Thank you everyone. As we continue the Barclays Global Automotive and Mobility Tech Conference. Can we close the doors, please? Thank you. Thank you. Okay, very pleased to have with us as we continue, BorgWarner, leader in powertrain technology, going through a very exciting transition to a world of EV. Very exciting steps that you announced earlier this year to further leverage yourself to the trend of electrification. We have with us Kevin Nowlan, company's CFO, Pat Nolan, and then Eddie Sander. Where's Eddie? There's Eddie. So we're going to go through a series of questions, fireside chat style. Anyone who has questions, please raise your hand. If you have questions on the webcast, feel free to email my colleagues, Joshua Cho, Daniel Lites, firstname.lastname@barclays.com, and they can ask your questions, and obviously, with that, Kevin, Pat, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Why don't we just start high level? I think obviously, the big development for you this year was the spin of PHINIA, really further accelerating your path to EV.
Yeah.
So we're, call it, six months in. You know, walk us through sort of your learnings. What's changed now that you've further leveraged yourself to this transition?
Yeah, I don't know if I'd say anything materially changed from what we thought before. I mean, if the underpinning of the question is, "Hey, are we happy that we executed that?" The answer is yes. I mean, we fundamentally had two different companies pursuing two different strategies. You know, in PHINIA, you had a company that was really focused on aftermarket, commercial vehicle, hydrogen combustion, and wherever they're taking it now as a separate public company. And for us, we are really focused on investing in taking a product leadership position in electrification, while making sure we continue to have a resilient portfolio in total. Which we have, but focused really on electrification, which PHINIA had none of. And so I think the transaction accomplished exactly what we wanted to accomplish: two separate focused companies executing on their own strategies.
Great. As far as your discussions with investors, what's been the early feedback on, you know, your increased focus on, on, on electrification? Are investors pleased with sort of the accelerated journey that you're taking?
I think I'll start, and then Pat maybe wants to chime in. I think investors appreciated the clarity and the focus of us laying out the strategy and then executing against it, doing effectively what we said they were, we were going to do. And I think what we've seen even recently is a lot of focus within that strategy on the resiliency in the portfolio. You know, when we were at our Investor Day back in June, you know, we talked about, hey, under different E adoption scenarios, we expected the portfolio to be resilient and generate roughly the same level of operating income.
And it seemed less a focus at the time from investors when we were communicating that message, but seems to be getting a lot of focus now about, "Oh, I see now how that resiliency really matters when you're going to go through some choppiness in the near term or mid-term in, from an E perspective." So, not that this is playing out exactly the way we expected, because we knew there'd be choppiness, we just didn't know how it would come about, but we knew we constructed the portfolio and the overall business to be resilient, no matter what type of EV adoption scenario that we're seeing. And I think it's playing out right now in the near term.
Okay, great.
Nothing else from me. Well said.
Let's unpack some of the near-term trends. You know, we're mostly through the year. And just start with a few sort of dominant themes or questions that we've had throughout the year. Maybe we could just start on an end-market perspective, and maybe you could just unpack some of the growth over market drivers that we've seen year to date. I recognize a big part of it has been your eProduct revenue, which, you know, that's come down. But if we could just think about for a second the customer mix, to what extent, obviously, you know, Europe, we've seen some slowing there. China, we've seen some shift toward the domestics, away from the multinationals. And then North America, we've obviously seen, you know, the tremendous mix shift toward the Japanese.
Maybe you could just unpack the underlying points of mix within growth over market that you've seen, you know, lately, and you know, what's implied in your fourth quarter guidance?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's... When you think about various customer mix or even platform mix for BorgWarner, we're so broad that there tends to be maybe some near-term noise, but from my over even an annual basis, it tends to kind of wash itself out. So, maybe the one thing that I would point out that it's worked, that's been a benefit to us, is in China. I mean, we are roughly 70% weighted towards the local OEMs in that market, and that's a pretty significant shift from what you saw this company 7 years ago. It was almost the inverse of that.
We tend to be bigger with the larger domestics now in China, but we have a pretty wide range of business with those customers, not only on the traditional foundational side, but also we've highlighted the wide, wide swath of customers we have, even on the eProduct side in China. So it's a pretty wide net there, too. In Europe, nothing I'd really call out in Europe. In fact, we were a bit more conservative going into this year, remember. You've actually seen our forecast for Europe kind of come up through the course of this year. And in North America, I'd say the only thing to keep in mind there is, you know, we did see some strike impact early this quarter, in October. That's kind of predicating to our guidance.
Our view is that the production's coming back online, and that's kind of what's predicating the guidance, but we're not assuming a makeup in terms of our outlook for the year.
China, maybe you could just comment for a second, customer exposure, BYD, because obviously that's been the central OEM that everyone's focusing on. Just remind us what your exposure is there.
... Unfortunately, we can't tell you the exposure in terms of what we actually do for them, but we are—they are one of the customers we call out, that we've either have business with or are in the process of launching business with over the next several years.
Okay. On the E side-
Yeah
-in particular. Yeah. Maybe you could just give us some color, what you saw this year on cost, and specifically, inflation has been, you know, a key question. You know, as you've gone through the year, what's been the dialogue on recoveries with your customers?
Yeah, I mean, we, we started the year, and, and it almost followed the similar pattern as to what we saw in, in 2022, fortunately and unfortunately. You know, we came into the year, I think there was an expectation that inflation was continuing, and we, we thought that we had laid out the playbook and framework pretty well with our customers last year, in 2022, that we thought would carry over nicely into this year to make the negotiations and discussions with the customers easier. I'd say, at the end of the day, it ended up being as difficult a challenge in going through those discussions as it was the prior year, and played out almost the exact same way with the same customers in the cadence.
You know, the deals that got done at the beginning of Q3 were the same ones that got done earlier last year. The ones that waited until the very end of Q3, beginning of Q4, were the same ones that waited till the end of Q3 to get them done last year. So the good news in all of that is we were able to execute inflation recovery mechanisms with our customers that mitigated the margin impact almost entirely from a material inflation perspective on our P&L in 2023. Remember, 2022, we absorbed some headwind, 2021 as well, but in 2023, we've substantially mitigated the year-over-year impact, which is why you don't see a material impact on our margin this year from it.
What's the tone and tenor of discussions maybe going forward, as you know, I think a common question is, we look at the D3, they're each absorbing roughly $2 billion of annual labor cost. EVs are, you know, there's some cost questions that they have to absorb. You know, how does that change the tone and tenor of the discussions? Or is it just that discussions are always tough, and it never changes?
I'm not sure it changes it materially. I mean, we'll see. I think virtually every meeting we have with a customer, price is a discussion, even price on things that have been previously negotiated and contracted. So pricing discussions with customers aren't new. I would say, I mean, it's only a month or so since the strike ended. We haven't seen any incremental discussions around that, but pricing is always a challenge in this industry. And so your objective as a tier one like us, living through decades of this, is make sure you bring the right technology that to your customers, that you can commercialize and that they want to pay for. That's what we call product leadership. And if you bring the right product to market, and you charge an appropriate price, your customer will pay for it.
If they don't, then they might not be the right customer for you. That's okay because we're not beholden to any one customer, any one geography, any one platform, and that's an intentional strategy.
Thank you. Maybe we could just wrap with a question on FX. You know, obviously, translational FX is having an impact, but transactional has also been a question. Maybe just remind us of your Mexico exposure, to what extent you have hedges on. You know, how much transactional headwinds have you seen this year, and how much is it being protected by hedging?
Not significantly. I mean, we tend to produce in the geography in which we sell. That tends to be a strategy of the company. So I know for a long time, a lot of companies were sourcing from China or other jurisdictions in Asia into Europe and the U.S., and we do some of that, but it really isn't a material portion of what we do. You know, our plants are structured as profit centers, so they tend to source locally, produce locally, and sell locally, and that tends to be the structure. So we probably have a lot less cross-border activity than others. That's not to say we don't have any cross-border activity, 'cause we do, and definitely we do have Mexico to U.S. type of sales transactions.
We hedge generally a year plus out, and we might hedge somewhere in the zip code of 75%-ish to 80% of anticipated transaction exposure, which doesn't do you anything more than buying a year of time before you have to deal with any sort of transaction issue. So it gives you time to plan around any issues that you might be seeing. But you don't see anything popping in our P&L or our conversions when we talk about it in 2023, it, mainly because it's not a significant exposure for us, and then when we do have exposure, we tend to hedge it.
One, one more for you as we wrap. I think eR&D, you guided to be up $60 million-$70 million this year?
Mm-hmm. That's right.
What's the, what's the trend in... That's the E piece. What's the foundational piece?
Yeah, I mean, the foundational piece has been coming down, and you can see that if you look at—because we disclose total R&D on a net basis in our 10-Q and 10-K disclosure. So you can see that. You can back out the eR&D piece, which will be about $480 million-$490 million this year, and estimate what the foundational side is. And we don't have a specific target when it comes to foundational R&D, other than it's part of the total P&L that we manage to make sure that we sustain that long-term margin profile, even as the foundational revenue comes under pressure over time.
So if you do the simple math on it, you'll see that our R&D on the foundational side runs in the low 2s right now, as a % of sales, versus, you know, the $4.80-$4.90 on eProducts revenue, that's 20%-25%, you know, which just, obviously, that R&D is supporting future revenue, not current year revenue. But on the foundational side, you can see it's a lot lower than what it is on the E side.
Okay.
Even what it was even versus what it was historically as well.
Right. Yeah. Let's pivot to the broader EV environment, and obviously, the core topic or theme has been the EV slowdown idea, a walk back from EV euphoria. So I think one of the cases that was pitched at your Investor Day back in June is that from a profit perspective, things should be roughly neutral. If EV accelerates, that's great for growth, maybe it's a little weaker for margins. If EV is a little slower, it's not as good for growth, but it's better for margins, and net-net, it's a neutral, right? Is this the right way to be thinking about this right now?
It's exactly the right way to be thinking about it, and that's why we talked about that at our Investor Day. So we like to talk about that in terms of the portfolio being resilient. And that's what we mean, that the portfolio, under various EV adoption scenarios, just as you talked about, is resilient from an overall operating income perspective. That's our perspective on the way we've constructed this. And you can see a microcosm of that here in the last quarter. You know, when we gave our updated guide, it was disappointing and painful to have to take down the eProducts revenue outlook because of some of the push-outs we were seeing and launch delays from our customers. So what happened? Our overall revenue guide came down. Our margin percentage guide went up. Our EPS guide went up at the midpoint. Well, why is that?
It's because foundational is playing a bigger role, and that's... I mean, there's a lot of other things going on there, but in the short term, it's an example of what that long-term resiliency of the portfolio looks like. We are believers long term, electrification is going to grow, but if it doesn't grow at that same pace that we anticipated, the portfolio holds up because the foundational plays a more important role.
Okay. Let's unpack some of the pieces here. The 2025 guidance cut on eProduct revenue. Maybe you can unpack some of the regional dynamics, customer dynamics. Is it, you know, it was a couple of key launches, and you're a little more concentrated right now, and so that's the issue, but by 2027, you're more diversified, and so that's why you could hold the 2027 revenue target. What are some of the underlying, you know, movements within the 2025's reduction?
No, you're right. I mean, we're more exposed to a handful of launches. I'd say it's more than a couple. You know, there's because it's across all major geographies where we operate, and we were seeing headwinds across those geographies and across multiple customers in different geographies. So it was more broad-based than one or two launches, but we are definitely exposed to a handful of launches in particular because we're still in the early stages of our ramp-up. So as you know, as our slope looks like this, if you shift that out a quarter or two, that has a meaningful impact on our eProducts revenue in a given year. Right now, while we're still not really at scale in the business, and that's what we're seeing.
But we are seeing delays in launches, pushouts of the ramp-ups or delays in the ramp-ups, and it is across geographies. It wasn't just. We have a North American program in production, where I think that customer's product has run into some demand headwinds. That's been an impact in North America. I think in China, for instance, it's been over a number of different launches and ramp-ups that have gotten delayed. So, we're seeing some different things, but it's geographically, it seems to be global in nature.
Are there key, key launches you would flag, or just it's, you know?
It's more than one. It's a handful.
Okay.
And I'd say it was because the 2023 growth in the back half of the year was disproportionate in China. You know, that's a lot of where we saw the headwind. And we saw some headwind in North America, a little bit in Europe, but China was a meaningful piece of it.
The one business that is different than that trend I would highlight is the eCV battery pack business. That's a battery pack business where even as we look out to 2025, we're still constrained from a capacity standpoint in terms of our revenue outlook. We didn't really adjust the revenue outlook for that battery business because we still see demand in excess of our ability to supply that. So, we would hope that there could be ways to-
Definitely more upside pressure there than downside risk. Absolutely.
What's the color that you're getting from your customers on why some of these launches are slowing? Is this a demand issue, or is it just the supply is a little more complicated for them?
It's not the supply, it's, I think it's the ramp-up of some of the programs that the customers maybe ran into different challenges that they didn't anticipate, or maybe they're continuing to support a particular platform a little bit longer and delaying that ramp-up in their start of production. I think it hasn't been the same story necessarily with each customer that we've seen, particularly when we look at China.
Maybe you can... I think when you gave your numbers, there was a core number, and then on top of that, there was another haircut of conservatism or what have you. Maybe you can unpack some of the underlying assumptions that you have within this additional haircut of conservatism.
Yeah. And I, I won't call it conservatism because there's just so, still so much uncertainty in the market.
There is.
I think actually the purpose of giving a range was to even suggest there's volatility. You know, for us to pinpoint a number at this point with some of the choppiness we're seeing, it implies a level of precision that may just not be there. So what we did is we were looking at the near-term headwinds we saw in the launches and ramp-ups in 2023, and the feedback we're getting from a lot of customers heading into 2024, that we're going to continue to see some of that choppiness and pushout, that we extrapolated that into 2025 as well, and that informed taking down our guide from 5-6 to 5, at what is the top end of our range. What we did then is we overlaid on the light vehicle ePropulsion side, is the potential for additional 6 months of ramp-up delay.
Not that we have visibility into that, but just seeing the volatility we're seeing in the near term, we said: Well, if you make the assumption that on top of the feedback we're getting and the intelligence that we have, that you could have additional risk, what would that look like? That's the additional $500 million down. So the $4.5 billion-$5 billion was constructed that way. The $5 billion based on what we think we're seeing, and the $4.5 billion to recognize that, hey, you could see additional pushouts and delays, and let's just factor that into the guidance we give.
Your 2027 target is $10 billion, correct?
Yes.
You maintain that? And I think one of the rationale points you provided is that there's still time, obviously, to win programs and, you know, that can play out. Obviously, 2027 is still a few years away, but, you know, has the bidding environment changed the number of programs that are up for bid, the size of the opportunities? Is it in line?
Yeah, it is. I mean, the thing that you know, as we look at the 27, it's still a long ways off, and we know there's we're seeing the near-term choppiness on the path to getting there, but we still remain convicted that E is going to grow and continue to grow significantly over time. In terms of what informs us about the longer term and why we continue to remain bullish on the longer term, one is that we are still seeing these launches happening. They're getting pushed out a little bit. We're seeing some delays in ramp-up, but the launches and the ramp-ups are still happening. And our big launch cadence was really from the end of 2023 through the end of 2025, beginning of 2026.
So even as we start to see some of that slipping, which is what we're seeing right now, you know, it's likely having less of an impact in 2027 because we're already getting to the point of scale. Not to say it couldn't have an impact, it's just too early to call that. Second, the level of quoting activity, to your question, hasn't changed. I mean, the intensity around the quoting is still there. And third, the regulatory environment, particularly in Europe and China, hasn't relaxed to the point where it's taking the pressure off the OEs need to ramp up production in electrified propulsion. It's different for all of us who sit here in the U.S. We don't feel it the same way that if you go over to China or you go over to Europe, there's a different intensity around that.
It's why NEVs are 30% of the market today in China, and have been for a year, right? They're continuing to grow. So, you know, we're continuing to see that regulatory pressure on the OEs. So for those reasons, we continue to believe that the long term remains intact, but we have a long way to get to 2027 and beyond.
Okay. Let's unpack the foundational side of the business. I recognize that the vast majority of the focus here is on eProducts, but, you know, BorgWarner, historically, a company with a wide range of successful products. I think you know, the most successful is turbochargers. What is the opportunity for some of these core ICE-enhancing products, which actually, you know, used to be the only way to meet regulatory requirements? What's the opportunity for further uptake? I mean, maybe you could just remind us where we are on, you know, gas turbo penetration. You know, are you seeing increased interest in, "Okay, we—this is an easier way to meet regulations near term?
Yeah, I mean, I think a couple of things to keep in mind on the foundational side. I think the first question is going to be the overall volumes for that overall market on a global basis, because if we do see some moderation in the pure BEV market, the question will be: What happens to the. Unless you believe the market's going to get smaller, it means foundational volumes could be higher. So let's keep that in mind. But in that context, where do we see penetration growth? I think it varies by region. I think in North America, where you're seeing some penetration growth within that, is in the turbo and EGR markets, is where what I would highlight. China is a little bit different. I would say it's EGR, VCT.
We're also doing pretty well on the four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive part of the business there. Seeing some growth over that market. Europe is a market where you may not see it in penetration because a lot of our products already have a fairly high level of penetration in that market, but we are seeing next-generation quotes as we still have a round of emissions regulations to make our way through in Europe, that you could see some content uptake, which will help you versus that, when you look at the revenue versus the overall combustion market there.
Can you maybe talk about your hybrid exposure? Just what, what percentage of your foundational revenue today is, is hybrids, and what is the content opportunity on hybrids? If hybrids accelerate, you know, is that, is that positive for you on a content basis?
You know, I think a couple of things to keep in mind. I mean, we announced earlier at our Analyst Day in June. You saw us change the way we described that business, where we went from—we were talking pure BEV, and you saw a switch to, from an external communication perspective, talk about eProducts. So we're looking at our eProducts, not only that go on the BEV vehicles, but how they go on the hybrid vehicles. And that's important because that's how we actually run the business internally. Because whether or not you're looking at engineering dollars, manufacturing footprint, purchasing, there's a lot of sharing between those different products. So if you're looking at a motor for a BEV versus a motor for a hybrid, substantially the same product.
If you go at a 400-volt inverter for a BEV versus a dual inverter for a hybrid, not the same product, but a lot of the same components in those products, and often produced in the same facility. So I think we see the hybrid market as a nice growth market for us. We didn't break it down, per se, each of the given years, but we can give you some more clarity on that. But on a content per vehicle basis, when you think about what is the content on a plug-in hybrid, which I think is what could replace BEVs in the terms of the mix versus the content opportunity on an E, it's very similar. It's about $2,500 per vehicle.
The difference is, well, on the BEV portion, it's $2,500 all in eProducts. On a plug-in hybrid, it's about $1,900, $2,000 on the eProducts content, but then you have $550 of combustion content. So net-net, the two of $2,500 in terms of addressable content per vehicle is pretty similar.
If we could just talk about some of the margin dynamics on the EV side. Let's just start with E-E propulsion. So, first, can you maybe unpack, there was some commentary from, I think Fred said something about balancing spend. So if the eProduct revenue guide is reduced, what does that then do to the eR&D trajectory? How much of that is sort of fixed cost that needs to be spent regardless, versus is a bit more variable because it's more application engineering, and it's just based on timing of program, and that can be deferred?
Yeah, it's the balance comment relates to, you know, we're very focused on driving the business to profitability, which has been a hallmark of BorgWarner, right? Top quartile margins over time, and that's something we expect to achieve. And the way we expect to achieve it on the E side is scaling up of the business. And so the fact that the business isn't scaling up as quickly as we expected is pushing out the path to profitability a little bit. So that is causing us to take a hard look at the cost structure of that business and say: Is there anything we should be doing in the near to mid-term to address that? Recognizing, though, the path to profitability has always been about scaling the business, not about tweaking the cost structure.
But we're cognizant of where we are in the profitability cycle and thinking about that. But we wanna be careful as we look at that cost structure, that we don't do things that are gonna impact our ability to be successful longer term. Because to the comment on E, you know, the way our eR&D works, we don't have a room of like this with all of us in the room, you know, spitballing things at the wall. That's not how our R&D is constructed. It's not engineers for engineers' sake. It's engineers who work in P&Ls for business leaders. And so the bulk of our engineering is focused on competing for, developing, launching new products with customers.
You know, we always give the example of the inverter program we won 2 years ago at this time in North America, and it takes 300 people years of engineering to launch that one program. Are we gonna cut the R&D on that to hit a 2024 target when that program's still launching a couple of years out? Well, that's a dangerous game to play. And so, you know, that's what we talk about in the balance. We don't wanna do anything that's gonna jeopardize our ability to execute on the long term to meet a short-term profit target. But we are cognizant of the fact that we're behind our profitability curve because we haven't scaled this quickly. So we're gonna be very sensitive to cutting R&D or making sure that we're managing the growth R&D prudently to be able to execute on the long term.
Are there specific discretionary pieces that are low-hanging fruit?
I don't think I call them discretionary or low-hanging. It would be trade-offs about investing in things that might be allowing us to compete for the longer term opportunities that we haven't won yet, and I'm not sure on all those we'd wanna compromise those. So we'll have to look at that very carefully.
Thank you. Your path to breakeven on eProducts margins was supposed to be this quarter, but it's delayed. Is the path to getting to breakeven eventually just purely scale?
It is, and we're disappointed. You know, we don't tend to give out profitability objectives that we don't meet. That's not something BorgWarner does, and we're disappointed in that. But the underpinnings of that is the fact that we're not getting the scale as quickly as we had hoped. And the path to profitability, just like we showed at Investor Day, it is about scaling the business. Because that R&D, $480 million-$490 million this year, is not the normal run rate for the business if it's only $2 billion of revenue. It's 'cause that $480-$490 is really supporting the revenue four or five years from now. So the key is getting the revenue up and the contribution margin up to start to offset that R&D that's embedded in the cost structure.
It really is about scaling the business. When scaling happens a little more slowly, it puts pressure on our ability to generate profitability sooner. We're definitely very focused on making sure we're contributing on that incremental revenue, 'cause that's ultimately the sign that we're on our trajectory to scale profitably. You can see that this year, right? Ex the eR&D, we're converting high teens in our guide on incremental revenue, and a good chunk of that incremental revenue is eProducts revenue.
One last one on this. You know, your challenge is for you, but it's challenges for everyone else. One could argue, especially in some of the products where you have real moats like inverters, does this strengthen your case? Meaning, are your win rates actually accelerating at all for a product like inverters? Because if the automakers have to make tougher decisions, it you know, it just further skews them to the ones with a leading portfolio.
You know, I, I think we're gonna have to see how it plays out from the OEM perspective. I mean, our view on the different outsourcing and sourcing hasn't really changed all that much. We do think power inverters and other power electronics are gonna be 80%+ outsourced already. Motors, we think it's about 50/50, and then gearboxes, for example, it's only about a third of that market is outsourced. But I think there is. It's a. I think it's a valid question because I think what you heard in terms of commentary about reducing investment, reducing capital spend from a number of OEMs, that doesn't necessarily fit with them being vertically integrated on everything.
You know, one example I can point you to specifically is this past quarter. I didn't get the high headlines, but we announced an OBC award with a North American OEM. And now, this OEM is known to be one that is doing most of the components in-house, at least that's the public view. But we're now supplying this pretty important power electronic component for their next generation luxury EVs. Now, I think it's important to note that that's not a change just now. This is a program that we've been working on for the better part of two years into this award, so you haven't seen the meaningful shift yet, but I think we're gonna have to see what this commentary plays out in terms of sourcing decisions from them.
Relative to your competitors, is there an opportunity to consolidate share?
you know, TBD on some of the components. I mean, we are in good position. I mean, on whether you go inverters, motors, other gear, you know, where are we? 1, 2, 3, TBD with some of the volumes moving around, but we're still in relatively competitive positions in those products. I think we'll have to ultimately see, in terms of share of wins over the next 12-24 months, how it plays out.
I think you'll definitely see, I mean, in some of those spaces, there's already a relatively consolidated market. When you look at things like inverters or commercial vehicle battery packs or high voltage coolant heaters, those things are all already relatively consolidated. I think when you look at other spaces in the E-space where we play, there's a lot more opportunity for consolidation. And I think the markets are probably increasing the pressure on some of those companies that aren't performing as well and are struggling maybe a little bit more financially, and the current pullback in the market isn't going to necessarily help those companies. And knowing that the capital markets aren't really very supportive or conducive to investing in those types of companies, it tends to put a lot of pressure on the ability of those companies to be successful as standalone companies.
I think it will create more consolidation opportunities in some of the places that are more fragmented. I mean, a great example of that is Eldor. You know, we will close on that onboard charging acquisition imminently, and that has a little bit of the underpinnings of a business that had some really good technology, but was losing money and was probably having a viability problem if they didn't find another source of capital, and there wasn't really a public exit for them either. So, you know, I think there's more opportunities out there like that, that we're going to continue to see in the market.
Okay, great. Folks, any questions in the room? Jim, please.
Yeah, one quick follow-up. You mentioned Europe and China, right, before United States. It's going to be a little more predictably. North America, Pat's comment about your flexibility in terms of which way the market goes, EVs are becoming more of a political football. So with an election coming up, we could see a change in policy or funding for some very big credits going to the... I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it could happen. Do you have the same flexibility regionally in North America to kind of flex the system, some of the dynamic you were talking about, Pat? Just want to make sure I understand that North America flexibility.
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you an example of it. It is one of our biggest plants in the U.S. is Seneca, South Carolina. You know, we make cases, all-wheel drive systems there. We are also installing, as we speak, you know, what will be one of our largest battery pack lines there to produce commercial vehicle battery packs. And why are we doing that? We're leveraging the fixed cost structure of that plant, but we're also leveraging the know-how of that team about how to launch automotive-grade product, not just creating new brick-and-mortar and a new cost structure, but leveraging a cost structure and a level of expertise that we already have in-house.
So, you know, if that were to slow down, now, that one, we're not seeing slow down, but if that were to slow down, that's okay because it's already in an environment where there's a fixed cost structure supporting the all-wheel drive business. And if that business is holding up stronger for longer, that's great. If it's not, that battery pack business has the opportunity to mitigate any of those headwinds. So we do have that type of flexibility in the way we manage the business, both from a business unit perspective and at the plant level.
Okay.
We have an anonymous question here on EV products like the axles. How does an OEM decide to outsource or how is high volume ensured?
Well, I think it depends on the decision process does somewhat vary by region, and it even with a customer, can vary within region and by product platform. I'd say if you're using broad generalizations, you see more propensity to outsource more systems. If you look at the 30+ wins we've outlined since we announced the original Charging Forward win, I think it's actually up to 35 now, you see a lot more system awards in China, and there's two reasons for that. You'll, you'll source the system if you prioritize speed to market and technology, because you can leverage that from outside your four walls. Now, you see more component sourcing in North America and Europe because of their considerations of their fixed costs, but also they want to control some of the system itself.
I'd say in China, and even in Korea, you see more propensity to outsource more of the systems. But it's going to be customer by customer, region by region, and our CEO, Fred, often says: "I'm not going to argue with the approach the customer wants to take. We can do it either way.
We could just wrap with one on capital allocation. Maybe you could just give us an update on your capital allocation framework, now that you're digesting PHINIA. I know that it's your leverage is going to optically look high because the EBITDA is lower, but just how should we think about capital allocation going forward and share, returns, cash returns to shareholders?
Yeah. So, I mean, coming out of the PHINIA acquisition, obviously, we were losing $500 million of EBITDA, you know, just spinning it off. And so leverage was a very important point out of the gate following the spin-off of PHINIA in July. And that's why we took the proceeds that we received as part of the PHINIA spin-off, and we deployed those to take out about $440 million of nearer-term maturities to get that pro forma leverage profile back down to 2x on a grossed-up EBITDA basis. So in Q3, we solved that problem already. So the leverage issue is kind of behind us now. And so as we look ahead and we generate excess cash or have excess liquidity on the balance sheet, it affords us the opportunity to deploy that toward either things that will...
investments that position us for success in the long term, consistent with our Charging Forward 2027 strategy or returning value to shareholders. And you can expect, just as you've seen us demonstrate over the years, including the $250 million we bought back last year, that, hey, an opportunistic execution of share repurchases is on our mind, just like executing investments in things that position us for long-term success. That's, that's our strategy.
Great. With that, we'll leave it there. We look forward to see how the narrative unfolds.
All right.
Kevin, Pat, Eddie, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.