It’s back up to about 100 employees after layoffs in 2023

By Justin Sayers – Senior Staff Writer, Austin Business Journal

Mar 6, 2025

A lot has changed for Hyliion Holdings Corp. since it first moved to Cedar Park in 2018.

The startup that made powertrains for semi-trucks was the talk of the industry back then. It earned the company a billion-dollar valuation, a spot on the stock market and millions in incentives to move its HQ from Pittsburgh and expand.

But a couple of years later, things began falling apart, CEO Thomas Healy recalled. The electric vehicle market plummeted and peers launched in 2020 and 2021 were going bankrupt. Hyliion laid off two-thirds of its staff in November 2023, took the $300 million it had left on its balance sheet and moved fully into the power-generation industry.

“We said, ‘OK, well, let’s get out of this space while we still are in a strong financial position so that we can go after something else,'” Healy said. “I don’t think we would have been any different than the other companies if we hadn’t pivoted.”

Since then, Hyliion (NYSE: HYLN) has been righting the ship at its 120,000-square-foot facility at 1202 BMC Drive. The company leased a 26,000-square-foot auxiliary space used for testing. It’s now focused on commercialization of its KARNO generator, a fuel-agnostic device designed for stationary power generation and heavy-duty transport applications. It acquired the KARNO unit from General Electric Co. in 2022 for $37 million in cash and stock.

The generators use energy sources — Healy said about 90% of customers are tapping into natural gas — to create heat that in turn creates power. They’re then placed into either 2-megawatt or 200-kilowatt units that are deployed for their customers.

Healy said his company’s products are more efficient, have lower maintenance and emit less pollutants than traditional generators. Industries that it’s targeting include data centers and electric vehicle chargers, as well as sites that can use gas waste, such as landfills that emit methane, or oil and gas refineries that emit flares. Hyliion also has stationary units that can be used by commercial buildings or even on ships, such as those it delivered to the U.S. Navy for the first time earlier this year.

Currently, Hyliion is 3D-printing the generators in Austin and assembling the modules in Cincinnati, although the plan is to shift manufacturing to Cedar Park while using Cincinnati for research and design. Hyliion plans to deliver about 10 units by the middle of 2025 and has signed more than 100 letters of intent or contracts, Healy said. Customers also include multiple Fortune 200 companies, along with Al Khorayef, a leader in the power generation industry in the Middle East, he said.

“The demand, we’re already seeing that it’s real and it’s there and it’s needed versus with electric vehicles,” Healy said.

With Hyliion now well into its pivot, Healy said the headwinds that caused the EV industry to crash had to do with a lack of market support, rising costs and shifting government regulations and mandates.

“We were very fortunate from the standpoint of we had this generator technology, which is a really growing and great industry to be in,” he said. “You think about the momentum with data centers, with trying to deploy EV chargers — the grid is being taxed right now.”

He said the most difficult thing was the layoffs. The company is back up to about 100 employees now, from around 70 after topping out at nearly 300 prior to the struggles.

“It’s extremely difficult. It’s most difficult for the people who are directly affected by it, but it’s also very difficult for a company to go through that,” he said.

Another lesson learned was how fast things changed. For instance, Hyliion’s market capitalization peaked at $10 billion but then crashed to $100 million. It’s currently at $250 million, and the company reported $220 million in cash on hand at the end of 2024.

“The fact that can all happen in a couple of years because of an industry momentum totally changing — and I’m not saying it was just the industry as obviously, we played a large part in it too — but that’s what was fascinating to see,” Healy said.

Still, he said the response from customers and investors has been encouraging.

“I founded the company on being this electric vehicle powertrain-producing company. We’ve raised a bunch of money on that concept, now we’re going to go into a totally different sector,” Healy said. “Now, in good news, the share price has recovered some since then, and we’re doing better and then the sentiment that we’re getting from our investors is more of a, ‘Thank God you guys did move out of that space, because it’s been a bloodbath.'”

The Austin region has been a boon for the company. Its startup-centric community that supports new technology, along with its business-friendly nature and wealth of talent, was the reason Hyliion moved to the region in the first place, Healy said. He also credited the city of Cedar Park, which revamped its incentives agreement with Hyliion in the wake of the pivot, for assisting the growth. But he also said the company’s central location in the Austin region has helped attract customers.

“You won’t believe how often — actually we had one last week — where I said to the person, ‘Well, why don’t we meet in Cincinnati?’ They were like, ‘Ah, I don’t really want to.’ I said, ‘Well, we can come to Austin.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, sure, I’ll do that,'” Healy said. The company is adding people in Cincinnati, he said, but its long-term growth is mainly going to be in Cedar Park.

A desire to move even faster is what keeps him up at night, he said, because he wants to get the company’s products in the hands of as many customers as possible. But he said he’s also cognizant of the fact that Hyliion is still getting back on track.

“We saw that we were heading down a bad path. We got out of it, and now a year later, we’re really pleased with where we are,” Healy said. “I actually think there’s more market opportunity in this product than there even was in electric vehicles. A lot of companies will pivot into something that might not be as exciting, and in a lot of ways we actually pivoted into something that can be a lot bigger (and) better than even what we were.”

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