Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
At the company’s earnings call held on Friday, Nikola management was asked about Tesla’s battery electric truck, a major competitor to its battery electric truck, the Nikola Tre BEV.
Addressing concerns raised by analysts regarding the potential impact of Tesla’s model, Nikola’s CEO, Stephen Girsky, emphasized the limitations of battery-electric trucks in certain operational environments.
“We have customers who want to try ours, want to try everybody else’s, including Tesla’s, and we’ll see where it all lands,” Girsky said.
The chief executive shared an example of a customer who initially bought six battery-electric trucks but switched to Nikola’s fuel cell trucks due to issues like reduced range and long charging times.
“He said the manufacturer told them the range would be 220 miles on a charge, and they were getting 150,” Girsky noted.
This week, the company led by Elon Musk started seeking a Business Development Manager for its European team to “build/maintain customer relationships and plan for Tesla’s future Semi Truck deployments”.
The company is currently building a new factory to build the Semi fully electric trucks.
Nikola’s Chief Financial Officer, Tom Okray, emphasized that Nikola’s dual strategy—offering both battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles—positions the company to cater to diverse use cases, from high-altitude, cold-weather environments where battery performance degrades, to areas with limited power infrastructure for recharging.
The company published its second-quarter earnings results on Friday, beating Wall Street expectations on both revenue and a smaller-than-expected loss.
During the earnings conference call, Nikola said it expects to increase the deliveries of its Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) from 72 in the second quarter to between 80 and 100 in the third quarter.
If achieved, the result would represent another quarter over quarter growth after delivering 40 FCEVs in the first three months of the year.
For the full year, Nikola expects to deliver between 300 and 350 vehicles. This delivery guidance represents a critical uptick for the Arizona-based company as it strives to convince large fleet operators to adopt its truck models.
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As of the time of writing, Nikola shares are trading 14% higher at $8.95 per share.
The Arizona-based company sold 72 units in the second quarter, bringing its total sales for the first half of the year to 112 units.
Regarding the battery electric trucks (BEVs), the company said it “continued to make progress returning BEVs to the dealer network and end fleet users” adding that it remains “on track to complete the recall program” by the year end.
The Vancouver-based firm HTEC announced on Thursday that Nikola trucks have passed its vehicle acceptance tests and will now integrate the Pilot Trucks fleet in Canada.
On the last day of July, Nikola opened the first commercial hydrogen refueling station in Ontario, Canada. The station was inaugurated together with IT industries, the company’s first dealer partner in the country.
Around 20 trucks from Nikola were recently seen at the headquarters of J.B. Hunt, one of the largest supply chain solution providers in North America.
The company is rumoured to be buying additional Nikola trucks following the order of 13 units announced one year ago.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
