Fuel cell truck manufacturer Hyzon to be liquidated

Hyzon Motors, a US manufacturer of fuel cell commercial vehicles, is on the brink of collapse. The board of directors has voted to liquidate and dissolve the company, as Hyzon writes in a statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Shortly before, Hyzon had warned employees about redundancies.

This shows that the company has fallen into even greater difficulties than previously communicated. Hyzon had already withdrawn from Europe and Australia in July 2024, citing difficult market conditions in both regions.

Shortly before Christmas, Hyzon Motors then published a notice to its employees in accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act). In it, Hyzon Motors announced that it would reduce its workforce by February 2025 unless the company managed to raise funds or find a buyer in the coming weeks. In addition to the difficulty of raising funds itself, Hyzon Motors also criticised the uncertainty surrounding the availability of state subsidies, in particular the California Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project, which the company believes has caused some of its customers to slow down or suspend their purchasing decisions.

Now, however, the company is not only reducing its workforce – it plans to dissolve the entire company. The mandatory disclosure to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) states: “Subject to stockholder approval, the transfer of all or substantially all of the Company’s assets through an assignment for the benefit of creditors, and the liquidation and dissolution of the Company pursuant to a plan of dissolution while continuing to pursue strategic alternatives and potential funding sources intended to maximise the value of its business and assets.” Shareholders will soon vote on this plan at an Extraordinary General Meeting. In the meantime, the newly appointed Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO), Glenn Kushiner, will try to find a solution for the company’s future.

Hyzon was founded as a spin-off of Singapore-based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies. It began operations in the US state of New York in 2020 before moving its headquarters to Illinois in 2023 and selling its New York property to raise cash. In December 2023, the company employed 355 people worldwide, 215 of whom were in the US. More recent figures are not available.

Hyzon does not build the fuel cell trucks for the US market itself, but converts the Freightliner Cascadia model from Daimler Truck. The company recently presented a new fuel cell stack with an output of 200 kW. In November, Hyzon also made its future fuel cell refuse collection vehicle available for initial customer trials. It is based on the Econic from Daimler Truck.

electrek.co, truckingdive.com, sec.gov