Ballard Power Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:BLDP) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Randy MacEwen: Yes, I think,mid-25 onward is probably a realistic time. I don’t expect to have any material orders this year. What I will say is there are a number of very credible partners that have great visibility into the data center market that we’re working with and exploring different business models, different value chain positioning as a way to look at long-term high value capture for this market. So there’s a lot of work we’ll be doing in 2024. It may not translate to orders, but it certainly will translate to positioning and then orders to follow in that 2025 time frame.

Brett Castelli: Thanks, Randy and then on the ACT regulation in California, kind of a similar question. When do you think you start to see meaningful orders, maybe in the truck vertical, as a result of that regulation?

Randy MacEwen: Yes, so I mean just as a reminder for everyone, both the advanced clean truck and the advanced clean fleet regulations require a certain portion of vehicles to be zero-emission, not low emission. And this is a really important point, is that the policies are really focused on zero-emission in the U.S., not low emission. Starting to see, 2024 is the first year where a portion of trucks need to be zero-emission. This is very heavily weighted in terms of larger proportion in the lighter vehicles initially. And as you start moving out to 2025, ’26, ’27, ’28, etc., the heavier vehicles start to see a larger penetration of new vehicles coming to the market that must be zero-emission. So I think we’re probably realistically two, three years away from seeing kind of beyond demonstrations and kind of larger scale deployments in the truck market.

I think the really good news is that beyond California, there are now 13 additional states that have basically adopted and are adhering to California’s rule on the commercial vehicle emissions. So this is very much, in my opinion, a U.S. story, not just a California story.

Operator: This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Randy McEwen for any closing remarks.

Randy MacEwen: Yes, thank you all for joining us today. Paul, Kate, and I look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thanks again.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.