China plans to improve its electric vehicles technology by investing in British-Columbia based hydrogen fuel cells. China's largest diesel engine manufacturers agreed to purchase clean energy fuel cells from BC.
The British Columbia based executives have seen great opportunities as China moves to use the technology. Randy MacEwen is the chief executive of Ballard Power Systems. It is a Burnaby-based hydrogen fuel cell maker. The company was reported to have closed a $208 million deal that will assure its future profit and is reliant to China's fast-growing clean vehicle market.
The company is in the business deal with one of China's top diesel engine manufacturers, Weichai Power Co., who agreed to buy $163 million worth of Ballard stock at a 15 percent premium. Weichai Power also invested on a $45 million joint venture with Ballard's fuel cells in a China-based plant. They are planning to advance the fuel cells to be used in buses, and forklifts.
Westpoint Fuel Systems, a Vancouver-based company, also reported having closed a deal with Weichai on Wednesday. Westpoint agreed to purchase products and license its technology for a venture of 18,000 natural gas engines by 2013.
Weichai's deals show how China invests in a future where clean energy is used that will lower emission, earth-friendly vehicles. The deal also encourages other companies to widen their investments in countries in the Pacific. The large deals of the companies to China also encourage other Canadian companies to deal with partnerships with and joint ventures that will send their earth-friendly products to the region.
MacEwen told investors on a conference call on Wednesday that they are still in the very ear;y moments of a large scale global transformation of the transportation industry and that this transformation involves the move towards a zero emission vehicles.
The mining companies in Canada producing cobalt, and lithium are in contact with investors in China, Japan, and South Korea for a possible recipient of their products to be used in making batteries for electric vehicles.
Forbes predicted on May that Chinese consumers will purchase at least a million electric vehicles until the end of 2018 after the sales of the product increased by 53 percent in 2018. They also predicted that China will lead the sales of electric powered vehicles targeting two million annual sales of the vehicles in 2020 and the use of internal combustion engines will be banned before 2040. The prediction guarantees a global use of affordable and smoke-free vehicle engines.
