Hyzon to deliver 85 H2 trucks to Europe by year’s end
Hyzon Motors has started delivering its first fuel cell trucks to European customers. The company is also preparing to launch its first customer trials in the US. Hyzon Motors plans to deliver a total of 85 fuel cell trucks by the end of this year.
The fast-growing company made the announcement during its second quarter financial results presentation but has not named the customers. The fuel cell trucks will be assembled at the European headquarters in Groningen in the Netherlands.
“A lot of customers are getting the first fuel cell vehicles they’ve ever seen in the next six to 12 months,” CEO Craig Knight said during the quarterly earnings conference call. “This is a real kind of technology validation process and customers need to feel comfortable that the vehicles will work well in their use case.”
CFO Mark Gordon said the company was “on track” to deliver 85 fuel cell vehicles by the end of this year. He says the backlog of orders and letters of intent has risen from the equivalent of $55 million in April to now mark $83 million (the equivalent of 47 million to 70.5 million euros). Gordon does say though, that many of the letters of intent are still non-binding, such as the agreement with Austrian grocery chain MPreis for 70 H2 trucks.
The first sales from the deliveries that have now taken place will then be booked in the third quarter. Hyzon itself states that it currently has “no significant revenues”. The net loss in the second quarter was 9.4 million dollars, the adjusted EBITDA was -9.1 million dollars. Research and development expenses alone amounted to $3.5 million in the second quarter.
Hyzon, like many other mobility companies, is going public through a merger. The merger with SPAC Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp is expected to raise more than $500 million. The company hopes to use this to fund the ramp-up of operations until unit sales increase. This means the company has $517 million in cash on hand, enough to reach free cash flow by 2024 without having to sell additional equity, Hyzon CFO Mark Gordon said during a second-quarter earnings call.
Hyzon was founded as a subsidiary of Singapore-based fuel cell manufacturer Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies to dramatically accelerate the introduction of hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles as a full-service provider. In terms of the kind of collaborative infrastructure partnerships the company is known for generating, it is currently focussing on hydrogen fuel production hubs, a key piece of infrastructure for technology uptake. In April, the company signed an MOU for a joint venture with renewable fuels company Raven SR for up to 100 hydrogen production hubs in the USA. Gordon confirmed the first two will be in the Bay Area.
Here and elsewhere, Hyzon is currently targeting regional distribution rather than long-haul transport with its H2 trucks. While a central hydrogen fuelling station is sufficient for the latter application, long-distance freight transport requires “a more extensively developed hydrogen fuelling network”. This kind of shorter-distrance hydrogen infrastructure was, for example, possible in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
This was solved rather elegantly in New Zealand when Hyzon Motors signed a deal with renewable energy supplier Hiringa. As part of the agreement, Hiringa will also set up a network of hydrogen filling stations in New Zealand. Hyzon is aiming to forge more collaborative partnerships on infrastructure with the support of the Hyzon Zero Carbon Alliance.
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