Aspen Aerogels, Inc. Oppenheimer 29th Annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference

My name is Colin Rusch. I am the head of Industrial Innovation Research here at Oppenheimer. We are thrilled to be joined by the management team from Aspen Aerogels: Don Young, CEO, Grant Thoele, CFO, and Neal Baranosky, head of IR. Guys, obviously you just put up a great quarter and a great guide. I just want to get a sense of with Thermal Barrier revenue up sequentially, but down from a year ago, how are you thinking about some of the cadence of volumes on EV programs in North America? We should think about those volumes scaling up here or maintaining over the next several quarters.

Thanks, Colin. Thank you for having us. On the North American PyroThin Thermal Barrier business, we have obviously been through a little bit of a journey here over the course of the past 12 and 24 months. After very rapid growth from really 2020 into 2025, the market share of EVs in the U.S. for regulatory and incentive reasons, were cut in half, in essence from roughly low double digit percentages to a range today. They seem to have stabilized around 5.5%, 6%, depending on the calculation. Our numbers reflected that. We believe that we have largely stabilized at this point, or that market has stabilized around 6%. The key driver for us in North America, of course, is General Motors.

What we see of them here in Q3 that is a little different from what we saw of them in the first half of the year, is that they seem to be producing vehicles at the rate that they are selling vehicles. They had a significant destocking or lowering of inventory during the first half of the year. Even though sales rates were at one level, production rates were at a lower level. What we have seen is that leveling out now, and even potentially building modestly inventory. We are seeing that as creating a more robust second half for us, from a North America Thermal Barrier business. We are seeing it here in Q3 and most forecasts have it continuing through the year.

Okay. I trust that is giving you a little bit more comfort on 2027 build rates, even though it is a little early to predict where those things end up.