Westport said that it and its ‘Cespira’ joint venture with Volvo would “continue to collaborate” with Weichai.

Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and with offices in Gothenburg, Sweden and Brescia, Italy, Cespira was formed by the two companies to commercialise Westport’s high-pressure direct injection technology.

A pilot production line has opened on-site, intending to scale up production throughout the decade. The joint venture aims to become a leading global manufacturer of fuel cells produced on a commercially viable scale to facilitate cost-effective vehicle and other applications and take a major step towards climate-neutral and sustainable transportation by 2050.

Located in Byhalia, a town located in Marshall County (just on the Mississippi-Tennessee border near Memphis), the five-hundred-acre site will accommodate a two-million-square-foot plant by 2027.

Initially set to be released in the U.S. market, the class 8 battery-electric RC8 truck is set to go into series production in Q4 2024, at Hexagon’s new 200,000-square-foot facility in Dallas, Texas. Tern trucks will be available through the Hino dealer network across the U.S.

The facility in Haguenau, located on the German border, has begun production with an annual capacity of four million bipolar plates.

Hexagon Purus is set to supply hydrogen storage and battery packs to Toyota Motor North America for the series production of its heavy-duty fuel cell powertrains. These HFC powertrains will be manufactured at the Toyota facility in Georgetown, Kentucky.

One of the joint ventures will be based in Germany and will be majority owned by Voith, while the other will be established in China with Weifu as majority owner.

The new plant is located next to the Utility Trailer Southeast Texas dealer location and will be operated by ‘Cargobull North America’, the joint venture established by the two companies last year.

The truck engines will be fitted with Westport’s high-pressure direct injection (HPDI) system, using compression-ignition to deliver power and range comparable to a conventional diesel.

Kel Kearns - veteran of Ford Motor Company - has been appointed as CEO of the joint venture.

At the CV Show 2024, held between 23-25 April at the NEC in Birmingham, UK, EV manufacturer B-ON GmbH of Luxembourg announced a joint venture with Chinese car manufacturer Chery Automobile Co. Ltd, based in Wuhu, China.