Hydrogen early adopter faces big problems amid Nikola challenges
Nikola stock sinks to a 52-week low, a NHTSA complaint claiming the fuel cell shuts down unpredictably, and one of hydrogen’s early adopters remains unconvinced. Is it time for Nikola to throw in the towel on hydrogen?
William Hall’s Coyote Container company made headlines earlier this year, when it became the first company to successfully complete a 400-mile delivery in a Nikola Tre semi truck powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
Hall, Managing Member and Founder of Coyote Container, drove the hydrogen Nikola over the hilly, 400-mile route that took the truck and its 17.7 ton trailer through California’s Altamont Pass and Grapevine Canyon on the I-5 interstate between the Port of Oakland and the Port of Los Angeles in Long Beach. The trip seemed like a ringing endorsement for the hydrogen-powered trucks. Nearly a year later, though, William seems to have soured on the early adopter experience, specifically citing higher-than-anticipated operating costs, fuel costs, weight limitations, and warranty concerns.
Coyote Container’s Nikola
“The truck costs five to ten times that of a standard Class 8 drayage [truck],” Hall told Clean Trucking. “On top of that, you pay five to ten times the Federal Excise Tax (FET) and local sales tax, [which comes to] roughly 22%. If you add the 10% reserve not covered by any voucher program, you are at 32%. Thirty-two percent of $500,000 is $160,000 for the trucker to somehow pay [out of pocket].”
Coyote Container isn’t alone in expressing concerns about the practicality of hydrogen trucks in general, but there are concerns about Nikola’s hydrogen semi truck, in particular.
In an official NHTSA complaint made against one Nikola HFCEV, the truck experienced five roadside propulsion outages resulting in three towings and two instances where the truck had to limp home on battery power. The failure was unpredictable, cutting off power while the vehicle showed between 20 and 140 miles left of FC range.
The first such incident happened with about 900 miles on the truck’s odometer, while the most recent occurred at 28,340 miles. You can read more about the Nikola NHTSA complaint, below – or just read Hall’s summary of the situation, in his own words: I have dealt with more tow trucks in the last 10 months than in my entire 62 years on this Earth.
NHTSA ID Nu. 11621826
While no recall has been issued for the above issue yet, the company has been no stranger to recalls in the past, and may be sensitive about issuing another one as its stock reaches a new 52-week low (more on that in a minute).
Regardless, the company issued a technical service bulletin (TSB) on October 29th, just 13 days after the official NHTSA complaint was filed.
The TSB itself mentions that, “a coolant fitting may come loose due to excess tension on a coolant line. Extension of the hose returns the tension to an appropriate level,” but while it’s unclear whether or not the TSB is intended to address the propulsion system, what is clear is that the TSB impacts VINs 001-266 – effectively all of the Nikola hydrogen semis currently on the road (as of September 30, Nikola reported selling 235 hydrogen semis).
And as for what it costs to fill up one of those 266 hydrogen semis? Hall says it’s impossible to tell. “No one will tell you what the H2 fuel costs,” he said. “This is because it’s being subsidized by the truck manufacturers by artificially raising truck pricing. This is a severe market distortion.”
Hall also said the added weight of the truck’s hydrogen system, compared to a conventional semi, was also hurting his ability to operate the trucks. “A Nikola Tre FCEV weighs 27,000 pounds versus my heaviest [diesel] sleeper weighing 19,400 pounds,” he told Clean Trucking, in that same interview. “Most drayage trucks weigh between 16,000 to 18,000 pounds. Shippers max out cargo whenever they can, so I have to constantly switch to a diesel in order to be road legal.”
A higher GVWR rating for ZEV trucks, especially on drayage facilities and on off-highway routes with lower relative speeds, could help mitigate that issue without adding excessive risk at highway speeds.
That won’t happen overnight, however, and Hall is losing patience.
The Coyote Container founder took to LinkedIn to vent. There, he shared some thoughts on a Seeking Alpha article calling Nikola a, “strong sell.” Hall wrote, “I have experienced an amazing amount of warranty repair down time in the last 14 weeks only making five of my weekly trips from Oakland to Long Beach. Dealing with battery failures and fuel cell shutdowns.”
Dave Baiocchi, General Manager of ETHERO Truck + Energy (the selling dealer), chose to respond to Hall publicly, writing in defense of Nikola, “I think it’s fair to say that as an extremely early adopter of this technology, and with one of the first units off the assembly line this truck has served you well.”
Nikola recently celebrated the production of its 300th hydrogen semi truck at the company’s Coolidge, Arizona facility. Nikola’s third-quarter net revenue reached $25.2 million, falling short of Wall Street estimates of $37.2 million. The miss was blamed on the unexpected costs associated with the repurchasing of 20 battery-electric Nikola Tre trucks in October.
Electrek’s Take
Despite what might be perceived as the negative tone of this article, I want Nikola to succeed. I want to see a new American truck company figure out a way to succeed, and a way to continue to grow. That said, having proxy arguments with your customers about very real, very concerning issues on social media – and through your dealers – isn’t the way to do that.
We (I) reached out to Nikola staff through both email and LinkedIn on Tuesday regarding these facts and other (as yet) unsubstantiated rumors about its 2025 FCHEV production plans, but received no response as of EOD, Friday, when this story went live.
SOURCES | IMAGES: Fuel Cell Works, NHTSA, Clean Trucking, Investing, Electric-Vehicles.com, Seeking Alpha, and Coyote Container, via William Hall (links throughout the article).
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Electric vehicles have reached a tipping point in China. They now represent the majority of the new car market, surging to 51% market share.
China and electric vehicles are linked together.
The majority of the world’s electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs) are both built and sold in China.
In 2024, global electric car production reached around 17 million vehicles, with China accounting for about 12 million of those — over 70% of the world’s total.
Roughly 11 million of the 12 million EVs were also sold in China. The rest were exported to other markets.
This is impressive in itself, but China has a massive automotive market. How significant are these EV volumes within the market?
It turns out that electric vehicles just reached a tipping point in China.
According to registration data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), electric vehicle sales have achieved over 50% market share for each of the last five months.
Year-to-date, electric vehicles market share currently sits at 51% of new car sales in China. This is often viewed as a tipping point that quickly leads to electric vehicle sales dominating the entire market.
For example, EV sales reached over 50% market share in Norway in 2020 and by 2024, they were at 90%.
Battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are also growing rapidly and already account for the majority of EV sales in China.
BEVs hold 31% market share of China’s passenger vehicle market.
Electrek’s Take
This is truly impressive. The world’s largest car market has an EV market share of over 50%. It shows the power of China. When it says “go, we are going electric”, they go electric.
They are also producing increasingly better products because EV manufacturers in China operate in the world’s most competitive EV market.
There are numerous models available, and it’s unlikely to be sustainable, but the best will rise to the top, and then they will set their sights on conquering overseas markets, which some of them are already doing.
It doesn’t bode well for automakers in North America and Europe unless they learn from China and commit fully to electric vehicles.
For example, Tesla, the largest EV company outside of China, has seen its sales decline in China year-to-date amid the surge in EV sales in the country. This is not a good sign. Tesla is not as competitive within China, even when producing its EVs locally, as it is outside of China, where the EV competition is less.
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Tesla has announced the Model Y Performance, available in Europe starting in September.
The Model Y Performance is now out in Europe, after Tesla teased a Friday announcement earlier this week. The teaser went out from Tesla’s Europe/Middle East account, but the release seems to only be in Europe, for now.
Tesla updated its European configurator today with the new Model Y Performance, along with details on what sort of upgrades the car gets over the other trim levels of the Model Y.
The basic headline stat is that the Performance model brings 0-100km/h (0-62mph) times down from 4.8 to 3.5 seconds, quite a leap (or 3.3 seconds for 0-60mph). This is thanks to the increased 460hp available on the Model Y Performance.
That higher level of horsepower doesn’t seem to greatly affect efficiency, though, as the car is still capable of 580km (360mi) range on the WLTP cycle – which, keep in mind, is more lenient than the EPA cycle. It also hasn’t lost much charging speed, according to Tesla, with the ability to add 243km (151mi) of range in 15 minutes – a better measure of efficiency, given Tesla doesn’t specify its battery capacities anymore. Though it does say it’s using “new, high-voltage battery cells.”
But the performance upgrade isn’t just more horsepower and better 0-60 times, there are some other design, interior and performance touches.
The Performance model comes with 21″ “Arachnid 2.0” wheels, a new wheel design, along with redesigned front and rear bumpers which look more aggressive and less flat.
On the inside, Tesla has added performance badging, reminiscent of the “Plaid” theme it has used on other performance vehicles, and has slightly increased the size of the front touchscreen (from 15.4 to 16 inches), with higher resolution to boot.
The front seats get an improvement, with adjustable thigh extensions for those with particularly long legs.
In terms of performance changes, Tesla added updated suspension to the Model Y Performance with electronic dampers. We saw this on the recent Model Y L which earned praise for its driving dynamics, despite being full of 6 adult passengers.
The Model Y performance includes a new mode which Tesla calls “Stability Assist Mode,” which it says allows drivers to “Customize your traction and control. Choose between Standard, Reduced or Off to give your vehicle more or less traction according to your driving style and terrain.”
This sounds like a performance tuning of the car’s stability control systems – stability control can apply brakes to individual wheels to help correct over/understeer, but can get in the way in performance driving applications.
There may be other performance-related options in there, but Tesla isn’t telling us about them yet – merely referring to them as “drive modes.”
While nobody has gotten their hands on the Model Y Performance for a driving review yet, the Model 3 Performance earned immediate rave reviews from most of those who drove it. It’s quite the performance package, and there’s pretty much nothing out there with the same sort of specs on offer for that price, gas or electric (though personally, I prefer rear-wheel drive cars and was a bit disappointed by the slightly slower steering rack post-Highland refresh).
So if the chunkier Model Y Performance can turn out similar dynamics as Tesla’s sport sedan, it will be interesting to see how it does against the likes of the Ioniq 5N and such.
As for whether or when we’ll get this model in the US: the Model Y Performance release is similar to how the Model 3 Highland and Model Y Juniper refreshes got released, each hitting Europe first before North America. However, the Model 3 Performance didn’t get the same treatment, so it’s interesting to see Europe getting the Performance Model Y first in this instance. We’ll have to see if a North American Model Y Performance release is imminent, or if it might take a few months like the Highland and Juniper did. Stay tuned.
The Model Y Performance will start shipping in September, and starts at €62k (~$73k) in Germany, with local prices varying from country to country but generally staying somewhere in that range. Head on over to Tesla’s site to check out prices in your territory (change regions/language in the upper-right of the website).
Electrek’s Take
Now here’s the question: can this help to reverse the negative momentum Tesla has in Europe?
Despite EV sales surging all across Europe, Tesla sales keep dropping, and the reason for the decline is almost entirely because of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is destroying Tesla’s brand and making it more difficult for Tesla to conduct business.
Sales are up in only a few European countries – like Norway, where we imagine this model will be plenty popular enough. And the Model Y Juniper refresh, released at the beginning of this year, hasn’t stopped the bleeding (in fact, the bleeding started right around when it was released in January… but that was probably less due to the car itself, and more due to Musk’s unambiguous Nazi salutes).
A new, whiz-bang, more expensive model will probably help with margins, and will allow some people to forget the tarnish that Musk has brought to Tesla’s reputation. It might even be the bump Tesla needs to turn around the quarter, which ends in a month, given Tesla said Performance Model Ys will be available before the end of September (where there will also likely be a sales boost in the US, due to the upcoming end of federal tax credits, an end which Musk himself stupidly enabled).
But generally, to stop a sales decline, you need to bring in base consumers, not the relatively fewer high-end ones. We very much doubt that the reason for Tesla’s decline over the last 7 months was because of the lack of a performance model – so this might help a bit, but the deeper issue is Tesla’s bad CEO.
Nevertheless, if you’re one of the ones who can look past Musk’s actions (I can’t), feel free to use our referral code.
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Chrysler parent company Stellantis is sinking billions on electric Jeeps and Chargers that no one wants, but the they’ve developed market-leading EVs in Europe, and this latest, £36,995 DS Automobiles No4 is exactly the sort of electric crossover that could rejuvenate the brand’s American prospects. The only question now is: why won’t they bring it here?
Both the Dodge and Jeep-branded Stellantis EVs are being offered with huge discounts in a bid to generate some kind of market interest, but the company’s American product and marketing teams seem to be deeply confused about what the market actually wants. Over in Europe, though, Stellantis’ EVs are hot sellers – and this latest five-passenger crossover from the company is expected to steal even more sales from the Model Y.
The new all-electric No4 E-Tense model from Stellantis’ French brand DS Automobiles will be offered at three trim levels starting with the Pallas at £36,995 (approx. $48K US), rising to £39,160 for the Pallas+ and topping out at £41,860 (approx. $56K US, before incentives get applied) for the range-topping Etoile.
All three trims use a front-mounted electric motor rated at 213 hp, drawing from a 58.3‑kWh battery pack. That setup delivers up to 280 miles on the WLTP cycle (about 240 miles by EPA estimates). That feels like a lot of miles from a relatively small battery, aided no doubt by the DS No4’s aerodynamic. Inside the No4’s sculpted flanks is enough room for five adults and a bunch of their stuff, as well as an incredibly sexy dash and infotainment layout that (in the official press photos, at least) seems positively slathered in Alcantara (think “vegan suede”).
With 120 kW fast charging capabilities, the No4’s battery pack can replenish from 20 to 80 percent in under 30 minutes. Thanks to built‑in V2L/V2X tech, the No4 can also supply power back to external devices.
Electrek’s Take
I think it would be a hit. As for why the marketing gurus at whatever’s left of the old Chrysler corporation seem to think an electric muscle car that no one asked for or a Dodge-branded Alfa Romeo that no one will ever ask for is a better use of their marketing dollars – that’s simply beyond me.
Maybe you guys know? Check out these photos of the new DS No4, then scroll on down to the comments and let us know what you think of Stellantis’ US product plans, and whether or not they messed up canceling the Airflow after all.
SOURCE | IMAGES: DS Automobiles.
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