Good morning. My name is Nikki, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Goodyear's third quarter 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After some opening remarks, there will be a question and answer session. You may register to ask questions at any time by pressing the star and one on your touch-tone phone. You may withdraw yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Today on the call, we have Rich Kramer, Goodyear's Chairman and CEO, Darren Wells, CFO, and Christina Zamarro, VP Finance and Treasurer. During this call, Goodyear will refer to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. Forward-looking statements involve risks, assumptions, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements.
For more information on the most significant factors that could affect future results, please refer to the Important Disclosure section of Goodyear's third quarter 2022 investor letter and their filings with the SEC, which can be found on their website at investor.goodyear.com, where a replay of this call will also be available. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures that may be discussed on today's call to the comparable GAAP measures is also included in the investor letter. I will now turn the call over to Rich Kramer, Chairman and CEO.
We released our third quarter results. Okay. All right. We'll go back. We'll say again, thanks, Nikki. Again, good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Now, yesterday you saw that we released our third quarter results after the market close in a new updated format. We're always looking for ways we can enhance our process, and that's led us to introducing our first ever quarterly investor letter. It replaces our typical press release slides and prepared remarks and puts all that information in one place so we can focus on your questions during our conference call. Thanks again for joining our call today. With that, let's open up the line and have some questions.
At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your touchtone phone. You may withdraw yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Once again, to ask a question, please press the star and one on your touchtone phone. We will take our first question from Rod Lache with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, Rod. How you doing?
I'm doing okay. Hope you're well. Just wanted to ask a couple things about pricing and competitiveness. Just, I understand that from your release that your view is the weakness is at least in part an inventory correction. You are also taking a bit of downtime to prevent an inventory build. Just in light of that, can you just maybe give us some color on what you're seeing with regard to price discipline? Do you think that the industry is going to kind of take the tack of trying to support pricing and in order to compensate for inflation? Is that kind of the industry's direction still?
Related to this, just in terms of the competitive landscape, I'm sure you're watching currencies and freight rates and things like that as well as we are. Any thoughts on just the competitive landscape, particularly in North America?
Yeah. Rod, I'll start, and I know Darren's probably gonna jump in here as well. There's a lot there. Listen, I would say the industry is certainly facing the same headwinds that we have out there. I mean, you know, you saw it by the numbers. Our raw material cost increases plus energy, plus transportation, plus labor, plus everything, you know, is sort of impacting anyone. You look at our performance, you know, on a trailing 12 months, we're about $2.3 billion of price that we got to offset all those costs. In North America, you know, we've essentially offset raw material and those other costs. On a total company basis, we didn't quite do it, but we did pretty good.
You know, I think that environment of those inflationary costs are still gonna be with us. That's particularly true in Europe, where we see energy costs going up dramatically as a consequence of the war. I think that landscape is there for everyone. I would suggest to you that everyone faced with that same issue has to offset those costs through a combination of recovering them in the marketplace through price, as well as taking cost actions, which again, you saw us do already in Europe with the Melksham closure, with some actions in South Africa. You know, you'd be safe to say we're not done as we think about what we're gonna be doing.
I would say yes, I think that there is an acknowledgement of what price and mix has to do in the marketplace to deal with the environment we're in. You know, I'll just maybe say from a North American perspective, you know, business is still good. Our product line is winning in the marketplace. That's particularly true in light truck. Our OE wins are very strong. I would say that, you know, from a competitive basis, you know, we've been gaining share in our key segments, and it's the best tire market in the world right now. We feel pretty good about where we are in North America.
Yeah.
Rod, there was one underlying question there, and I wanna make sure I got it right. It felt like you were also looking for any insight into how the, you know, the factors that are at play in the market are affecting us relative to how they might be affecting our competition.
Particularly some of those cost factors.
Yeah. That's right.
I mean, there are a couple of those I think that are worth touching on. You know, because, you know, for us, our competitiveness in manufacturing, you know, is a big deal. We've talked in the past about, you know, the fact that our factories have historically been in higher cost locations, on average relative to our competitors, and that we had a bit of a cost disadvantage on a cost per tire basis. You know, the actions that we've taken to restructure our manufacturing have closed that gap. There have been a couple other things at play here, one of which is the elimination of a lot of Russian capacity, which has further closed that gap for us this year.
Y ou know, the elimination of some of that capacity that was used for export. That improves our competitive position. The other thing, you know, I think that generally improves our competitive position is, you know, the fact that the energy inflation is concentrated in Europe, and we've got less concentration in Europe than some of our key competitors. You know, I think otherwise, when we've looked at factors like wage inflation, transportation, we haven't really seen any material differences between ourselves and competition. I guess, you know, if I look at the array of factors that are at play here, couple of them I see that we've benefited from, others I think are more or less neutral.
How about FX, Darren? Is that a-
Yeah.
U.S. dollar strength?
Yeah. You know, I think clearly, it's had an impact on our international earnings and, you know, it's impacted the transactional exchange, you know, that boosts our cost of our raw materials. We've, you know, had enough luck, you know, and strategy around pricing for raws that the transactional exchange, I'm not sure that is as big a deal. The impact on our earnings overseas has, you know, I can't say it's insignificant, but there are a couple of things at play here. One, you know, I guess if we're gonna pick a time for the U.S. dollar to be strong, from a pure exchange point of view, it's good to have weaker European earnings because then the weaker euro doesn't impact us as much. Certainly, we've seen that.
The other thing that we've seen is that Brazil, which is one of our largest markets and one that, where our team has been executing really well, the real has appreciated against the dollar. You know, the increased value of Brazilian earnings has mitigated, you know, some of the negative of the euro and a few of the other currencies.
Okay. You're not seeing that as a competitive issue in the U.S., just vis-à-vis Asian imports or anything like that?
No, you know, I think that the questions around the Asian imports, and you'll see that we put some in our investor letter, specific description around this effect of the Asian imports. I think we feel like it's a little hard to discern right now because Asian imports slowed down for a period of time last year during the time when transportation was so difficult and container ships were stacked up outside ports. You know, there was a bit of an artificial slowdown, and we've referred to that and discussed it in terms of the impact it had on the USTMA data, so it's in the Americas section in the investor letter. There were some similar effects in Europe.
We've seen periods of time where some of that stacked up on the water, imported tires have flowed into, you know, the markets in a fairly short timeframe, after which it's died down. The movement that we've seen in import volumes and how that's affected the lower end of the industry at this point appears to be more of a reflection of the transportation dynamics than it does anything else. I think the point is well taken that the fact that the Asian currencies are weaker versus the dollar, it's something that could have an effect at that lower end of the market.
If it's gonna have that effect, I don't think that we've seen it yet, and obviously, it's not a part of the market that we're particularly exposed to. To the extent that's gonna happen, I think it's something that's gonna happen in the future. It's not really something we've seen in a significant way to date. Although you know, I guess you could also say that you know the volatility in volumes for sort of non-industry member imports is a little bit hard to read because the volatility has been so significant.
Okay, thanks. Just really quick if I can fit this in. At one point, Rich had talked about the comps on non-standard inflation like things like energy and freight would start to get easier as we kinda close out this year and enter next year. Do you have line of sight on when that part of the that excess inflation really starts to look more neutral at this point or not yet?
I guess maybe handle it this way 'cause we're gonna go through for a couple of different reasons further pressure in the fourth quarter. A big piece of that is the further step up in energy cost or the forecasted step up in energy cost in Europe. In the Europe, Middle East, Africa business, a big part of this will hinge on what happens with energy costs, but I think we're presuming that those energy costs will be at least somewhat seasonal. As we get through the winter, then that'll have a chance to moderate. Obviously, the longer-term outlook is something I think we probably have more discussion on.
The transportation cost, you know, we have effectively peaked on ocean freight and started to come back down. You know, I think as we move through the fourth quarter, we'll get to our peak on inland freight. Then in the first half of next year, that will start to come back down. We've got, you know, I guess, a number of those non-raw material costs that are, you know, we are gonna be peaking and starting to get into a better position, you know, as we move through the first half of next year. Add to that the, you know, the outlook on raw materials, which by the middle of next year, you know, based on today's spot prices, we would start to get some relief in raw materials. You know, get to the point where raw materials are moving toward neutral.
I think all of those are reasons that, you know, I'm pretty optimistic about the setup for, you know, for the industry and, you know, for our ability to recover some of our margins by the time we get out in the middle of next year, which I think, I mean, is something you've commented on. I think that, you know, that optimism is there based on the way the, you know, we expect cost to evolve.
Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Emmanuel Rosner with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Good morning.
Good morning.
I was hoping you could maybe first give us a bit more color on the dynamics around the free cash flow outlook for the rest of the year, in particular, the larger working capital draw than previously expected. I guess, you know, related to this, I think, you know, early in the year, you had sort of like shared with us some sort of an essentially free cash flow scenario that was resulting to sort of breakeven in a free cash flow under certain assumptions and scenarios with the larger working capital, but somewhat lower CapEx. You know, where would you shake out?
Yeah. I think the quick takeaway, Emmanuel, is the changes that we've made in our, you know, in the financial assumptions effectively show, you know, no real change, in aggregate, from the assumptions that we shared at the end of the second quarter. A bit more working capital, given the inflation in inventory and accounts receivable. Some overall working capital inflation, you know, a bit higher level of units in inventory, you know, push that up a bit. Our investment levels we've pulled back on, and there are a couple of other small items as well. I think net-net, it's, you know, neutral relative to the cash items that we shared at the end of the second quarter.
Okay. Can you just discuss, you know, how to think about these working capital dynamics as we, I guess, move into next year then?
While the, you know, I think if we look out for the free cash flow outlook for next year, I mean, ultimately, there'll be influence from the economic environment, but we don't expect to use significant cash for working capital next year. This, I mean, the second half of 2021, you know, and the period we've gone through the first part of 2022 was kind of a unique rebuild period for working capital. And that's happened to us, you know, once before after the, you know, Great Recession, but it really hasn't happened otherwise. We're not expecting to have that kind of use.
You know, to the extent that we do see some, you know, any deterioration in the economic environment, that tends to create periods where cash flow is stronger as volumes come down and working capital comes down. You know, I think you know we feel pretty good about the setup for free cash flow. If we get a nice stable volume environment, then, you know, we're not gonna have the working capital rebuild, and that creates obviously an opportunity to generate cash. Even if we get a softer environment, that tends to be the kind of environment where we're able to generate cash.
Either way, you know, we're focused on making sure that our planned level of investment, you know, CapEx and otherwise, is consistent with the environment we're in and the long-term balance sheet targets that we've got.
Okay. I appreciate this color. I guess on the second topic, either you shared that, you know, at current spot prices, you would expect $300 million-$400 million of raw material headwinds, year-over-year in the first half of 2022, which is really useful. Is your current pricing enough to offset it. I guess, you know, assuming no increase or decrease in tire prices, you know, from here, would pricing offset this kind of raw materials next year?
Yeah. Emmanuel, you know, mathematically, you know, I think the answer is, you know, what we've got in place would go a long way toward covering the raw material costs that we have. It's a broad statement. You know, I think there are areas where we're gonna continue to get price, and so we're gonna continue to get pricing under our raw material index agreements from the OEs. We should get that in the first half of next year. There are certainly gonna be areas, you know, businesses around the world where we're gonna be experiencing costs, and we'd be continuing to do that work.
If we look at the, you know, at the first half and say $300 million-$400 million of raw material cost increases in the first half, most of which will be in the first quarter, then in the first quarter, you know, if we call most of that $300 million- $400 million , something in the neighborhood of $250 million-$300 million, you know, that is still, you know, well, you know, well less than half of the increase that we saw in the third quarter. You know, I think we're looking at a fourth quarter that's, you know, that's gonna be similar. You know, as we move into the first half, if we look at North America, we're gonna anniversary effectively half of the pricing that we took during 2022.
You know, we've got half the pricing and less than half the raw material cost. You know, I think that as a starting point feels pretty good. Again, every one of our businesses is gonna have unique circumstances. Obviously, we've got the non-raw material costs that are gonna continue to be there as well. Overall, we feel, based on the comments I made earlier, you can tell we feel other than the questions around energy costs in Europe. I think we feel good about getting past some of those cost increases.
Okay, great. Thanks for the color.
Thank you. As a reminder, it is star and one on your touchtone phone if you would like to join the queue. We will move next with James Picariello with BNP. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, James.
Hey, good morning, guys.
James.
As we think about the fourth quarter sequentially, despite the challenges in Europe, right, it sounds as though Americas volume should trend flattish year-over-year, which should be up sequentially. Then in Asia, you know, continued healthy growth year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. If volumes are up sequentially, you know, price mix versus raws sustain at a similar, your strong rate to the third quarter, are these factors enough to offset the additional inflationary pressure in the fourth quarter to, you know, to drive sequential SOI growth?
Yeah, I think the real question. You know, I think we do feel good about where our businesses are in the Americas and in Asia. You know, I think a lot of the question for the fourth quarter is gonna be around what's going on in Europe. There is an impact in Europe of the production cuts that we're taking. We're taking those cuts, you know, to make sure that we're not building any excess inventory, you know, not taking any, you know, not tying up cash on the balance sheet, not taking any excess inventory into next year. You know, that's, you know, to the extent there's been some softness, you know, recent softness in demand there, you know, we're making sure to adjust now.
You know, I think where the demand is in the fourth quarter in Europe, you know, is an uncertainty. The unabsorbed overhead impact for us, you know, there may be some of that in the fourth quarter, some of it may carry across to Q1. I mean, I think that's really the only area that is of significant concern to us as we go into the fourth quarter. We had a couple of businesses running well. We've got, you know, one business that's facing the, you know, the uncertainty I guess everyone's facing in Europe right now.
James, I would just add to Darren's comments, maybe building a little bit of what I said before. You know, we've seen these environments, you know, multiple times. Certainly the last three years have put us to the test again.
You know, we're putting a lot of focus, a lot of discussion on price and mix as well we should. The team's done a tremendous job, you know, executing it. If we would've said we would've gotten over $2 billion of price mix at the beginning of the year, you probably wouldn't have believed us. Team has done, you know, an excellent job being able to manage through this situation. I think as you think about Europe and you think about working capital and cash flow, you know, we know that we've got some, you know, potential headwinds as we work through Europe.
We've taken some actions, and we're gonna continue to focus on not only getting value of the product in the marketplace, but also looking at the cost structure over there as we see some of the changes around energy costs, around what's happening in some of the geographies there, to make sure that we're gonna use this as an opportunity to set ourselves up for some of the upside that Darren talked about earlier. It's good to talk about volume price and mix, but just remember, we're focused on the cost equation there as well.
Yeah. No, that's helpful. Well, is there any way to dimension what that, you know, absorption headwind could be in Europe, right? Because, I mean, would it still kind of run the rule of thumb of, you know, $13 a tire, 1.5 million units?
You know, I think that, you know, the production cuts in Europe are essentially in our consumer business. You know, the modeling assumptions we provide, which, you know, now that we went to, you know, have started using the investor letter format, we actually have those, you know, those modeling assumptions as part of the supplemental slide deck that is in the financial report section of the website. Those modeling assumptions have, for EMEA consumer, assume $8-$12 a tire of overhead absorption, which is, you know, given the range of different production costs in Europe. If you pick the midpoint of that $10, we've said we're cutting about 1.5 million units out of production. That would come out to be about $15 million.
You know, some of that fall in Q4, some of it could be held in inventory, you know, and come out in Q1. I think that's the way to dimension it.
Yeah. No, that's really helpful. Just lastly, as you think about Europe's Energy Inflation, $33 million headwind in the quarter, sounds as though this likely does run higher or at least we know that your net inflation runs higher in the fourth quarter. Just maybe clarify or if you could clarify, what does that quarterly run rate look like at the energy inflation line? And does this carry over through the first half of next year, get worse or possibly get better through mitigation efforts? Just how do we think about that Europe Energy Inflation?
I guess, you know, just to mention it, that $33 million we saw in Q3 more than doubled the energy cost for the EMEA business. I think we're looking for it to be even a bit worse in the fourth quarter. We've got our energy costs, we do tend to lock in a few months in advance. I think we're gonna go through in the first half of next year. To the extent energy stays where it is, we would see similar type increases through the first half before we start to anniversary the increases that we saw in Q3. I guess it seems as if there's a good chance that those energy costs may come back down in the middle of next year.
You know, I think we're allowing for that. I think through the fourth quarter and through Q1, we're gonna continue to see some pressure there.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you. We'll take our last question from Itay Michaeli with Citi. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yeah. Hi, Itay.
Hey, good morning, everybody. Just a couple follow-ups. Darren, go back to the free cash flow. I just wanna make sure, just to clarify, do you expect the full year to kind of be around breakeven? Could we get a bit of a view just to because I know there's a couple moving pieces on the working capital CapEx and nationalization payments. I just wanna revisit that. Then maybe one for Rich as well. Hoping you could just expand a bit more on some of the EV OE fitments that you won in the quarter.
Okay. Yeah. I think the cash flow question you're asking, Itay, is it's the 2022 free cash flow question?
Yes, the full year. Yep.
I think the assumptions that we have, which we have listed on page 15 of the investor letter. Obviously we're not giving specific guidance. I think from the beginning of the year, we've said that we're gonna invest at levels that still took into account our desire to protect the balance sheet with the focus on not increasing our net debt. That mindset is important to us given the long-term balance sheet objectives that we've got. When we're moving forward from the second quarter to the third quarter, you effectively see four things changing in the financial assumptions that relate to cash flow.
Two of them are more significant in that working capital increased from a use of about $300 million to a range or a use of $300 million-$500 million. I guess if you pick the midpoint there, then that use is up about $100 million. On the other hand, the range of capital expenditures came down from $1.1 billion-$1.2 billion down to $1 billion-$1.1 billion. That came down $100 million. Those two have just sort of equal amounts in opposite directions. Now, in addition to that, our income tax cash income taxes have come down a little bit. Like, that range we've tightened up and brought down a little bit. Rationalization payments have gone up a little bit. Those two kind of offset each other as well.
you know, I think the overall picture had, you know, obviously. You know, there are some things that have evolved during the year, but I think the picture in aggregate really hasn't changed much. Now you want-
Thank you.
That was the first question. The second question, I think you wanted some color on our success winning EV fitments in the quarter.
Yep. Yeah, there's a mention in the letter around that. Just hoping you could expand a bit about upon that.
Yeah, Itay, listen, I would tell you, we have had continued success winning OE fitments, and I would say it's part of our, you know, our ability to go to the OEs and help them solve what I would still suggest are their, you know, their most complex problems that they need to solve getting these vehicles on the road, again, around what you know, we've talked about in the past around range, around performance and handling, around sound, around everything. The teams continue to deliver with solutions that are very, very difficult specs to meet, and our teams are doing that. I would say, you know, the margins still come in at levels that we're very pleased with. The pull is very high.
We're only on the front end of that, as you know, but the pull is very high relative to the vehicles that we're on. I would tell you on a geographic basis, it's kind of been very balanced. I would say most recently we've had even in the quarter, a number of big wins in China. I'll leave some of the names off for a moment, but say they're both transplants into China as well as domestics in China who are really looking to lock in supply, particularly around EV fitments. The team over there is doing a great job. Same in Europe. I think in Europe you're seeing us sort of keep pace with the evolution that the German automakers are going through as they make that shift from ICE to EV.
We're, I would say, getting a bit of, you know, equal or more share on those vehicles moving forward. In the U.S., we are continuing to win on EVs, again, both with the traditional, call it, traditional OEMs as well as a lot of the new startups whose names we know. A lot of that's in light truck as well. I think, you know, that's one of the things that Goodyear was known for, was where our products on light truck vehicles, our share in light trucks is well above our overall share. Now adding to that, the Cooper brand as well as now EVs coming in on light trucks, and that's something where the team is coming through and winning a number of fitments as well.
I would say overall we're on pace. As you know, the percentage of EVs is small, but it's going to grow. Our positioning is exactly where we want it, and equally important, the profitability is exactly where we want it. When we look at the pull through, it's exactly what we wanna see happen. Beyond that, Itay, we'll talk more in the future of starting to put some Intelligent Tire features on some of those key EVs as well, and I think there'll be more of that to come in the future. Feeling really good about that.
That's very helpful. Thanks so much.
Thank you. It looks like we have a follow-up from Emmanuel Rosner with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I was hoping to take advantage of your brand-new format to ask a few more questions, if that's okay.
Sure.
I guess, first of all, on the demand side, I think some of your prepared remarks in the shareholder letter sort of mentioned, you know, a bit of a, you know, sequential, you know, softening, especially on the replacement side, in some regions. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about what you're seeing there on the ground? I think obviously Goodyear built some unit inventory and, you know, expecting to build some, you know, towards the end of the year. Are dealer and distributor inventories also on the heavier side?
Yeah. Well, Darren, you can start, and I'll jump in. Go right ahead.
No, I think, you know, we've seen a couple of different things, you know. I think generally, you know, the situation has, you know, it's been evolving both in the U.S. and in Europe. You know, the fact that our trade inventories have been coming down, you know, I think partly it is, you know, it does relate to the comment that I made earlier on, you know, the influx of imports after imports have been hard to get into the markets, you know, during a good part of the last 12 months. I think there is some repositioning there, and I wanted to, I guess, make that connection.
You know, the part of what we've seen, I think, is just a reflection of some warehouse space shifting to accommodate some of the imports that had been ordered last year and, you know, started showing up during the course of the summer. We've had, you know, trade partners that just had, you know, didn't really have a choice. They had to make room for those tires. They know now that there is, you know, I think, better supply in the industry. They have gotten used to us being good suppliers. They've been able to normalize their supply at some of our or their stock in some of our brands.
Okay. No, Darren, I think you said it. You know, and Emmanuel, if you just, you know, go around, last year in the U.S., we had a really big restocking that got done and, you know, that was really good. As Darren said, the shelves are there, supply is more reliable, carrying cost of inventory is a little bit higher, and you have this sort of.
Bump of new tires coming in from the Asian supply. That's kind of, Darren, I think what we would say is sort of a normalization of we get these bumps through resupplying, destocking, resupplying imports coming in. Once that smooths out, I think you'll see our business continues to do very well. Our channel inventories are holding up very well. They're not long on Goodyear tires right now, so I think that sets us up very well as we think about ending 2022 and going into 2023. In Europe, obviously, you're seeing a little bit more headwinds there, a little uncertainty of demand, so distributors are taking a little bit of a step back.
Our channel inventories are actually better positioned at the end of the third quarter in terms of volume or in terms of stocking than they were at the end of the second quarter. We feel pretty good about how we're positioned there as well. I'll just reiterate something Darren has talked about at length, and that is, I think you know this, when we get through, you know, tumultuous times like this or a slowing economy, you know, we are straightaway focused on cash flow, which means working capital. We don't build tires we don't need. We don't want those in inventory. Our focus is on generating cash. As Darren said, a slowing economy generally results in us generating more cash than less.
I would say historically that's the case, and that's exactly how we're thinking about it right now.
Okay. That's helpful color. Then maybe you know, final one from me, maybe for Darren. Would you think that the second half annualized SOI is a good starting point for us to model 2023? If so, what would be the broad puts and takes, you know, starting from second half of this year into how to think about next year?
I actually think you know, as we're moving through you know, the second half, you know, we have had you know, I guess maybe take this as four points. Our volumes in the second half, you know, so far have reflected some reduction in dealer stock. You know, to the extent that reduction in dealer stock related to sort of a you know, one-time need for our dealers to accommodate the imports that were arriving, then you know, I think as we move into next year, wouldn't expect that to recur. You know, I think it actually you know, could create a volume environment that's a little bit better if you know. Particularly if we're thinking about the Americas and Asia.
You know, I think Europe is a little bit harder to predict given the macroeconomic conditions there. However, I think we're also looking at 2023 as a period where you know, at least some of the OE, you know, the OE production should continue to recover. You know, so we've got you know, potentially you know, a good set, you know, a better setup for replacement, you know, just given if dealers have reduced stocks, then that could end, and we've got continued recovery in OE. So I think from a volume front, I think there's some reason you know, potentially some reason for some optimism. You know, even if we get a little bit of recessionary impact, generally that's only 2% or 3% impact on vehicle miles traveled and on replacement tire consumption.
The cost increases, you know, I think we see those continuing in, you know, into the first half of next year. But raw material, you know, the increase in raw materials will be coming down. We'll, you know, other than the energy cost in Europe, you know, we're gonna be anniversarying, you know, a lot of the cost increases that we saw on ocean freight, on inland freight, you know, the labor cost bump that we got during the year. I think we're looking for moderation in both raw materials and, uh, other costs, setting aside the questions around energy costs in Europe. You know, I think generally, we're looking at the middle of next year as a period of time where we may have costs coming back down.
That, you know, once we've gone through this period that we've gone through where prices have risen dramatically, once we get to that moment in time where costs start to drop, that tends to be an opportunity for margins to expand. You know, so we'd have a decent setup on volume and a decent setup on margin moving into the second half of next year. Obviously, we're gonna continue to work on addressing OE profitability because we've had a lot of costs beyond raw materials that have not been captured in the raw material index agreements with our OE customers and our fleets. We've been having constructive discussions there that I think could provide us some benefits next year that we haven't been getting this year.
Finally, you know, we'll get by middle of next year, we'll get to our full Cooper synergies. You know, so in the third quarter, we got about $25 million of benefit from Cooper synergies. You know, so that is obviously a run rate of about $100 million a year. We're looking to get ourselves up to that $250 million level on an annualized basis by middle of next year. That's something that also would, you know, help create some optimism around what we could get. First half of next year, we've still got some of the same challenges, but by the middle of next year, I think there are a number of things here, you know, volume, cost, and Cooper that could all be, you know, a fairly constructive setup.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Sure.
Thank you. This does conclude our Q&A session as well as our conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.