OEMs to offset volume shortfalls? We talked a little bit about—
Mm-hmm
... that earlier, too. And like, you know, Ford compensating you with something else. Was it supposed to be a three-row crossover going in there, and now it's gonna be a Super Duty, but you can but get some content.
Right.
Is it restructuring or becoming more efficient in areas of the business just completely unrelated to Megatrends? You know, where generally do you think is there at least, like, the most potential to generate some upside to the revised 2026 outlook?
I'm just gonna go back to the last question. I just wanna clarify one thing specifically. Of that EV/ICE delta change, the majority of the down was actually not in megatrend. The majority down was just in our agnostic parts, whether it's body and white, whether it's seats. So I think I just want to disassociate. So we did a top-level analysis showing how this all worked out. So when Swamy's talking about other opportunities, this wasn't bottoms up. So we're coming up with a balanced expectation of our 2026 to be. Where we push internally to be versus where we're given an outlook are different things. So Swamy's talking about opportunities to squeeze capital, squeeze on the commercial side. It, you know, I don't think really there's probably, like, a footprint restructuring is probably outside.
It's more, to your point, digging deeper, all those little blocking and tackling.
You know, you mentioned, when talking about this, that, on the call, that, you know, ordinarily you wouldn't be updating this soon. You, you've just introduced it, what, in February, right?
Mm-hmm.
You know, maybe if you'd given yourselves until next February, you could've had some more time to identify some of these, and not frightened the markets as much.
Yeah, listen, I'm— When your reaction was our reaction. You're down 10%. So now we have public information out there that says, the 2026 outlook that we gave is out there in the public domain. I think I have a moral obligation to tell people that, "Hey, you can't rely on that information." Even if it's a top-level adjustment, bring your expectations down so that you're making the right decisions. So I don't think it's fair to everybody here in the room that we're leaving information that's stale, and there's and we should be updating it, and I think it's just the right thing to do.
That's fair.
Yeah, I think it's one thing if it's, you know, the changes are minor or there's a different volume assumption, you can, you can easily bake that in yourself, right? If volumes—if IHS has volumes down in 2026 by 10%-
Mm-hmm
—versus where we are, you can, you can do that math yourself. But there's some specific things related to the industry, related to Magna, that made more sense to make clear in the marketplace.
Yeah. No, that's fair. Maybe your updated thoughts on capital allocation. You know, obviously, you're in a holding pattern here with the debt to leverage, but you know, historically, there had been a very strong focus on return of capital to shareholders. Of course, you want to get in your 1-1.5 times range, anticipated at some point in 2025. So just a few questions around that. You know, first of all, why is 1-1.5 the optimal range? You know, a couple of other investment-grade suppliers, including Aptiv and PHINIA-
Mm-hmm
... this quarter, announced increases in the level of leverage that they'd be comfortable operating with, at least for a time.
Mm-hmm.
And then secondly, you know, how should we think about your priorities for allocating excess capital when you do get into the targeted range, if you do keep that targeted range? You know, should we think about M&A being less of a focus, given that, you know, first of all, it's harder for M&A now to compete against share repurchases, right?
Mm-hmm.
For allocation of capital, given the shares are cheaper than in the past. And then, B, you know, with Veoneer and LG Electronics pieces in place, have you pretty much satisfied whatever strategic needs that you thought that needed to be accomplished or could be accomplished from an M&A perspective?
Yeah, maybe I'll start with a couple of buckets. So there's the leverage ratio. So I think the first question you had was, you know, how do we come up with the 1 to 1.5? So basically, you're working with the credit rating agencies, and we basically follow the Moody's model. And if you want to be 2 or 3 notches above investment grade, that's the requirement. So that's how we back into this 1.5. So it's structured. Why do we want to be there? I think we want to be there is, you know, we're in a cyclical industry, and we've lived, Louis and I have lived through the financial crisis, and people have short memories.
In the financial crisis, if you weren't investment grade, as soon as the financial crisis hits, you get 1 or 2 notches down. As soon as you drop below investment grade, your opportunities to raise funds are zero. We fast-forward to COVID, same thing, hit to the system. We maintain our rating. We actually went out, raised $750 million, so we're financially strong. So it's an insurance policy, I would say. So why do we not move above that leverage ratio? I think that's the basis of could we move up one notch. You mentioned PHINIA and Aptiv. I'm not close enough to it, but they might be within their range currently. Don't forget, we're operating above our 1 to 1.5.
We're at 1.9, so for us to take on more debt, we'd probably be going two or three notches delta. And then the third thing you mentioned was they're comfortable doing it for a period of time. So we've been operating outside of our 1 to 1.5 for a period of time currently, so we are restricted in our ability to move even further. All that being said, they're great questions. We talked about this, Ryan. You know, we're targeting with what we see, even if it was top level, with what we see, we're still getting back into our targeted leverage ratio in 2025. So then it becomes: what do we do with the excess funds?
When you look at the excess funds, maybe say we get to target ratio in mid-year, we would look at doing an NCIB. You file your notice. Sorry, the normal course issuer bid. You'd make all your filings with-
Toronto Exchange speak.
Sure. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You'd do your TSX approvals, your New York Stock Exchange approvals, and then you'd be able to go and buy 10% of your, your stock or whatever you're comfortable doing. So I think that's the process of what's happened, but our capital allocation strategy hasn't changed. I think what's changed is our share price has come down, and at the same time, we're outside of our leverage ratio, despite... And, and we've got to reflect all this noise with the 2026 guidance. So I think our strategy hasn't changed, so it's, it's continued to grow. And just on the M&A, if you want to jump in.
Yeah, I think you're right. We've certainly taken care of some of the gaps that we've had in our portfolio. I mean, tuck-ins are always something that we're going to consider. We did a very small acquisition recently, but, I mean, I think we've got a strong position and based on the technologies that we have and the M&A transactions that we've done over the last little while.
When you do allocate capital toward M&A, when you return to that, I'm curious if you might think differently about it in the future versus how you have. You know, in recent years, it's been about, you know, shoring up the leverage to the megatrend areas, ADAS, Veoneer, you know, electrification with LG Electronics JV. But does the slower growth in the megatrend areas or, you know, cause you to maybe change that calculus at all with, you know, maybe being incrementally more willing to consider, you know, high return on investment opportunities, you know, cash-on-cash returns in slower growth areas?
For example, when you know, Don Walker, Louis Tonelli couldn't stop him from saying at the Detroit Auto Show that maybe he'd buy Adient, you know, which is the opposite of Veoneer, right? Just curious whether you still— I mean, investors have tried to pressure you into disposing of certain things, and you say, "Oh, that's low margin like seating, but it's great returns," you know.
Right.
Would you return to being more, more economic, you know, animals, as opposed to, you know, dressing up and, you know, optimizing, you know, leverage to, you know, this area of the market and that, or what?
No, and I think it's our guidance. We started the year at $2.5 billion of capital, and I think M&A to us is my personal preference is to do organic growth first and I think we're, we have a very successful track record of starting from, like, a small facility like the one you saw in Shanghai. It starts small, and you grow within, and you grow with the market. And maybe it's not what people wanna hear, but it's a safer route, and you can grow as you show success, and you just become more profitable. So I would always rank, personally, M&A as a second option. So usually, we would look at M&A, do we accelerate into technology or customers or region? I think we're so well-represented now in our product portfolio with our customers, with our regions, I think we can take a step back.
The majority of our spend and CapEx is non-megatrend. That's the one, I think, misconception people have. When you look at the 26 sales reduction, most of it was not megatrend. The majority of it was just our 85% agnostic business. And we don't differentiate between, "Oh, this is something high tech, so we should expect a lower return, and this is old, ugly, body and white, and we should expect a lower return." Cash is cash. Cash is blind, and the one differential is you don't wanna invest in a melting ice cube. So that. When we talk about megatrends, this is where there's continuing growth in CPV in the vehicle. But as far as the body and white, and as Louis was saying earlier, when you look at the quotes we're receiving from all of our customers, they weren't for ICE, they're for EVs.
So you're in a situation of, "Do I, do I quote the RFQ, whether it's megatrend or not, on EV, or do I not quote?" Your, your decision is basically quote or not quote. I think we have an obligation, if you think about our capital allocation, is to continue to grow, continue to grow cash flows, so we're quoting on the EVs. The bulk of it was outside of the megatrends. So I'm not sure if that helps the question.
No, it's helpful. I wanted to ask on, switching gears a bit on, you know, fully autonomous opportunity, robotaxis, you know, hearing less of this. Now, we do have, you know, AutoX taking the stage after you and, Luminar, but, you know, just been a continual push-out, right, of, of the timing there. And, you know, just given the strong exposure you have, to radars and, and 4D radar, and, the partnerships you've got with a number of the LiDAR suppliers, I'd be curious what the, the conversations with, with customers might look like, in terms of, you know, the timing on, on full self-driving and, you know, what the opportunity could be, for Magna, even if a little longer term. Maybe specific to Waymo, because I used to hear about that, a lot about that.
Mm-hmm.
I haven't heard about the... I think you put $100 million in there, right? Just remind us. You know, could you review what you did or continue to do for them from an integration or other perspective? Obviously, you're making the Z4s that they're driving around, but weren't you retrofitting, and you know, give us any kind of update you can there.
So, different companies, people are gonna have different views on kind of L4 and L5 and what the volumes look like. In our view, and it's been for a few years now, our expectation is that it's gonna be a long time before we see meaningful volumes in that area. We certainly have technologies that can support in that area, but really our focus is on L2, L2 Plus. I think that's the sweet spot. That's where even though there's been some pullback, there's still a fair amount of growth there, and we're growing alongside that. So that's really our focus. Waymo, you're right, we do have an investment there. They're certainly a strong player in that whole higher levels of autonomy.
And what we've been doing with Waymo is basically taking their vehicles and upfitting with the Waymo Driver, and we continue to do that.
Okay, copy that. Any questions in the audience for Magna?
I'll ask one. You referred in China to the company's cost-plus journey, and I just wanted to check in on, you know, what your current, you know, raw material pass-through looks like. And obviously, it's a big corporation, you know, we could blend it together, it's kind of hard to do, but you know, now relative to, you know, prior to, you know, the chip shortage, inflation, pandemic, etcetera. And then also when it comes to the non-commodity supply chain, 'cause I think you were always pretty well protected on most parts of the raw material buy, but on the non-commodity side, you know, electricity in, in Germany, natural gas, you know, ocean shipping, that kind of stuff. And also, like, what the right balance is, because I, I've asked companies: How much progress have you made? And sometimes the response is, "We don't want to get-
Right
... too much faster because that means we're not gonna get as good pricing the rest of the time." Just where are you? I mean, certainly, I think you need to reduce the risk of what would happen to margins, the business-
Mm-hmm
... in the event that inflation were to inflict higher again. So what is the right balance, and how are you tracking relative to the right balance?
Yeah, I think, there, there's customer programs or there's indexing you can do. So if we deal with a customer, steel, our biggest buy, 80%, is indexed to customers. So you're de-risked. When we did, there was a big uproar 20+ years ago when this program from the customers were coming up, and it was the same arguments: We win on the way down, we lose on the way up, net, net. Net, net, basically, we're here to manufacture, focus on manufacturing, and do a good job on it. Resins, about 20%, much harder to hedge resins because there's so many combinations.
But what we have done and tried to push into the chain is a little bit more on the indexing for energies, for example, haven't been as successful there as we were on steel 'cause it's hard for the customer has a win in that they bulk buy. So if they're not able to do that, then they're not really willing to do it. So we pivot, and we say: "Okay, well, we can't get a customer to do it. Why don't we..." So we've expanded into a financial hedging system for energy in Europe, whether it's nat gas or electricity. So historically, you do a physical delivery contract, those are limited up to 12 months. So now what we're looking in 24 months, 36 months, and 48 is financial hedges to offset. So you know, there, there's a— You work with your customer where you can't.
We have an obligation to de-risk, and then the last thing we do is, with our quotes on the longer lead, more capital intensive, we'll say: "We're resetting economics on SOP." So those are a few of the levers we're working with to basically de-risk and then focus on manufacturing. Is there anything? No?
Not, no.
Okay, great. Well, we are over time, so please join me in thanking Pat and Louis for all the great color.
Thank you. Thanks, Mike.
Thank you.
Who we got left?
Luminar, AutoX.