Good morning, everyone. My name is Jamie, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the American Axle & Manufacturing Q3 2021 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key and the one on your telephone keypads. If you would like to withdraw your questions, please press the star key and then the two. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. David Lim, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Lim.
Thank you and good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone who is joining us on AAM's Q3 earnings call. Earlier this morning, we released our Q3 of 2021 earnings announcement. You can access this announcement on the investor relations page of our website, www.aam.com, and through the PR Newswire services. You can also find supplemental slides for this conference call on the investor page of our website as well. To listen to a replay of this call, you can dial 1-877-344-7529, replay access code 10159521. This replay will be available beginning at 1:00 P.M. today through 11:59 P.M. Eastern Time, November 12th.
Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the matters discussed in this call may contain comments and forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties, which cannot be predicted or quantified and which may cause future activities and results of operations to differ materially from those discussed. For additional information, we ask that you refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Also, during this call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding these non-GAAP measures, as well as a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP financial information, is available on our website. With that, let me turn things over to AAM's Chairman and CEO, David Dauch.
Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss AAM's financial results for the Q3 of 2021. Joining me on the call today are Mike Simonte, AAM's President, and Chris May, AAM's Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. To begin my comments today, I'll review the highlights of our Q3 2021 results. I'll then touch on some exciting business development news, including electrification announcements with REE and our largest customer, General Motors. Lastly, we'll discuss the ongoing supply chain challenges and our financial outlook. After Chris covers the details of our financial results, we will then open up the call for any questions that you may have. Let's begin. AAM delivered solid operating performance in the Q3 of 2021, despite unprecedented supply chain challenges that impacted industry production in the Q3.
When we reported Q2 earnings, our expectation was that the worst of the shortage was behind us. This turned out not to be the case. Production volatility stemming from the semiconductor chip shortage took another leg down, which eventually forced OEMs to idle production at many facilities, including their full size truck plants that were largely protected previously. However, the AAM team did a great job in managing these obstacles and factors under our control, resulting in a solid financial performance. AAM sales for the Q3 of 2021 were $1.21 billion, down approximately 14% compared to $1.41 billion in the Q3 of 2020. The decrease in our revenues on a year-over-year basis primarily reflects the impact of the semiconductor supply chain disruptions of nearly $245 million.
North American industry production was down approximately 25% according to third-party estimates. Light truck production was down 20% year-over-year, and volumes on our core platforms decreased significantly from a year ago. The industry is at a point where a lack of inventory has begun to impact retail sales. Days supply on key products that we support were at or below 30 days, with certain platforms in single digits and large SUVs closer to 20 days. Once the supply chain issues are resolved, which will take some time, we foresee an extended recovery to meet customer demand and replenish dealer inventories. AAM is in a great position to benefit from the strong demand in light trucks, especially pickups and SUVs and the replenishment of crossover vehicles.
AAM's adjusted EBITDA in the Q3 of 2021 was $183 million or 15.1% of sales. This compares to $297 million last year. Excluding the impact of metal markets and currency, our EBITDA margins would have approximated 19%. This is a testament to our optimization efforts and our strong cost control, yielding strong EBITDA conversion. AAM's adjusted EPS in the Q3 of 2021 was $0.15 per share, compared to $1.15 in the Q3 of 2020. As for cash flow, we continue to generate positive free cash flow in the Q3. AAM's adjusted free cash flow was approximately $69 million. Earlier this year, we announced a development agreement with REE. We are pleased to share that we have secured an initial platform business award with our partner.
AAM plans to supply REE with high-performance electric drive units for its highly modular and disruptive REEcorner technology that enables full-flat EV chassis for multiple applications. This is a great electrification opportunity for AAM, and it's validation of our innovative industry-leading advanced electric drive technology, and we're excited to build upon this win with REE going forward. Investors and other interested parties may have an opportunity to see our wheel end drive units and other EDU portfolio on display at trade shows beginning in January 2022. In addition, AAM announced today that we'll be supplying TracRite® differentials for the new GMC HUMMER EV. These differential subassemblies distribute power generated by the electric drive motor to the left and right wheels. This enhances the experience for drivers looking for exceptional vehicle performance both on and off road.
We are very happy to support GM on this great product, and we look forward to supplying GM for their future electric driveline needs. Our strategy and approach to the market continues to take hold. Our opportunity to succeed in full electric drive units, subassemblies, and components is well displayed with these two announcements. As we all know, electrification is coming fast and is a great growth opportunity for AAM. We have a strong product portfolio in EDUs and e-Beam axles, gearboxes, subassemblies and components. As such, our technology is garnering interest around the globe from new and established OEMs, from small cars to light commercial vehicles. We are in numerous discussions with manufacturers, and our business prospects look very positive. Because of our deep driveline experience, we believe we have an edge among the competition, especially when it comes to systems integration and NVH.
Before I transition to Chris, I wanna talk about the industry supply chain challenges and our financial guidance. What the industry has and continues to experience is unprecedented. The lack of semiconductor availability continues to drive high production volatility with very minimal warning. Additionally, rising commodity costs, labor shortages, logistical challenges, and port delays continue to stress the value chain. We are hoping to see semiconductor stabilization over the next successive quarters, but it's difficult to ascertain when the industry will return to normal, as global demand for chips remains strong and new capacity will take time to come online. We expect this issue will continue well into 2022 and possibly into 2023.
That said, our priority at AAM is to execute our game plan, which means to produce high-quality products, deliver on time, and be cost-efficient to support our customers and protect the continuity of supply regardless of the operating conditions, and we're doing just that. One of the management's top priorities is to diligently optimize the cost structure and improve efficiency, and we are doing that. Now let's discuss our financial guidance. Operating uncertainty continues in the Q4 , and especially with the availability of semiconductors and rising commodity prices. As such, we have updated our guidance. For the full year, we now target revenue in the range of $5.15 billion-$5.25 billion, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $830 million-$850 million, and adjusted free cash flow of approximately $400 million.
Chris will provide more details about our guidance in his prepared remarks. In conclusion, we had a good and solid operating quarter. We did what we do best, that is, we delivered operational excellence. The team delivered positive adjusted earnings and adjusted free cash flow under a very difficult operating environment. We are confident that our strong operating fundamentals should support solid financial performance, especially as volumes recover over time. In the meantime, we continue to secure our core truck, SUV, and crossover business and generate strong cash flow to fund our electrification future. In addition, we will continue to invest in advancing our electrification platform technology and our overall EV portfolio to serve multiple vehicle segments. Our goal is to be the electrification supplier of choice for the broader OEM community, and we are making primary index-related impacts to metal-based materials that we purchase.
You may recall, we hedge this risk with our customers by passing through the majority, but not all, of these index-related changes. The metal portion of this column reflects these elevated passthroughs on a year-over-year basis. For the first three quarters of 2021, metal markets in a foreign currency have increased our revenues by approximately $212 million, and we expect this to be well over $300 million for the full year. Now let's move on to profitability. Gross profit was $165.6 million or 13.7% of sales in the Q3 of 2021 compared to $249.8 million in the Q3 of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA was $183.2 million in the Q3 of 2021 or 15.1% of sales.
This compares to $297.1 million in the Q3 of 2020. You can see a year-over-year walk down of adjusted EBITDA on slide 8. The return of COVID volumes added approximately $16 million, but was more than offset by the negative impact from the production volatility stemming from the semiconductor disruptions in the amount of $83 million. Last year, we also had a $22 million benefit from an ED&D recovery and a customer settlement that did not recur in 2021. Even through all these disruptions of the quarter, AAM still delivered $17 million of net performance. As I've just mentioned in our sales highlights, we are facing significant year-over-year increases in commodity metal markets. The retained portion impacting this quarter plus foreign currency was $31 million.
You can see on our EBITDA walk the dynamic this has on our margin calculations. If you exclude the impact of this pass-through dynamic, our margins would have been significantly higher, as noted on our walk. Let me now cover SG&A.
SG&A expense, including R&D, in the Q3 of 2021 was $90.5 million or 7.5% of sales. This compares to 4.7% of sales in the Q3 of 2020. AAM's R&D spending in the Q3 of 2021 was $34.7 million, compared to $18 million in the Q3 of 2020. Recall, we received significant engineering and development recovery last year of approximately $15 million. The Q3 of 2021 incurred a sequential quarterly increase in R&D, in line with our expectations. We will continue to focus on controlling our SG&A costs, while at the same time investing in technologies and innovations to achieve our pivot to electrification.
We do expect R&D spend to increase in the coming quarters as we launch new programs and continue to pursue meaningful opportunities in the electric vehicle business as we experience significant customer interest in our new products and technology. Now let's move on to interest and taxes. Net interest expense was $47 million in the Q3 of 2021, compared to $50.5 million in the Q3 of 2020. We expect this favorable trend to continue as we benefit from continued debt reductions. In the Q3, we redeemed $100 million of our 6.25% Notes due 2025 and refinanced the remaining $600 million balance. In the Q3 of 2021, we recorded an income tax benefit of $13.6 million compared to a benefit of $22.5 million in the Q3 of 2020.
As we near the end of 2021, we expect our effective tax rate to be approximately 10%-15%. We would also expect our cash taxes to be in the $25 million-$30 million range. Taking all these sales and cost drivers into account, our GAAP net loss was $2.4 million or $0.02 per share in the Q3 of 2021 compared to an income $117.2 million or $0.99 per share in the Q3 of 2020. Adjusted earnings per share, which excludes the impacts of items noted in our earnings press release, was $0.15 per share in the Q3 of 2021 compared to $1.15 per share in the Q3 of 2020. Let's now move on to cash flow and the balance sheet.
Net cash provided by operating activities for the Q3 of 2021 was $89.8 million compared to $249.5 million last year. Capital expenditures, net of proceeds from the sale of property, plant, and equipment for the Q3 of 2021 was $33.2 million. Cash payments for restructuring and acquisition-related activity for the Q3 of 2021 were $9 million. The net cash outflow related to the recovery from the Malvern fire we experienced in September of 2020 was $3.5 million in the quarter. However, we anticipate the Malvern fire to have a neutral cash impact for the full year as timing of cash expenditures and cash insurance proceeds align over time. In total, we would expect $55 million-$65 million in cash payments for restructuring and acquisition costs in 2021.
Reflecting the impact of this activity, AAM generated adjusted free cash flow of $69.1 million in the Q3 of 2021. From a debt leverage perspective, we ended the quarter with net debt of $2.6 billion and LTM adjusted EBITDA of $930.2 million, calculating a net leverage ratio of 2.8x in September 30. We are focused on improving the balance sheet and delivering on our goal to improve our leverage this year. We have made meaningful progress on reducing our gross debt outstanding and reducing our leverage ratio by more than a full turn as of the end of the Q3. Before we move on to the Q&A portion of the call, let me close out my comments with some thoughts on our 2021 financial outlook.
As you can see from our press release, we have revised our outlook to $5.15 billion-$5.25 billion of sales, which includes approximately $300 million of metal market pass-throughs in foreign currency. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $830 million-$850 million. Just as a reminder, investors need to consider the impact of the metal market pass-throughs as it relates to our margin calculations when comparing from period to period. In periods in an environment such as this, it is meaningful. We expect to generate approximately $400 million of adjusted free cash flow in 2021, or nearly 50% adjusted free cash flow to adjusted EBITDA conversion. We expect our capital expenditures at less than 4% of sales as our capital reuse and optimization efforts continue to deliver results.
Our updated outlook is based on the latest and best information we have regarding customer production schedules. We continue to assume our customers will prioritize building full-size pickup trucks and SUVs through the end of the year with minimal disruptions. However, the operating environment remains choppy, with multiple factors posing a risk to the supply chain. As volumes begin to normalize, we should be in a great position to leverage that environment to generate profits and cash flow. This, in turn, will be used to support our highly advanced research and development initiatives in electrification and solidly position us for future profitable growth aligned with our capital allocation priorities. Thank you for your time and participation on the call today. I'm going to stop here and turn the call back over to David, so we can start the Q&A. David?
Thank you, Chris and David. We have reserved some time to take questions. I would ask that you please limit your questions to no more than two. At this time, please feel free to proceed with any questions you may have.
Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your touch-tone phones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Once again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from John Murphy from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.
Good morning, guys.
Morning, John.
Just a first simple question, I guess. You know, we look at Q4 you know, applied sales are up a little bit from the Q3, but EBITDA's down a little bit. You know, I'm just curious, you know, one, you know, if you can explain that. Two, you know, do you think we are kind of scraping along the bottom here? It's probably not gonna get much worse for you, but the timing of it getting much better is still kind of TBD and probably sort of mid-next year.
Yeah. John, I'll go ahead and comment on the margin piece as it kind of sequentially goes from Q3 to Q4 as it relates to our sales. A couple things to keep in mind as we transition from the third to the Q4 , sort of embedded in a little bit of our commentary as it relates to our metal market pass-throughs. I would expect, we would expect an uptick in those pass-throughs in the Q4 so you're starting to see a little bit continued lift on our revenues associated with that pass-through, which, as you know, impacts our margins but also elevates our sales sort of on a cost basis. Also, you know, things that we talked about we would see inside of the Q4 , you have normal sequential lower production days.
The seasonality associated with the Q4 usually impacts our profitability and margins from that perspective. Nothing unusual there. We're also in the process now of launching a couple key programs that's to support General Motors' facility at Oshawa as they bring that online, as well as some key electrification programs. We'll have inside of that quarter some discrete project expense associated with that. Lastly, you may recall from the Q2 , we built a benefit with our inventory build through the, I would call, impact associated with the delays of production. Some of that benefit will unwind in the back half of the year. We see that happening, in more inside of the Q4 than the Q3, and probably a little bit of that will carry into 2022 as we unwind those inventories.
Those are kind of the main points associated with that. As it relates to your comments in terms of maybe bouncing around the bottom, I would, you know, turn back to David's comments. He mentioned his prepared remarks. Hopefully, this is the trough with some improvement from here, but obviously that uncertainty remains in front of us.
Yeah. John, this is Dave. Let me just add to what Chris said there. You know, clearly we thought the trough would be in the Q2 . It shifted here to the Q3, largely because of the outbreak of COVID in Southeast Asia, specifically the Malaysia area. Obviously, that impacted not only you know the normal crossover and passenger car, but spilled into you know pickups and SUVs as well, which was unfortunate and impacted our sales. We do see the semiconductor issue starting to stabilize a nd as I said, it'll get better each quarter going forward, but it's not going away anytime soon until incremental capacity comes online.
What we're not gonna see go away anytime soon is, you know, the impact of, you know, COVID-19 still, you know, and the issues associated with labor availability, and then these raw material price increases in the metal market, we don't see going away anytime soon either s o we got, you know, wage inflation issues out there, raw material economic issues that are out there, and just overall labor availability challenges that are gonna continue in the industry for, I think, an extended period of time.
Okay. Just a second question around mix. I mean, you know, obviously you're a beneficiary with GM trucks and, you know, trucks in general.
Given those inventories are still incredibly tight, it doesn't seem like that mix will unwind on you next year and probably will, you know, take some time before even, you know, turns negative sometime in 2023. How do you think about that? How do you think about the addition of Oshawa coming on next year, presuming chips come back, right? 'Cause you can't produce trucks without the chips. I mean, what does Oshawa mean for you next year? U ltimately, when there's a catch up in production and inventory, you know, is that something that's gonna be like a + 20%, 30% on an annual basis? I mean, how do you think about where that can go and how that might be even governed by capacity constraints, you know, second half 2022 or probably more into 2023?
Yeah. Let me start, and then Chris, if you wanna add, you can. You know, clearly, you know, the OEMs have been protecting their profit pools, and we have even benefited from that as well, you know, based on the mix that you're talking about there. You know, again, you know, their vehicle content mix doesn't necessarily, you know, equate to our vehicle content mix because our products are very similar that they go in each of the different vehicles that they're producing there. We don't see a big change there, but we do see volumes still being strong, especially as we're starting to see the semiconductor issue start to stabilize.
Our customers are bringing back assembly plants, especially this week, and we're seeing a lot of assembly plants, you know, come back up and running. With respect to the GM Oshawa, them coming on board, you know, next year, obviously that's a big benefit for American Axle as we're gonna be the exclusive supplier into that facility for the different product mix that they have there, and we'll benefit greatly from that. GM is, you know, protecting that plant just like they protected the other truck plants to the best of their ability. Obviously, with the semiconductor issue, you know, easing, they should be able to do that. That'll bode well for not only them, but also us, you know, moving forward here.
In addition, you know, other customers, again, they're protecting their truck and SUV mixes as well, and we're seeing those benefits, that being Ford and Stellantis. You know, so we see a pent-up demand that's there. We see obviously historical low inventory levels that are out there. We think it'll take a minimum of 24 months to replenish the value chain, and therefore we see some bright days ahead of us as it relates to our ability to generate cash, pay down debt, and fund our electrification growth of the future.
Great. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thanks, John.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Levy from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi. Good morning, and thank you for taking the question.
Yes.
I wanted to just start by looking at the Q3. If I just focus on the volume piece alone in your EBITDA walk and sales.
Yeah.
That was a 27% decremental margin. That's pretty good. I mean, we're seeing, you know, much higher numbers out of others s o just wondering, you know, just given the start stop nature out of production, why you've been able to contain this to a 27% decremental margin? Is there the benefit of mix? Are you continuing to build inventory and that's helping to sort of smooth this out a little bit? J ust a little color on the decremental in the Q3.
Yeah. Dan, this is Chris. Certainly understand that perspective. Look, as we think about the volatility associated with production, you know, we rely very heavily on our core operating system and our ability to kind of navigate the ups and downs of the production cycles. There are times where we try to lean into benefiting by building inventory for consistency. The other side of that equation is we also benefit by rapid quick responses to changes in production to mitigate the impact it would have on our contribution margins. I think the team has done a great job here in the Q3. As you know, we had some benefit of inventory in the Q2 we spiked out. We had probably a little bit here in the Q3, but nowhere near what we saw in the Q2 .
It's quick reaction times. It's mitigation of those premium costs associated with that and a good purchasing department coordinating with our supply base to minimize any disruptions there. That's how I would describe it.
As we're thinking about the incremental margin, just on the volume piece alone, as volumes get better, there's no reason to expect it wouldn't be in the, call it 25, the typical 25% plus range. Is that fair to assume?
Yeah. I mean, in terms of as it relates specifically to volume, yeah, 25%-30% is that typical range we would experience. If it's overweighted towards some of our higher profitable full size truck applications, obviously that's a little bit higher than that from both an incremental or decremental. You know, that would be outside of the fact that, you know, we do look forward to expanding some of our investments in R&D and any other factors associated with that. Just from a pure change in volume, yeah, that's typically what we would expect.
Great. Thank you. My second question is an interesting update there on the EV front, the differentials for Hummer. Maybe you could just give a sense, first of all, what types of content per vehicle that you have. You know, are you going to be engaging more broadly on the entire Ultium platform with GM? I mean, just give a sense of how this could lead to additional content wins with GM on the EV side.
Yeah. Dan, this is David. You know, clearly GM's got to define their strategy first in regards to, you know, what they may make themselves, with their Ultium platform strategy versus where they need their supplier partners. No different than what they do on ICE business today. Clearly, we're playing a role with General Motors today on the ICE business, and we're gonna play a role with General Motors on electrification business going forward. The HUMMER is one of the first programs that we're announcing, but we expect to grow that opportunity with them over the next several years as they roll out their electrification strategy, and we further demonstrate our advanced innovative technology. We think we have some industry-leading technology. We've received very favorable feedback from General Motors and other customers regarding that technology.
It's just, we just need to determine, you know, what each of the OEMs wanna do. You know, in your case, specifically the GM, you asked the question. But we're highly confident that we'll be able to, you know, grow our business and partake in some of the Ultium strategy going forward. You know, we're an industry leader when it comes to beam axle today, as well as supplying EDUs. Don't forget, as I mentioned in my earlier comments, you know, we're one of the only companies that can supply components, sub assemblies, gearboxes, and full EDU and electric beam axles. We feel very good about our chances to grow in the electrification space.
Great. Thank you. Very helpful. Appreciate it.
Yeah. Thanks, Dan.
Thanks, Dan.
Our next question comes from Joseph Spak from RBC. Please go ahead with your question.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone.
Morning, Joe.
You know, so, you know, I guess I'm just curious because you guys are in a pretty good, you know, position to help out here. Like, versus IHS basically had, you know, the full size trucks for GM down about 15% year-over-year. It sounds like you're saying you don't think you built more inventory, you know, this quarter, that more of that happened in the Q2 . Is that sort of what you shipped to that program, and then you think the unwind happens more, you know, in Q4 and into 2022? I just wanna, like, you know, have a finer point on some of your comments there.
Yeah. Joe, I wouldn't think about it in the context of just, for example, GM full-size truck. This would be inventory inside of our walls that we would build, whether it be WIP or finished goods, that we've either built ahead of a schedules or tried to level build as schedules moved around on us. You can benefit from that on a capture of your absorption of overhead and labor costs into that. The thought process being as that inventory sort of crescendoed up in the second and Q3, again, a little bit more in the Q2 versus the third, we will begin to run that inventory down in the Q4 or into the, a little bit into the early part of next year as well. As that happens, again, this is our internal inventories, that benefit will unwind itself. It's neutral.
It's a zero-sum game across the board as your inventories move up and down. It doesn't exactly correlate to how you would think about from a General Motors full-size truck application. It could be across all our product, I said.
That's the absorption benefit from your inventory. Do you have any sense in terms of like how much of a benefit there may have been from vehicles where you ship product that might not have been fully completed and then wholesaled?
Yeah, I think that would be difficult for us to ascertain how our customers are positioning those vehicles at their assembly plants.
Okay. Then just, you know, as we think about 2022 and, you know, appreciate your sort of comments earlier about flexing up and flexing down. It doesn't seem. I mean, like your sort of view on incremental margins as we sort of, you know, think about 2022, are all that changed? It just is gonna, you know, the factors, the other factors that will sort of dictate the margin profile just be, I guess, one, the stability of the schedule, so you don't have to, you know, go up, go down? Two, what happens with raw materials?
Yeah. I think there's a couple things to think about. Obviously, we're not providing any 2022 guidance. It's still very volatile at this point. But, you know, the volatility of production schedules and that cadence and the contribution of margin associated with that, obviously you'd need to take into consideration. We do expect to continue to increase R&D, and not associated per se with production, but if you're thinking about movement from year to year. Look, at the end of the day, as you hear from every other supplier, right, we're continuing to face rising material, labor, and transportation costs, and we gotta look to mitigate that and navigate those challenges between here and next year. I mean, we do face that.
On the good side, you know, we expect good control of a lot of our input costs at our factory, meaning our conversion costs. You know, our productivity programs, our restructuring programs that we've implemented over the last year or so are mitigating some of those and optimizing our controllable elements of that. Those other pieces, you know, are very real that we're working through.
Maybe just a quick follow-up. It sounds like you're running R&D right now, like between $35 million-$40 million. Is that the right base like annualizing that, is that the right base for 2022, or is there even further investment that needs to happen?
Yeah, I would say, you know, over the past several quarters, we've been running more between 30-35. I would expect it to transition more towards 35-40 over the course of the next year.
Yeah, I was talking about the back. I was talking about the back half implied, I think. Sorry.
Yeah, this quarter growth was 35%, and I would expect that to step up from there between the 35%-40% range.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, our final question today comes from Brian Johnson from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, just a quick housekeeping question and a more strategic one, which perhaps we can continue in a few weeks with our conference. The housekeeping one is, we used to pay a lot of attention to scrap, and that kind of, I think for you or Metaldyne might have been a profit center at some point. Is there anything vis-a-vis the scrap you generate and the high spot prices for steel that's kind of visible in the financials, or is it not really meaningful anymore?
Look, you know, when we do sell our scrap, and obviously if scrap markets increase, we do get a slight benefit from that, but it's not significant to our financial statements.
Okay. The second is, as you kind of think about the position in EVs, particularly where we could take you, I think one thing I'm struck by is a lot of the mechanical engineering over the years, you know, that resulted in your torque transfer products, your drivetrain products, other suspension products. You know, I think what we demonstrate is a lot of that can be handled by software, for example, to adjust suspension systems, the drive torque transfer. I guess two things, you know, where are you internally on that software development?
Can we really kind of give you a bigger place at the table when an OEM sort of sees the light like some of these startups have and says, "You know, I should really be thinking about using software to do a lot of the things I used to do mechanically." I know that's kind of a broad strategic question, but just wanna tee it up?
Yeah. Brian, this is David. You know, clearly there's a strong demand out there for software engineers and controls engineers as the market and the industry is pivoting to electrification. No different than inside our company as well. We already had a decent base or a good base, we're adding every day to our software and controls engineering capability because the demand is just very large as we go forward, especially as the industry pivots to electrification over time. We're already offering and adding those services, you know, to our partnership with REE.
At the same time, you know, we've taken our innovative and advanced technology with our electric drive unit and integrated into their platform design that gives them the efficiency and the volumetrics that they're looking for, meaning you can put more people in the different vehicles and support their REE technology or their REEcorner technology. We're very excited about their technology married up with our technology and leveraging both of our software and controls capabilities. We continue to look at how we can just add organically or look strategically as to what we can do to strengthen our software and controls capability just because we see the greater demand in the future.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot, and look forward to chatting in a few weeks.
Sounds great, Brian. Thank you.
Thank you, Brian, and we thank all of you who have participated on this call and appreciate your interest in AAM. We certainly look forward to talking with you in the future. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's question and answer session, as well as today's conference call. We do thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.