Hydrogen fuel prices range from $12.85 to more than $16 per kilogram (kg), but the most common price is $13.99 per kg (equivalent on a price per energy basis to $5.60 per gallon of gasoline), which translates to an operating cost of $0.21 per mile. Automakers are including three years of hydrogen fuel with their initial sales and lease offerings, which will shield early market adopters from this initially high fuel price.While future price is uncertain, NREL estimates that hydrogen fuel prices may fall to the $10 to $8 per kg range in the 2020 to 2025 period. A kilogram of hydrogen has about the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline. FCEVs are about twice as efficient as gasoline-powered vehicles: an FCEV travels about twice as far as a conventional vehicle given the same amount of fuel energy. At $3.50 per gallon gasoline, a conventional vehicle costs about $0.13 per mile to operate, while an FCEV using $8 per kg hydrogen fuel would cost about $0.12 per mile.

It has some competition, but no stock on the auto sector is a better reflection of the equity market’s recent exuberance than Nikola Corp.

The aspiring battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell truck maker debuted on the Nasdaq last week following a reverse merger and its stock quickly took off, doubling on Monday and rising another 28 percent shortly after Tuesday’s open. Trading was halted twice within the first 40 minutes due to volatility, with the shares plunging as much as 22 percent. They were back up almost 14 percent in early afternoon trading in New York.

The $34 billion market capitalization Nikola had at the intraday peak belies the company’s fundamentals. Nikola is forecasting zero revenue for 2020 and its first $1 billion year in 2023. It doesn’t expect to be fully utilizing an Arizona assembly plant that it hasn’t built yet until 2028.

Ford Motor Co., by comparison, is expected to report about $115 billion of revenue for this year. And yet Nikola, whose stock more than doubled Monday, traded up another 24 percent to as high as $90.71 in early trading Tuesday, giving the company a richer market capitalization than the almost 117-year-old maker of the F-150.

Skeptics have long questioned the market’s valuation of Tesla, which has yet to post an annual profit. But by pushing Nikola’s market cap to $34 billion on Tuesday, investors have taken appraisals of zero-emission vehicle manufacturers named after a celebrated Serbian-American inventor to another stratosphere.

“People are looking at this as the next Tesla, and they’re being stupid. Investors are being ridiculous,” Sam Abuelsamid, a transportation analyst at research firm Guidehouse Insights, said by phone. “While I think the tech absolutely has the potential to be disruptive, I don’t know that Nikola in and of themselves are, necessarily.”

'Stable growth'

“Nikola’s No. 1 goal is stable growth over time,” Trevor Milton, Nikola’s executive chairman, said in an emailed statement. The 38-year-old said several factors could be behind the stock’s gain and cited examples including his tweeted announcement that the company will start taking reservations for its Badger pickup.

Starting five years ago, when Milton founded Nikola, through the end of last year, the Phoenix-based company has lost about $188.5 million. It’s planning to start delivering the Tre battery-electric semi truck next year, followed by two fuel cell-electric models in 2023.

The Badger model that Milton said may have gotten the market excited on Monday might not actually make it into production. In Nikola’s public-offering filing, the company said it is focused on making Class 8 heavy-duty vehicles and doesn’t expect to build the Badger unless it finds an established manufacturer to partner with.

A spokesperson for the company said Nikola will announce a partner in the near future, without giving more specifics.

Last week, Milton ceded the CEO job to Mark Russell, a former COO of metals manufacturer Worthington Industries Inc., who has been president of Nikola since February 2019. VectoIQ Acquisition Corp., the company Nikola merged with, is led by Steve Girsky, a former GM vice chairman who helped lead the carmaker out of bankruptcy.

Little cash

Nikola had about $86 million in cash at the end of last year. Prior to the stock listing, it had raised more than $500 million of private capital, though that includes a $150 million in-kind contribution from CNH Industrial NV, the truck maker linked to Italy’s billionaire Agnelli family. CNH also invested $100 million cash in Nikola last year.

The partnership with CNH includes a 50-50 venture in Europe that aims to start producing battery-electric trucks in Germany in the first half of next year and a North American alliance that Nikola will fully own.

Nikola is planning to build a 1-million-square-foot facility south of Phoenix and start making trucks in 2021. It’s expecting to reach full production of about 30,000 fuel cell-electric vehicles in 2027 and 15,000 battery-electric vehicles the following year.

Although Nikola touts reservations for 14,000 fuel cell-electric trucks that it says are worth about $10 billion of sales, those are far from done deals. The company told prospective investors in April that it was negotiating with strategic fleet partners to convert pre-orders into binding contracts with deposits.

While times are good for Milton -- his fortune now stands at $9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index -- he still covets something Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has: a blue check mark on Twitter.

Trevor Milton@nikolatrevorHi @verified @twitter, how about verifying my account and our company's account so people stop asking if we are the real accounts of Nikola. I've waiting patiently for a year and no verification. Help a company out. @nikolatrevor and @nikolamotor
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11:20 AM - Jun 6, 2020


Then again, Milton may want to be careful about seeking notoriety on Musk’s favorite social-media platform. The account @TESLACharts, which has accumulated roughly 26,400 followers by incessantly trolling Musk, has taken notice of Nikola’s rise.

In February, Nikola surprised us twice — first by announcing an electric pickup called Badger, second by disclosing specs for two powertrains, one of them pure battery-electric, the other a BEV with a hydrogen fuel cell range extender, both fitted with a supercapacitor launch system to help deliver repeatable acceleration performance. Nikola CEO Trevor Milton has imparted more Badger news this week on Twitter, and again, a few surprises come in tow. The most important bit is that pre-orders for the truck open on June 29. Milton didn't open up about pre-order details like the amount of the deposit, but those who pre-order will get something concrete for their money: Priority access to tickets for Nikola World 2020. The event was scheduled to take place in Phoenix in September, but the date might have changed; Milton said he'll announce this year's Nikola World date on June 29. According the tweet, the company will bring a "a real operating truck, not a fake show truck" to Phoenix, and the crowd that will crawl all over the Badger can "Expect stamped metal panels, functioning interior w/ hvac, 4x4, etc."

Yet another tweet showed a CAD-rendered image of the Badger's interior with a wider angle than before. There are small detail changes from the first image from February that make the interior look more production-ready, if less fancy, and we can see useful inclusions like the four USB ports and two 110-volt outlets on the back of the center console. Milton wrote that there will be a cargo retention system in the floor to secure loads in the cab, plus a hidden fridge, and "waterproof" quality.



Trevor Milton@nikolatrevorI wanted to post something no one has seen. @nikolamotor badger pre-production interior CAD. Notice the floor mounting system? It's throughout the truck and made to secure any loads within the vehicle safely. See quality of everything - waterproof. Hidden Fridge too

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5:56 PM - Jun 8, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy When we lined up the Badger's stated dimensions against a Ford F-150 Lariat 4x4 with an eight-foot bed in February, the math showed the Badger to be 1.5 inches wider and four inches longer, even though the Badger's bed is only a shade over five feet. Our comparison holds up based on an interview Milton gave to TechCrunch. When discussing the Badger's segment and comparing his truck to the Rivian R1T, he told the outlet, "We went directly after the Ford F-150 market and it’ll be a direct competitor to the Tesla Cybertruck as well,” and, "The Rivian is a small truck like a Toyota Tacoma and will not compete in the construction world nor the Ford F-150, bigger pickup market that’s focused on home businesses, construction and things like that. The Rivian is more of a consumer model that is used for outdoor recreational activities."

One of Nikola's Instagram posts said the Badger would be priced from $60,000 to $90,000. That's a wide middle ground to the estimated starting prices of the others: $39,000 Cybertruck, $52,000 Lordstown Motors Endurance, $69,000 Rivian R1T, and $125,000 Bollinger B1.

For that money, the Badger offers a wide spec bracket. The battery-only model gets a 160-kWh pack that powers a 300-mile range. The electric motors provide a continuous 455 horsepower that maxes out at 906 hp, and 908 pound-feet of torque. The trim with the 120-kW FCEV extender can run for 600 miles between top-ups. Ready for another surprise? Car and Driver writes that if a buyer gets the pure battery model, he can upgrade the powertrain with the FCEV unit at a later date. A 0-60 time of 2.9 seconds makes a nice counterpoint to 8,000 pounds of towing capacity. A 15-kW on-board power supply is said to be able to run equipment "for approximately 12 hours without a generator."

At one point, Nikola said it was working with Dave Sparks, otherwise known as Heavy D from the Discovery Channel show "Diesel Brothers," to help with the design and development "in real-world environments." Sparks' involvement was also going to be part of a video series documenting the Badger's birth and progress, but that might be in limbo after a U.S. District Court hit the Diesel Brothers with an $845,451 fine in March for violating the Clean Air Act.

That's about the only high-profile hiccup to be even distantly associated with Nikola Motors. Investors are already so bullish on the six-year-old company that the Twitter announcement about pre-orders sent Nikola stock soaring — doubling in value since Monday. Mind you, the stock debuted on June 4 after Nikola entered a reverse merger with VectoIQ, a company headed by ex-GM vice chairman Stephen Girsky. As TechCrunch distilled the facts of this week's hubbub, "Against that backdrop of bold vision but no products — or even revenue — Nikola Motor is valued at $28.63 billion as of market close Tuesday. Nikola’s market capitalization eclipsed Ford at one point Tuesday."

Nor does Nikola have a factory yet; a facility in Coolidge, Airzona, should begin construction this year, but Bloomberg writes that Nikola doesn't expect to use the plant's full capacity until 2028.

Before then, Milton said the "Badger will be built in conjunction with another OEM utilizing their certified parts and manufacturing facilities." Nikola has a truck headed to production in Europe, developed in conjunction with Iveco. As Autoblog commenters pointed out in February, the Agnelli family owns Iveco, and Fiat Chrysler. Purely speculatively, it's possible Nikola plans to work with FCA here to get the Badger to market for a 2022 launch. We'll know more soon.

Jeffrey Ubben, founder of activist hedge fund ValueAct—and Nikola bull—sold some of his Nikola stock this week. The sale might be a little jarring for Nikola (ticker: NKLA) investors. Ubben said recently Nikola can be the next $100 billion company. Still, he only took a little money off the table, selling 1.4 million shares for about $60 million, $42.69 each on average. He sold the shares through Inclusive Capital Partners Spring Master Fund limited partnership, which was known as ValueAct Spring Master Fund before Ubben left...