Westport becomes Aetherion, bets on CNG for US long-haul

The name draws on two Greek roots, according to the company: aithēr, the clean air of the upper sky, and ion, meaning motion or energy.

Shareholders approved a name change at the company’s June 30 annual and special meeting. The company expects its shares to trade under the new name on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, subject to final exchange approvals, on a date it has not announced.

HPDI anchors the renamed company

Philip Hill co-founded Westport in 1995 and invented HPDI, which keeps the diesel engine and changes the fuel it burns. HPDI is sold through Cespira, a joint venture with Volvo Group launched in 2024. Aetherion owns 55% and Volvo owns 45%.

HPDI runs in more than 12,000 trucks worldwide, according to the company. Cespira posted second-quarter revenue of $27.1 million, up 125% from $12 million a year earlier, according to Westport’s second-quarter management’s discussion and analysis, dated Aug. 11.

The open question now, he said, is how quickly fleets switch to natural gas for its stable pricing.

“There’s lots of places for battery electric and fuel cells, but not on these long-haul truck fleets,” he said.

HPDI can also run hydrogen and natural gas blends on the same core technology, Sceli said. Most of hydrogen’s cost is tied up in liquefying and transporting it, he said, and it needs to get closer to $5 an equivalent gallon to compete. He sees blending hydrogen into existing U.S. natural gas pipelines as one way around that cost.

“They’ve been doing it in Hawaii for 50 years,” he said.

Hawaiʻi Gas blends up to 15% hydrogen into the synthetic natural gas it makes at a plant built in 1974 and distributes by pipeline on Oʻahu.

Cespira and Volvo signed a development agreement in June to run Volvo’s 13-liter engine on hydrogen through HPDI, with a European commercial launch targeted before 2030, according to Westport’s second-quarter filing.

CNG storage for North America

Cespira’s growth so far has come on liquefied natural gas, Sceli said. North America is the next market, he said, and its fuel is compressed natural gas, with pipelines and infrastructure already in place.

Westport showed a CNG demonstration truck at ACT Expo in May, a Volvo VNL 300 on a high-pressure storage system. The company reported more than 600 miles of range and up to 10 miles per gallon equivalent on that truck. Sceli said a number of large fleets have shown interest, and Volvo is working through its business case for the system in North America. He told FreightWaves in April that Environmental Protection Agency certification is the primary step toward commercialization.

Fleets want price stability on top of savings, Sceli said.

“They want to know that six months or 12 months down the road, what their fuel pricing is going to be,” he said. “This volatility in diesel causes headaches for all of these fleets and pricing and dealing with short- and long-term contracts.”

Over the next six to 12 months, Sceli said, the two things to watch are Cespira’s growth and the CNG system.

“Westport is bringing a new CNG storage system to combine it with HPDI for the North American market, because the market is looking for an alternative and we have it,” he said.