Hydrogen truck design improved

Trucking start-up Nikola Motor Co. is fine-tuning the design and functionality of its hydrogen fuel cell-powered semi.

That will make it more autonomous, lightweight and accessible.

The Salt Lake City company is also planning to move its operations to a new, high-tech facility and finalise land rights on the first eight of 376 fueling stations.

Founder Trevor Milton told Trucks.com that Nikola has added about a dozen new employees since unveiling its prototype Nikola One vehicle at his headquarters in December.

Although much of the development work on the truck – a Class 8 electric hydrogen hybrid with a 300kW fuel cell and a 320kWh battery bank – is being outsourced. Milton says he plans to triple staff numbers to more than 100 employees in the next four months.

The team is working on shaving weight off the Nikola One, so that it’s 907kgs lighter than a comparable diesel truck.

“In the trucking world, that’s like the holy grail,” Milton says. “We’ve spent a lot of money and time – the last seven months – on carbon fibre engineering, running a lot of simulation models.”

The truck’s front is now wider than on the prototype to give drivers more room inside. There are two doors instead of one so that truckers can enter from either side. Full redundancy allows for driverless operation, so that for each system working in autonomous mode -steering, electrical and more – there’s a backup manual system.

“There’s full compatibility coming off the assembly line – others are only retrofitting their equipment,” Milton says of the truck’s autonomous capability.

Nikola’s ambitious plans have generated interest from “really good industry partners and financial investors” in a US$110 million (NZ$150.8 million) funding round which was oversubscribed and is expected to close soon, Milton says. The financing puts Nikola’s total valuation at north of one billion US$1 billion (NZ$1.37 billion), he says.

After the unveiling Nikola took in more than 8000 reservations for the Nikola One – so many the company put official ordering on hold.

Ordering will be handed over in January to fleet management firm Ryder System Inc.

Nikola One is undergoing bench testing in controlled environments. But Milton hopes to have the permits to start live stress testing by mid-2018, followed by three years of extreme winter and summer tests.

By the end of next year, Nikola One will be made available to fleets to be tested, Milton says.

The Fitzgerald Gliders family in Tennessee will produce the first 5000 trucks, with limited production likely for October 2020 and full production scheduled for 2021.

Milton says a new robotic manufacturing facility will be announced in the next two months, requiring the entire company to relocate.

“We believe that diesels are a dying breed, and that in 10 years you won’t be able to buy a diesel truck anymore.”