Heliox charges across the Atlantic

Heliox has opened a corporate office and R&D hub in the United States. It has appointed David Aspinwall to lead the company’s new, Atlanta-based operations. Joining from Bekaert, where he was vice president of strategy, Aspinwall plans to scale to more than seventy people within the next year. In Atlanta, Heliox will manufacture and assemble all its fast-charging products for the North American market to meet all Underwriters Laboratory and Buy America standards.

North America is primed to become a high-growth e-mobility market. Last month, President Biden proposed spending 20 billion dollars to electrify at least 20 percent of school buses and 25 billion on electric transit vehicles as part of the 2.3-trillion-dollar infrastructure and jobs plan. To support this initiative, the US needs to create a charging infrastructure to support rapid electric mobility expansion. “David will be instrumental in growing our operations as both businesses and transit systems look to ramp up electric transportation product offerings and initiatives,” comments Heliox CEO Michael Colijn.

Founded in 2009, Heliox is the market leader in fast-charging systems within public transport, e-trucks, marine, mining and port equipment. It has over 1,600 high-powered, fast-charging points worldwide. In 2017, the company installed one of Europe’s first and largest rapid charging networks for the e-bus fleet in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and, in 2018, the world’s largest rapid charging network for the e-bus depot at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. According to Aspinwall, it’s already working with a number of US customers to accelerate electric transportation initiatives.