Clean Diesel wins Honda contract
Ventura-based Clean Diesel Technologies said July 30 that it won a contract to supply catalysts for four- and six-cylinder Honda Accords, some of the best-selling models in North America.
The company, known as Catalytic Solutions before a merger in 2010, makes catalytic converters in its Oxnard factory and has about 180 employees. Its converters clean up automobile emissions. The company said its new offerings to Honda will meet stringent new California standards and will use only palladium instead of more expensive metals such as platinum and rhodium.
“We believe that these latest product introductions highlight our strategy to grow sustainable OEM business through technological innovation which expands our footprint with existing customers and creates opportunities to selectively add new customers,” Craig Breese, Clean Diesel’s CEO, said in a news release.
Clean Diesel’s predecessor, Catalytic Solutions, was founded in the late 1990s in Santa Barbara by Stephen Golden. The company relocated to Oxnard and began making catalytic converters for Honda, Ford and GM there in the early 2000s but fell on hard times when automobile sales collapsed in 2009. While its revenues expanded from $48 million in 2010 to $61.6 million in 2011, it still marked a net loss of $8.3 million in 2011.
Clean Diesel’s shares were up 33 percent to $2.80 on July 30 after the Honda news was announced.
