Company: APTV
Filing Date: 2025-05-01
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001521332-25-000027
Chunk: 219

Company: Aptiv PLC
Filing Date: 2025-05-01
Form: 10-Q
Item: Item 8
Chunk 219
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 vehicle design and assembly processes to reduce costs and weight. As a result, suppliers that sell vehicle components directly to manufacturers (Tier I suppliers) have assumed many of the design, engineering, research and development and assembly functions traditionally performed by vehicle manufacturers. 

50

Suppliers that can provide fully-engineered solutions, systems and pre-assembled combinations of component parts are positioned to leverage the trend toward system sourcing.

Engineering, design and development. Our history and culture of innovation have enabled us to develop significant intellectual property and design and development expertise to provide advanced technology solutions that meet the demands of our customers. We have a team of approximately 21,200 scientists, engineers and technicians focused on developing leading product solutions for our key markets, located at 11 major technical centers in China, Germany, India, Mexico, Poland, Singapore and the United States. During the year ended December 31, 2024, we invested approximately $1.6 billion (which includes approximately $535 million co-investment by customers and government agencies) in research and development, including engineering, to maintain our portfolio of innovative products, and own/hold approximately 11,000 patents and protective rights. We also encourage “open innovation” and collaborate extensively with peers in the industry, government agencies and academic institutions. Our technology competencies are recognized by both customers and government agencies, which, as noted above, co-invest in new product development, accelerating the pace of innovation and reducing the risk associated with successful commercialization of technological breakthroughs.

In the past, suppliers often incurred the initial cost of engineering, designing and developing automotive component parts, and recovered their investments over time by including a cost recovery component in the price of each part based on expected volumes. Recently, we and many other suppliers have negotiated for cost recovery payments independent of volumes. This trend reduces our economic risk.

Pricing. Cost-cutting initiatives adopted by our customers result in increased downward pressure on pricing. Our customer supply agreements generally require step-downs in component pricing over the periods of production and OEMs have historically possessed significant leverage over their outside suppliers because the automotive component supply industry is fragmented and serves a limited number of automotive OEMs. Our profitability depends in part on our ability to generate sufficient production cost savings in the future to offset price reductions. In addition, during recent years, global economies and our industry were subjected to significant inflationary cost pressures, and these pressures, including potential impacts from the rapidly evolving trade policies and tariff actions, may continue throughout 2025. We continue to work with our customers