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Westport Fuel Systems Inc. (WPRT)

Q1 2022 Earnings Call· Mon, May 9, 2022

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Westport Fuel Systems First Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Christian Tweedy, Westport's Investor Relations representative. Please go ahead.

Christian Tweedy

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Westport Fuel Systems' first quarter 2022 conference call, which is being held following our press release yesterday of Westport Fuel Systems' financial results. On today's call, speaking on behalf of Westport Fuel Systems is Chief Executive Officer, David Johnson; and Chief Financial Officer, Richard Orazietti. This call is open to the public and the media, but questions will be restricted to the investment community. You are reminded that certain statements made in this conference call and our responses to various questions may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. and applicable Canadian securities laws, as such, forward-looking statements are made based on our current expectations and involve certain risks and uncertainties. With that, David, I'll turn the call over to you.

David Johnson

Analyst

Thanks, Christian. Good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us to review Westport Fuel Systems' results for the first quarter 2022. In Q1, we generated revenues of $76 million comparable to the same period of 2021. Excluding for an exchange translation, our revenues increased by approximately 6% year-over-year. As you know, today's markets are anything but stable. That's true for the broader market as well as our specific automotive markets. Today's markets are volatile, unpredictable and uncertain and then Q1 volatility increased. Now, we have more inflation and we have the Russian-Ukraine war on top of the existing well known challenges of chip shortages and the still ongoing effects of COVID. And there are myriad local market changes that matter like the collapse of the Turkish lira and the actions governments are taking to manage their economies and help their citizens through these challenging times, fuel rebates, for example. So in light of this, matching our year ago quarterly revenue in this most recent quarter, it looks to me like an accomplishment. And as noted, if we were to report in Euro, instead of U.S. dollars, we'd be up roughly 6% compared to last year because foreign exchange rate are also on the move. And the reasons for this modestly robust quarterly result in these rather turbulent times are as follows. First, our core business is on the right path. Clean affordable transportation is in demand today and in demand tomorrow and in fact demand is increasing. Ultimately high energy prices and challenging economic times tend to be tailwinds for our business. Transportation is not a discretionary purchase and we make transportation products that are both low cost to acquire and low cost to operate. During times of financial constraints, our business can continue to grow. Second, Westport Fuel Systems has…

Richard Orazietti

Analyst

Thank you, David. Revenue for the first quarter 2022 of $76.5 million was comparable to the prior year quarter, despite the challenging headwinds from volatile fuel prices, the impact of sanctions on our Russian sales volumes and continued inflationary pressure and supply chain challenges, plaguing the automotive industry. To continue to generate growth in our OEM revenues, primarily due to the addition of our fuel storage business and saw modest growth in light-duty, heavy-duty, OEM and electronics businesses. Offsetting the growth in OEM revenue, our independent aftermarket revenue was significantly lower year-over-year due to the lower volumes caused primarily by the impacts of sanctions resulting from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Excluding foreign exchange translation, revenue increased by approximately 6% year-over-year or an exchange had a significant impact on revenues in U.S. dollar terms due to the 7% appreciation of the U.S. dollar relative to the Euro, which is the currency we conduct a substantial portion of our business. Net income was $7.7 million for the first quarter 2022, compared to a net loss of $3.1 million for the same prior year period. The increase in net income was due to the gain of $19.1 million recognized on the sale of our interest in the CWI joint venture and the monetization of the related intellectual property. This was partially offset by lower gross margin from our independent aftermarket business, inflationary pressure on cost of materials and manufacturing inputs and the loss of equity income from CWI. Normalizing for the CWI gain, we generated negative $6.1 million in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter as compared to $2.7 million for the three month ended March 31, 2021. Turning to our business segments, revenue for the first quarter 2022 for OEM was $51.8 million, up 21% compared to the prior year quarter. The operating loss…

David Johnson

Analyst

Thanks, Richard. While current global factors are causing headwinds, the market fundamentals, regulatory environment, and the overall global trends remained in our favor. The world needs clean, affordable transportation. We’re excited to bring our hydrogen HPDI fuel system technology to the forefront, and we’ll be sharing more of our technical and commercial results with you through the year. Our team will continue to work hard to meet the needs of our customers and the industry with a focus on executing our long-term strategy, growth in new markets, new product development, and a commitment to quality reliability. Westport Fuel Systems is driving the affordable decarbonization of transportation globally. Thanks for your time today. Looking forward to your questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Eric Stine of Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Hi, David. Hi, Richard.

David Johnson

Analyst

Good morning.

Richard Orazietti

Analyst

Good morning, Eric.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Good morning. So maybe just to start with your heavy-duty OEM with Volvo in Europe and maybe this is tough to answer, but for obvious reasons, kind of a tempered outlook for the end of 2022. I’m just curious, anything you can share relative to maybe the shortfall versus your expectations, potentially versus Volvo’s expectations. Just anything to add some details and then also would just love your thoughts on kind of the linearity of revenues throughout 2222, at least how things stand today.

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. So glad to talk a little bit about the business in Europe with HPDI with our launch partner, fundamentally, a key ingredient in that is the fuel price and fuel prices are a bit elevated these days to giving the LNG price relative to diesel. So that is for sure a headwind. Nonetheless, looking at our results in Q1 and what we ship to our customer, fundamentally, we’re up 16% year-over-year. And so – and I would also point to in general, our Q1s have been kind of the soft quarters and then Q4 tends to be a stronger quarter. So we’re hopeful for a repeat of that and increase through the year as we go forward. Nonetheless, we do have this headwind of the fuel prices, but we still have the amount tax abatement of about €10,000 per truck and other purchase incentives. So the market has many factors, and I think, one of the things that we can have some significant confidence on is the fact that it is the superior product in the marketplace. And so our customer is taking share from other natural gas and other alternatives in the marketplace. And so we feel good about the business in the long run. And we see this up quarter and kind of forecast that will have a relatively a good year although this fuel prices are forever a challenge when they’re elevated at there right now.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Right. Got it. Well, then maybe turn into China, you mentioned that with elevated fuel prices in COVID lockdowns everything going on there that the government is starting to change or look more at hydrogen. Just curious – so you’ve got the take or pay with Weichai. I mean, is there a mechanism in there where that can be shifted or a portion of that can shift to hydrogen or when you’re talking about elevated interest? Are you talking about potentially other parties as well?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes, I think it’s both. So basically, what we see in China today relative to hydrogen is a lot of push from the government, a lot of funding available, and basically all the OEMs have varying degrees of interest in how to approach the market with hydrogen. And frankly, we have work to do to make sure they understand, like we do globally, like we’re doing this week today at Expo. So to help the world understand what’s possible with hydrogen and HPDI, because this really is quite novel compared to the other alternative of spark ignited hydrogen engine. And so this is our work to help them understand the potential of HPDI with hydrogen. But fundamentally going back to the contract, anything possible, but at this point in time, we have a contract in place and we have a customer, they continue do the work to bring HPDI to the marketplace and pivot to either add or move towards hydrogen. I would say, would be beyond the timeframe of the contract create that we’re talking about with Weichai.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Got it. Okay, thanks for that. And then just maybe one quick one, bookkeeping here for Richard. Just on the debt repayment, can you just maybe give some color into debt repayment expected for the remainder of the year. And then, I guess, maybe in 2023 as well as you start paying things that were deferred.

Richard Orazietti

Analyst

Yes. No, its outline in the notes of the financial statements you can see, it’s going to be roughly about $12 million on our debt. And then there’s like usually got $5 million bullet for the Cartesian royalty.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Got it. Thanks a lot.

Richard Orazietti

Analyst

You’re welcome.

David Johnson

Analyst

Thank you, Eric.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Rob Brown of Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Rob Brown

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Just wanted to follow-up on the China comments. Are you implying that that maybe the HPDI product is not launching into the market right now in terms of the natural gas side? Or is that still moving forward? And I guess, just relative to your comments on hydrogen, what does that mean for the natural gas product at the moment?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. So first of all, the project with respect to natural gas, HPDI with our partner and with their customers, the truck OEMs, this continues to move, right, in terms of the work that’s happening on our customer side and on their customer side to get the validation done and be ready to launch. The comment I made was in the context that every OEM looks for that launch window, when it be the best time to go to the marketplace and launch a product. This is on the truck OEM side. And so, with elevated LNG prices right now it’s easy to – it’s maybe not the best time right now. So we’re hopeful for a realignment in the marketplace, but then creates a window for properly launching the product commercially in the marketplace. But we wait for our customers to take those decisions. With respect to hydrogen, I think we have the same, I’ll call it dynamic sales dynamic with hydrogen HPDI in China that we do with hydrogen HPDI in Europe and in North America. And that is that the technology we have at Westport Fuel Systems of HPDI, we are demonstrating now with our vehicle at ACT Expo and our diner results we presented in Vienna a few weeks ago, and previously press release to various results. This offer of more power, more torque, more efficiency using hydrogen HPDI in combination gives all OEMs that are considering how to respond to the marketplace and demands for lower CO2 and clean transportation gives all OEMs this basic vision and potential that they can adopt HPDI today with natural gas, use HPDI today with biogas and use it in the future with hydrogen as hydrogen becomes increasingly available in the marketplace. So this really provides this longevity of a technology, this roadmap ahead for decades to come, that makes then the decision to adopt HPDI sooner more tenable and more interesting for our OEM customers. And I think that is the key dynamic we see in all markets around the world, including China.

Rob Brown

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. That’s helpful. And within the pricing environment maybe between – differentiate between OEM and independent aftermarket, how much pricing kind of ability do you have in each of those markets and how quickly can you change price as your cost structure changes?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. Great question. And I think it’s a different time in the marketplace than we’ve seen for some decades, frankly, with respect to inflation being relatively low and stable for many, many years. And now we have this high and unstable – high and growing in many markets around the world. You’re right, our aftermarket business and the ability to price in that is different than our OEM business. Typically OEM business is characterized by long-term supply agreements that have some clause to them, allow you to go back and renegotiate and pass on costs. And so each one of those contracts with OEMs is different and requires going back and talking to the OEMs and negotiating discussing. And so it takes some time and some work. And we’ve been doing that and we’ve had numerous successes, but there’s more to be done because of course the metro costs keep going up with the inflationary environment. On the aftermarket side, frankly we can raise prices, I would say more easily recognize that on the aftermarket side not too dissimilar from the OEM side, but the different equation. Customers are buying those products to save money on fuel. And so the key ingredient to pay attention to is the fuel price differentials in the various markets and then the cost of the product. And so, while we can price if the truck cost goes up, it makes – the attractive is the product less in all cases. So that’s our challenge. And so as we see oil prices going up and gasoline and petrol and diesel prices going up as Richard mentioned, relative to LPG today, that price differential is actually working in our favour. Also in general, higher fuel prices just in general, make people more sensitive and look for ways to save money on fuel and LPG kits as an example are I would say increasingly in favor in this moment because of this rising fuel price, rising fuel price differential. And so into this environment, we can price. But we have to do it market by market. And as we talk about, we have 70 markets around the world and they’re all different and not all of them are LPG markets by the way. And so that’s a more challenging when we talk about natural gas markets, for example.

Rob Brown

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks for the color. I’ll turn it over.

David Johnson

Analyst

Thanks, Rob.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Colin Rusch of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

Thanks so much guys. You’ve got a certain amount of engineering work that you have to do to get the HPDI 2.0 for hydrogen to market. Can you just give us an update on where some of the balances system engineering and preparation is at this point?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. Thanks for asking Colin. Good to speak with you this morning. So fundamentally, the applications that we’ve done so far of our HPDI system to existing engines have been to apply the product that we use today for natural gas, with no modifications. We expect that there will be some modifications as we develop and optimize the system to production, but we’re in this phase basically demonstrating the capability, which has been really I would say, frankly exciting, right, for us and for our customers to see the potential to apply our fuel system off the shelf, if you will. And already achieved this on the under 15% to 20% improvement in power and torque compared to diesel or natural gas, which in general, our parity [ph] rate, we’re talking about HPDI with natural gas tends to be at the parity with the diesel engine on power and torque. Whereas with a hydrogen HPDI, we can actually increase by 15% to 20% similarly with efficiency, we see this five percentage points, four percentage points to five percentage points improvement in brake thermal efficiency, which turns into about a 10% improvement in engine efficiency on the kind of miles per gallon, or liters per 100 kilometers kind of basis. So, vehicle type efficiency. So these are really big benefits that we’re demonstrating the lab, and now we’re looking forward to demonstrating them on the road, and basically handing people the keys, but fundamentally the product development to support that so far is relatively straightforward from our perspective. But we have work to do, no OEM is going to take it, the HPDI system bolted onto their engine and start feeding in hydrogen and selling the customers without the validation steps. So, I think, these are programs that are multiyear programs to bring hydrogen market, but frankly that’ll be plenty fast enough relative to the infrastructure, developing the availability of affordable hydrogen.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

That’s super helpful. And then could you just a sense of where things are from a labor perspective on your manufacturing side, certainly labor’s been an issue all over many geographies, but just wanted to see where you guys are at, in terms of labor inefficiency or concerns as you navigate through some of these ups and downs of the market?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. I would say that in general, we don’t see ourselves having, let’s say a labor problem of any kind, right. We’re able to access the quantity we need. Of course, there is inflationary pressure people want let’s say to raise their salaries, and their pay in order to respond to the costs they’re seeing in the marketplace. We have to manage that, of course. But it’s just another element of our cost structure, but in terms of labor in total, we don’t have an access to labor problem or a quantity of labor problem. And I would say the one thing that we are seeing is still some trailing effects of absenteeism due to people getting sick and wearing its COVID or having it actually be COVID its vet still is a challenge for us. But I would say one we’ve been managing now for two years and not one that really affects our operations. It’s just something we manage.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

Perfect. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from our next question comes from Amit Dayal of H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, David, good morning, Richard. Just on the pricing question earlier, have you started implementing some of these price increases and by the time maybe you get through some of it, is it like a 2022 time period, where you can achieve most of these price increases and any color on how that is being executed would be helpful? Thank you.

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes, great question. I think as mentioned earlier, kind of a new regime we’re in the inflationary time. So, we did a bit of this last year specifically related to the chip shortage and the extra cost we were paying to find and access the materials we needed in the marketplace. And so we did make pricing changes, I’ll say historically during 2021 on some of our aftermarket products to mitigate those added costs. And we’re doing that now as cost continue to rise across all sorts of commodities, raw materials, as well as some labor cost increases and from the Colin’s question. So all these costs, and even right now in Europe, we see it with the Russia-Ukraine war, our energy costs have almost doubled. So kind of a structural cost change on our OpEx side. So fundamentally we’re seeing these cost increases. We’re able to pass them on to our customers. But with the OEM business, it takes, I would say more time, we can’t be as quick to implement because it means going back and seeing with our customer to negotiate the passing on of those costs. In most cases, that means we have to – I would say it’s a typical thing for a Tier 1 supplier to sit with in front of their customer and say, here, our cost increases that we’ve had to pass on to you. And everyone, I would say is very understanding of that. Of course, they don’t want the cost either. Nobody wants a price increase. But at the end of the day, we’re able to justify those that take some time. Therefore, there’s a lag, there’s a lag between costs going up and prices going up that does put pressure on margins in near term. And that you can imagine two thirds of pricing over time and pricing costs and how we might have on the backside of that hopefully, when prices stabilized some benefits to our margins.

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Understood. Thanks for that, David. And then with respect to the independent aftermarket business, is the pressure primary coming from Russia? I mean, is there, what are the other sort of drivers that could help you recover in this segment?

David Johnson

Analyst

Well, so, relative to our Q1 results, we saw a direct impact of the sanctions and the – therefore, the tapering or the reductions in our Russian business in the aftermarket, which is good business for us, typically a profitable business for us. So that was a consequence of the war started by Russia. So this is the situation we face with respect to the aftermarket in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. That as far as we can tell, it looks like it’s going to persist and we don’t know when it might end. And so that’s just special case. With respect to the rest of the markets around the world, the operating characteristics of the marketplace really are fuel price differentials. And so I’ll give a very specific example. So we had – have had for some time relatively a depressed market in Italy where basically our business, the aftermarket historically has been the strongest in Italy. And during the COVID period with lockdowns and everything it was hard for us to decide or understand exactly how much is the COVID effect that people not buying vehicles or not converting vehicles and so forth. And how much was through the market dynamics that actually alternative fuels. What we saw in March actually was a steep uptick in our business, basically with the outbreak of war in Russia-Ukraine, fuel prices really went up dramatically and the price differential between petrol and LPG got much larger. So there was this huge benefit in moving to LPG, and we saw a big uptick in our sales and deliveries in the month of March. Unfortunately, I would tell you the government came in the month of April and offered some incentives, some free gas cards, or I’m not sure what the mechanism they were used exactly was in Italy, but we’ve been doing this around the world. We’re helping the population by giving money back from the government to ease the pain at the pump. And when they did this, it had a differential effect, more savings, more help with respect to petrol prices than LPG prices. So we’ve seen some tapering down of that good demand spike we saw in March. So this is just an example and it really depends to market and market around the world. And we’re managing all those and doing the best we can in these turbulent times.

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Understandable, David. With respect to China, could you give us any sense of sort of what your overheads are in terms of just maintaining status quo at this point for that effort?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes, this isn’t a lot of effort on our part. Basically, we support our customer through regular dialogue and answering technical questions as they come up. But frankly it’s not so much work on our part. We’re not spending a lot of money on it. I would say the biggest impact to our business is the absence of the volume that which we planned on, right. So we expected volume from the – from our business in China now, already, of course like you did, like we’ve been discussing for some years. And the absence of this volume means that we’re not able to access the economies and scale that we wanted to have. Therefore, our profitability is still challenged. So this is, I would say the big effect of our business, China being in this day to days right now, but in terms of actual day to day work and spending and R&D and cost, there’s very, very little.

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Okay. Okay. All right. That’s all I have, David. My other questions were already discussed. Thank you so much.

David Johnson

Analyst

Perfect. Thanks, Amit.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mac Whale of Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Mac Whale

Analyst

Hi, David. I think I just missed the answer to one of the earlier questions about expectations for volume sales in OEM heavy-duty, HPDI with Volvo in Europe. Did you say 16% was the year-over-year increase in volume?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. It was 16% in Q1 of 2022 versus 2021 – Q1 2021.

Mac Whale

Analyst

And what would've been like entering into the quarter, what was sort of the expectation of growth?

Richard Orazietti

Analyst

What we've seen over a long period of time since we launched in 2018, nearly a doubling kind of year-over-year of the volume. So it's been in some cases larger than that, in some cases smaller than that but kind of year-over-year over a long period of time kind of a doubling. So our expectations are very yes, we have big expectations for the product in Europe. We think it's really important in the marketplace. We think it's very well received. We can see the testimonials from customers and frankly it's hard to understand exactly how the higher LNG prices in this moment are affecting sales because sometimes sales are booked and then the trucks come later. And so it's tough to tell in this moment what the rest of the year will be, and of course if LNG prices decline or diesel keeps going up and the price differential gets reestablished in a favorable way, that'll propel sales and there's CO2 regulations that come into play in 2025 that OEMs need to meet and then 2030. So there's really a lot going on and it's hard to even for us and our customer on the inside to figure out all the factors and forecasts where it's go out, so hence no forecasts for the market. Sorry for that.

Mac Whale

Analyst

So if the – let's suppose the various regulations they don't move. Is there, as the shipments are low, how do you expect the next few years to play out in terms of catching up to where they need to be. Like can you – is there enough slot capacity where you would see much greater than doubling or in order to catch up by sort of mid-decade, but how would it play out do you think?

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. The way I view it is that we have a really good future in Europe specifically with our launch partner and we expect other companies and customers to come along and join me because the CO2 standards have not moved through all of COVID through, through ship supplies through now war. None of these things are deterring the European Union from their goals with respect to de-carbonizing transports to the heavy transport. And we see our product in the marketplace proving itself as very effective at de-carbonizing and providing all of the fundamental transportation capability that a fleet or a truck driver expects from their truck. And so in terms of scale and where it could go we have the capacity installed and we're ready to scale up significantly and so does our customer, because basically for them, all it means is instead of grabbing a diesel tank and putting it on the truck to grabbing an L&G tank and put it on the truck. Same thing with the injectors, instead of grabbing, instead of six diesel injectors they grab a set of six HPDI injectors. So for them this is kind of normal production and they have their full production capacity available. There might be some constraints along the way as they break bottlenecks to actually change the mix. But these are relatively easy for them to overcome. So the capacity is there and the requirement fundamentally doesn't come into play, play until 2025. That's when OEMs, if they don't meet the 15% reduction requirement from the baseline established 2.5 years ago, that's when they'll have to start paying penalties at which point in time they'll make the decisions about whether they're – they prefer to pay penalties or they prefer to incentivize and otherwise help the sales of a product that reduces CO2 like HPDI does

Mac Whale

Analyst

Well given that the customers are so focused on total cost of ownership and not the pricing for the – for the fuel is volatile and you have this additional cost coming on to regulation? Is there any exploration of different pricing regimes where, say for instance you capture some of the potential given the fact that your technology is helping them to be very efficient with beating the lower carbon? So in other words, as pricing differentials increase that you could over time capture some of that so that the save like because the customer really only cares about TCO, and you're giving them some stability and you're sort of taking a little bit of, you have to wait so-to-speak to get paid, but you don't have to really give up the price of your product. Is there any ability to do that, to think of new ways or better, or, to capture some of that that volatility or is it impossible?

David Johnson

Analyst

I think – no, no, I don't think it's impossible, but I do think it's challenging. I would say especially for us, perhaps easier for OEMs to make this kind of transaction if you will with their customers. So if you look at for example, what Nicola’s proposing to do with their trucks, where they're, saying, hey we're going to put the fueling infrastructure in place and here's these trucks and well, you have a business model in which we can share and the fuel efficiency benefits or some savings. I think the same thing could be construct on the OEM side for HPDI trucks, but really it's on the OEM side. It's not something that, we're not off Westport Fuel Systems selling to fleets a product. We sell our product to OEMs; we then sell trucks to fleets. But the basic idea that you raise is very interesting. I believe. Okay.

Mac Whale

Analyst

Okay. That's all my questions. Thanks guys.

David Johnson

Analyst

Thanks Matt.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Jeff Osborne of Cowen & Co. Please go ahead.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

Yes, good morning. Quite a, bit's been discussed already, but a couple of housekeeping questions and clarifications. One Richard, I was wondering can you just maybe for all of last year disclosed, what percent of revenue is zero denominated, just as we think about FX changes and the impact to you folks?

Richard Orazietti

Analyst

I want to say it's close to like the 85%, the significant portion.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

Okay. Got it. That's helpful. And then I wanted to dig into the LPG comments. You talked a lot about in the Q&A, on the LNG side, but I thought you had said that the differential between gasoline and LPG is improving in some markets. So I just wanted to clarify A, if that's right and then B, if you can talk about which countries that is, and then maybe as a second derivative, what the impact of those differentials are to your tank business, which was, give or take 10% of revenue this quarter.

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes, thanks for the question, Jeff. So fundamentally it is different market by market and I don't have a long list in front of me, but as an example in Italy, we saw these price differentials very favorably moving in the favorable direction. In the Netherlands and Germany, Poland, Turkey. So kind of, I would say our typical markets in Europe where we saw it moving in the right direction as basically gasoline and diesel prices went up quite significantly and LPG prices didn't move up so significantly. They did go up some, but not nearly as much as LPG excuse me, as petrol and diesel. So this is where we've seen this benefit but it's a modest benefit it's in the right direction helps us. But it doesn't overcome some of the challenges we see with respect to CNG as an example. So CNG prices are some of the highest fuel prices in Europe right now. And so on the passenger vehicle side, we've seen a significant pullback in our CNG business in various markets.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

Got it. That's helpful, David. And then maybe just the last one for me is, you touched on the demand side in China and the potential shift to hydrogen. I was curious on the supply side, are you having any issues with your manufacturing partners on availability of fuel injector technology or any other adjacent equipment you need or produce yourselves or through third parties?

David Johnson

Analyst

No, I would say no specific issues. I would tell you in general that, we're kind of embracing is the wrong word, but we're, we have big anxiety around, okay. So what is the COVID lockdown in Shanghai and Beijing actually going to affect us tomorrow and the next day? And so we're doing, what we can working with suppliers to try and make sure that our supply chain is continuing to move. But fundamentally we haven't, I don't have a specific issue to call out that says, this hurt us by X in Q1, or is about to hurt us in Q2.

Jeff Osborne

Analyst

Got it. That's helpful. That's all I had look forward to seeing you later this week at the ACT show.

David Johnson

Analyst

Sounds great. Thanks, Jeff.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Johnson for any closing remarks.

David Johnson

Analyst

Yes. Thanks everyone. Thanks for your time today. Appreciate your questions and tuning in for the call. We are, it's a challenging time for sure in the marketplace, but I think fundamentally we have great products. We have a great presence around the world. I think the diversity of our markets that we serve. So the fact that CNG markets are down but LPG markets are up, hopefully Russia is down and hopefully we could be up another markets. And fundamentally that the key ingredient here is that we continue to build with respect to HPDI and I can't the, let's say clear enough about how we see the HPDI hydrogen opportunity affecting our business in the mid to long term, as we unveil this technology and demonstrated around North America and later this year in Europe. So that's a really exciting part of our business. And we're looking forward to the chance to speak with you more about that in the coming days, we have some Investor Conferences coming up the RBC Auto Conference in Toronto and H.C. Wainwright’s Conference in Miami and looking forward to seeing you there and speaking more about the business, then thanks for your time and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

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