Westport Fuel Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:WPRT) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Bill Larkin: I think from a gross margin perspective, we are really excited about what we generated during the quarter, and there is still work to do on improving our gross margins. A lot of it is, we are starting to see somewhat of a stabilization in our supply chain and continue passing on those incremental costs to our customers just to try to preserve that margin. But we have got to be very careful in terms on how much we pass on, not price ourselves out of the markets. Another important factor, that improves our gross margin, and this new LPG business that’s coming on later on this year will help our margins as well because it drives throughput within our existing capacity. And so, we will expect more of that profit to drop to the bottom line because we really don’t have to make significant investments for this additional capacity in terms of CapEx. There will be a little bit from working capital, mostly inventory to start prepping for that.

So, we still have work to go on our margins. And eventually, we do expect, hopefully, see some improvements as – hopefully, as inflationary pressures come down, we start increasing – taking up the capacity that we have from a production standpoint. But we still have work to do from that.

Mahima Kakani: Okay. Thank you so much.

Operator: The next question comes from Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Eric Stine: Good morning everyone.

David Johnson: Good morning.

Eric Stine: Hey. I know you touched on it a lot here, but I just want to go back to the situation with the contract with Volvo. I mean should we think about the price adjustment in the first quarter? I mean is this something that we should kind of view as more of an interim agreement while you work towards, potentially a new one, or is this one where there may be some quarter-to-quarter variability where it’s kind of on a ongoing negotiation basis?

David Johnson: Yes. I would go for the second category, Eric. So, we have ongoing negotiations. So, and as mentioned in prior calls, we do have a contract that’s expiring early next year. And we will be – are in the process of negotiating what will be the next term of that contract and the future. So, it’s a work in process. We feel good about the results that we achieved so far this year. But as the market moves and as mature costs rise and as the business unfolds, we have to continue to work with the customer to do that. But we see a productive environment with our customer to do that.

Eric Stine: Yes. I mean it would seem to be a good – at least a good indicator in advance of that, okay. Maybe just turning to, again, sticking with HPDI and LNG that the launch of the new longer-range, higher-powered truck offering. I can understand a pause or a little bit softer in advance of that. But maybe thoughts on, maybe over the next couple of quarters or maybe even into the first half of ‘24, what that potentially looks like when you kind of balance that pause. And then what potentially is pretty nice demand there with, what we also have talked about for quite some time. It’s the impact, that lingering impact of the price, the 2022 higher LNG prices.