Nikola to power its new commercial trucks with hydrogen fuel cells
American electric truck start-up, Nikola came to attention in June by announcing it had received as many as 7,000 pre-orders for an extended-range electric truck featuring 2,000 horsepower and a 1,200-mile range. Nikola originally said the truck’s range-extender would be a natural gas turbine, however earlier this week the company said it would be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell instead. Furthermore, the turbine will still be available for customers in countries where hydrogen filling stations are lacking. The company has big plans to supply customers with hydrogen gathered from its own solar farms which will produce the hydrogen via the electrolysis of water, and also hopes to have 50 hydrogen refuelling stations operating in the US by 2020.

Nikola Motor Company is changing its tune two months after its first announcement.

The startup announced Tuesday that it's building trucks powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, allowing them to achieve zero emissions. That's a step in an entirely different direction from its announcement in May, when Nikola said it was building a hybrid semitruck.

Previously, Nikola said its 2,000-horsepower truck would come with six electric motors with a natural-gas turbine as an onboard generator. A prototype has yet to be seen, but Nikola said the truck could achieve zero emissions and go 1,200 miles on a single charge.

It was a bit strange Nikola was claiming it could achieve zero emissions when its semitruck plans involved using a natural-gas range extender.

Now, Nikola appears to be saving face for its zero-emissions claim by stating the startup was always working on using a hydrogen range extender, leaving its natural-gas range extender in the dust.

"Nikola Motor Company recently announced that it achieved zero emissions with its electric-powered drivetrain. At that time, details about how Nikola achieved zero emissions were kept confidential pending finalization of key supplier agreements," Nikola wrote in the press release (emphasis ours). "Today, Nikola is announcing that the electric drivetrain used in the US and Canadian markets will be powered by a custom-built hydrogen-electric 800V fuel cell."

A rendering of the interior of a Nikola truck. Nikola

Nikola CEO Trevor Milton told Business Insider that the startup is pretty much scrapping the natural-gas range extender in favor of using a hydrogen-electric fuel cell.

The truck is "zero emissions through the hydrogen fuel cell. The turbine will only be available in other countries where we don't have a hydrogen infrastructure," Milton said.

In June, Nikola announced it had received 7,000 orders for its hybrid electric truck. Milton says that number is up to 8,000, and that "99% [of the] orders will be for hydrogen only."

Milton said Nikola is still planning to produce the original hybrid truck, but that it will be available after the hydrogen fuel cell option hits markets. Nikola decided to "filter out and eliminate any orders from other countries" outside the US and Canada so it could focus on the hydrogen-electric truck, Milton added.

"We always had this fuel cell development team working on the fuel cell. Now that we were able to achieve what we wanted to with the fuel cell, all those orders will only be hydrogen-electric," Milton said.

Nikola

The hydrogen-electric truck will offer the same range — 1,200 miles — that Nikola had promised with its hybrid semi. The hydrogen-electric truck will be unveiled on December 1, with testing starting at the end of 2017. Full production will begin in 2020.

Nikola is creating a network of more than 50 hydrogen stations to support the trucks. Milton said the stations will either be very close to existing truck stops or at current stops.

The pivot from a hybrid truck model to a hydrogen one could speak to Nikola trying to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded space. Daimler is currently testing its all-electric truck that has 124 miles of range. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also said Tesla will build an all-electric semitruck in his "Master Plan, Part Deux," published in July.

Nikola's latest strategy offers a better range than conventional electric vehicles while sticking to the "zero emissions" buzzwords.

"Tesla is really great. Their range is going to be very limited to probably under 200 miles," Milton said. "Our truck has, essentially, a total of 1,200 miles, and that's because of the hydrogen fuel cell on board. So you cannot get that range with pure electric only."

Tesla has yet to release a range for its future semitruck, but Musk is known to be a stark opponent of hydrogen-powered vehicles, calling them "incredibly dumb."