WACO, Texas – A country band played softly in the background as men dressed in cowboy boots and trucker caps gleamed a European-looking flat-fronted semi-trailer that stood out among the classic tractors and trucks that surrounded it.
The men were looking to learn more about the truck, a large battery-powered Nikola electric semi-trailer that is among a few dozen of its kind in the U. S. The U. S. economy is expensive those days, and electric motors have far fewer moving parts that require maintenance.
This is how Holt Truck Centers – a subsidiary of the Holt companies, which belong to the same circle of relatives as the San Antonio Spurs – tries to bring consumers closer to the price of electric semi-trailers. Last summer, Holt Truck Centers signed an agreement with the legal truck distributor of Nikola Corp. , founded in Phoenix, Texas.
Big rigs like the ones Nikola generates can eventually upgrade diesel trucks on the road today and decrease the country’s air pollution.
But Holt’s move is not without risk. Competitors aren’t embracing large-platform electrified shipping in the same way. And Nikola has had big problems: Its founder was convicted of fraud in October, its CEO left this month and the company has noticed its losses are mounting as it struggles to produce enough trucks to meet deadlines and cargo estimates. Other electric vehicle competitors, in addition to Tesla Inc. ‘s Semi, are also entering the market.
ZF presenter Seth Clevenger and Julien Plenchette read about how complex technologies in today’s motive power assistance systems can help driving forces and make them feel better behind the wheel. Log in above or by visiting RoadSigns. ttnews. com.
Meanwhile, Holt’s business has long been promoting diesel-powered heavy appliances, such as trucks, tractors and turbines, to other corporations, oil and fuel corporations or other business operations. Electrified future, even though Holt sees diesel vehicles sticking around for a while.
“Diesel engines will be anywhere soon. They will be around for a long time,” said Brandon Acosta, vice president of Holt Truck Centers, as he stood in front of a metal box in the Nikola truck containing nine lithium cylinders. Ion batteries weighing 1,100 pounds each. ” But we want to be part of the future. The only way to do that is to be a part of it. We want to help Nikola succeed.
Since 2020, Nikola has sought to distance himself from its founder, Trevor Milton, who last month was convicted of fraud for lying to investors about Nikola’s ability to boost the value of his company’s stock and private wealth.
A now-infamous video Nikola posted on social media in early 2018 showed one of the company’s hydrogen-powered electric trucks at a roadside driving control. But then it was revealed that the truck was not working; They had towed it to the most sensible point of a remote hill and rolled it down the road.
Milton will be sentenced in January.
Former Nikola executive Mark Russell took over as chief executive after Milton left in September 2020. Then the leadership role took over in August, when Russell announced his departure and Michael Lohscheller was named chief executive. Lohscheller worked for a Vietnamese electric vehicle company that won last year.
Nikola said Nov. 3 that it produced 75 trucks at its Arizona plant from July to September. That brought the total number of trucks the company has made to 125, following the construction of the first 50 battery-powered trucks earlier this year.
Michael Lohscheller, president of Nikola Corp. , at the IAA Transport exhibition in Hannover, Germany, on Sept. 19. (Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg News)
After setting a construction target of 300 to 500 electric trucks this year, Nikola said it is now manufacturing 3 trucks per shift, meaning it probably won’t succeed at the bottom of its production target.
Nikola generated $24 million in revenue from truck sales in the three-month period. The company’s quarterly loss topped $236 million and Nikola lost more than $536 million this year.
Nikola’s once-high-flying inventories — the company at one point had a higher valuation than Ford despite a lack of profit — fell amid Milton’s saga. After Nikola reported a profit on Nov. 3, its inventories fell 3. 5% to $3. 18. Inventory has fallen 69% since the start of the year.
From Holt’s perspective, Acosta said the Nikola workers Holt has worked with are “very professional. “
“I’m frankly grateful that they made this resolution so long ago to remove (Milton), and we can know what we’re going to do,” Acosta said. “They’ve been great. “
Holt Truck Centers recently loaned “some” of its Nikola Tre battery trucks to consumers for demonstrations, Acosta said. The truck can travel 250 miles on a fully charged battery.
“The resonant comments are that other people are excited to reduce their emissions and the truck is running,” he said. “Now the big challenge and the big challenge for everyone is subsidies. People need to see how this subsidy is delivered.
Brandon Acosta, Vice President, Holt Truck Centers
Acosta said Texas provides many state subsidies, primarily through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and that the recently passed federal Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits for heavy-duty advertising electric cars of up to $40,000 per vehicle.
Nikola said he sells his trucks for about $350,000 each because the batteries are more expensive. That’s about double the value of a Peterbilt or diesel truck with a foreign logo.
Holt is looking at whether the total cost of ownership of a Nikola truck, which requires no fuel or requires almost as much maintenance, is lower than that of a classic diesel truck.
“We’re seeing federal, local and state support, so we’ll use it for our consumers and help them with the procurement charge,” Achargea said. “When you look at the overall ownership charge, diesel is expensive for consumers. The average truck gets 8 to 10 miles per gallon.
Rush Enterprises, headquartered in New Braunfels, operates approximately 140 truck centers in the U. S. Holt Truck Centers operates in Texas and Oklahoma. Carbon initiative to run more trucks with grass gas, which is cleaner than diesel.
For now, Holt is looking for tactics to get consumers to use the Nikola Tre. Battery-powered trucks are much heavier than diesel semi-trailers, and stacking many batteries to increase a truck’s diversity reduces the amount of goods it can carry.
And loading the truck can be a challenge, Acosta said. So-called “fast” raters that can rate a truck in a matter of hours require some type of high-voltage electrical infrastructure discovered in commercial facilities.
“It’s not something you get anywhere,” Acosta said of the quick testers. “If you’re going to carry this overnight, you don’t want all that. In 8 hours, you will be fully classified into the correct rater type.
While Holt determines the payload Nikola’s truck can carry and optimizes the load, Acosta said, regime deliveries will most likely be used over short distances.
Houston “seems to be the big market,” he said. Hauling apps, where you pack from ships and send the passes to a backyard for distribution, those consumers are very enthusiastic (electric vehicles). It’s repetitive all day, and then (the trucks) pass by the house and load all night.
Hydrogen fuel mobiles can simply upgrade batteries and increase the payload of long-haul trucks. The ambient air and hydrogen from a fuel tank react in the fuel mobile to produce electrical power and water vapor, and the fuel provides Nikola’s mobile fuel truck with a longer diversity. than its battery-powered counterpart.
Nikola is still its mobile fuel trucks, which are less evolved than the battery-powered version. Acosta said Nikola had indicated it would deliver one of its mobile electric fuel trucks to Holt by the end of next year.
Nikola has moved slowly to concentrate more on the progression of the mobile fuel truck, which likely provides a longer-term perspective than the battery-powered version. By 2026, Nikola said, it plans to produce three hundred metric tons of hydrogen a day. from sites across the country, as well as expanding 60 hydrogen filling stations, which are like gas stations, but with hydrogen.
Acosta said he is aware of the demanding situations involved in introducing an electric truck. But he thinks about it in old terms.
“It reminds me of the verbal exchange that the first user in an exercise probably had with a guy on horseback. The guy on horseback said, “I just have to feed and drink my horse; Where are you going to get (fuel) for this exercise?Acosta said.
“We have a strategic initiative to be part of the energy transition,” he said. “And we don’t know what the long term will look like, but we’re lucky that homeowners will invest in it. “
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