Michael Fitzsimmons

Westport Innovations: A Growing Natural Gas Engine Business

ripski: honestly i had not thought about it because i had no idea rail transport accounted for 10% of US diesel consumption. i looked around on EIA with no luck..could you point me to the source of this data? i agree with you that rail seems like a perfect place to utilize cheaper and cleaner and US produced natural gas. btw, i was driving through kansas the other day and stopped at a mcdonald's for coffee (only). i ended up in a discussion with 4 farmers and asked them about the CWI nat gas engines and would they consider it. interesting responses:
1) farmers never buy anything they don't "test drive" first
2) farmers seldom buy stuff there neighbors don't also own

so, they recommend for CWI to be successful, they should have demo units down on the farm for the farmers to try out. one older farmer said he used to use propane for all his tractors, combines, everything, but then all the engines went to diesel. i asked him how he felt when diesel went over $4.50 in 2008, and he said they just sucked it up and passed on the cost. i get the feeling they would use natural gas if the refueling infrastructure was there and they could see that all the macines performed as they currently do.

Westport Innovations: A Growing Natural Gas Engine Business

H.T. - i've always thought nat gas would be successful in fleets. if i recall correctly, where we disagreed previously was that the success in fleets would have a significant impact on foreign oil imports. i still believe the answer to this is "not nearly as much as if we converted consumer cars and trucks to nat gas". there is no "dark side" wrt natural gas transportation: it's all *positive* and reduces foreign oil imports. my only concern is that it is not happening at near the rate it needs to. we continue to pump oil money out of the country at alarming rates, while printing US dollars as fast as possible. i fail to see how these two facts combined lead to anything positive. this will not change until we convert everyday cars and trucks to natural gas. that is, natural gas use in fleets, while certainly a positive, isn't sufficient to stop the hemoraging and protect the US from the bullet of peak oil that is aimed right between our eyes.

Westport Innovations: A Growing Natural Gas Engine Business

ripskii: yeah, southern california is a great market for westport.

respirate: thanks for all the info. i think the cummins, MACK, Daimler news means that westport's technology is in the lead. and yeah, it is speculative...speculative that their revenue will at some point translate into real earnings and short-term, probably speculative on how HR1835 turns out.

Westport Innovations: A Growing Natural Gas Engine Business

fran: i listened to the webcast which i missed the first time i looked at their website. anyhow, i took the plunge today and picked up some WPRT. i think they may be the best proxy on HR1835, which WPRT is obviously eye-balling intensely and mentioned on the call they expect senate action the bill this month. although i'd be surprised if HR1835 came through with robust natural gas transportation initatives for consumer cars and trucks (although i surely hope it will !), i feel pretty confident even the bozos in washington see the sense of natural gas fueled fleets and large trucks. so, if the bill does go this way, i would expect WPRT to pop. time will tell.

Westport Innovations: A Growing Natural Gas Engine Business

here's WPRT's latest earnings release:

finance.yahoo.com/news...

Westport Innovations: A Growing Natural Gas Engine Business

respirate: good questions, and one reason i wrote the article was because i was hoping to find out more about the company and it's earnings potential from SA readers. it does bother me WPRT grew revenues 70% yet on the bottom line their losses increased. also, cummins makes the engine that is selling so well...so exactly what is the breakdown between cummins and westport on sales/earnings per engine? i dunno. in the fleet market, i don't think waiting for the government to support the technology is a prerequisite for investment (although i do agree this is true for consumer cars and trucks) because the advantages of natural gas are so compelling, a company like MACK trucks is going to offer nat gas solutions for over 90% of its entire heavy duty truckline by 2010. that speaks volumes i think and proves nat gas in the fleet sector will succeed. i need to do more research on this company. for now, it seems like fuel systems solutions, which has positive earnings and is growing, may be a better bet as an investment in this area.

fran: i don't know anything about the JV's. i need to do more research on WPRT. feel free to educate me :)