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Earlier this week Nikola Motors – a company that is yet to deliver a single vehicle – was briefly worth more than $30billion. For a time the start-up, which only went public last week, was worth more than Ford. And as of Wednesday evening it remains more valuable than Fiat Chrysler, even after its value slid to a mere $23.4billion by the time trading closed. Blimey.
The spike came after the Arizona-based start-up announced it would start taking pre-orders for its EV/fuel-cell pick-up, the fantastically-named ‘Badger’, on 29 June. The company is yet to generate any revenue, but claims it’s sitting on $10billion worth of orders for electric & hydrogen fuel-cell commercial vehicles, which it should start delivering next year.
Nikola’s founder and chief executive Trevor Milton told Reuters production of the Badger could start in 2022, once the company enters into a joint-venture with an established manufacturer. Milton says there are three manufacturers in the running, and that an agreement could be in place in the next few months.
The Badger was revealed in February. Nikola, which like Tesla is named for the Serbian-American inventor, claims the truck will have a range of up to 600 miles thanks to a hybrid EV/hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain, and has a peak output of 906bhp and 980lb ft of torque. They say it can do 0-60mph in less than three seconds and tow more than 3.6-tonnes. No word on whether it’ll be available in the UK.
The truck will be shown at the ‘Nikola World’ event later this year, where Milton promises it’ll display a “a real operating truck, not a fake show truck”.
What with this thing, the Tesla Cybertruck, electric Ford F-150, Rivian and Hummer on the horizion, the world of alternatively-fuelled pick-up trucks is about to get interesting.
