Interview: Michael Lohscheller CEO Nikola: We are faster than others

Interview: Michael Lohscheller CEO Nikola
We are faster than others

Question Mr. Lohscheller: What can an electric Nikola truck do better than those from Tesla, Mercedes or MAN? Michael Lohscheller: Quite simply. We are the only ones you can currently buy an electric truck from that has a range of 500 kilometers. This puts us well ahead of our competitors. We are smaller, more flexible and faster than others. We are also concentrating on just hydrogen and battery-electric propulsion. Question: Despite this, you did not reach the goal of delivering 300 electric trucks this year. What was the issue? Lohscheller: We delivered 111 trucks by the end of the third quarter. We are on the right track in terms of development, production and the supply chain. However, we also see that customers have not yet completed the infrastructure as planned. Question: You recently announced your cooperation with the energy company E.on with the aim of having a hydrogen truck ready for the market by 2024. What is missing to reach the goal? Michael Lohscheller: We invest in the technology of the future and not in the past. The customer can choose what he wants. A purely electric or a hydrogen truck. We launched the all-electric Nikola Tre BEV truck in the US earlier this year. The Nikola Tre FCEV hydrogen truck will follow in the second half of next year. In Europe, we will launch the all-electric Nikola Tre BEV in mid-2023 and the Nikola Tre FCEV hydrogen truck in early 2024. In order for this to succeed, however, we need hydrogen. And that is exactly the reason for the partnership with E.on. When it comes to electromobility in cars, you can see that there are no charging stations. That won’t happen to us with hydrogen. Question: What makes you so optimistic? Lohscheller: On the one hand, that a lot is currently being invested in hydrogen worldwide, which is also easy to transport. In addition, you will not fill up a hydrogen truck on every corner. This will happen in the depots, between which the trucks commute back and forth, or at key locations where we are setting up gas stations. Question: In addition to the hydrogen truck, Nikola also offers a battery-powered truck. Don’t you get bogged down there? Lohscheller: No, not at all. These are technologies of the future and the customer will decide which application is better. Both have advantages. The hydrogen in terms of range and charging time and the electric truck in terms of efficiency if electricity is cheap. It depends on the application scenario which type of drive is more suitable. That’s why I’m even glad that we have this selection. Question: That may be true in principle, but does Nikola have the resources to dance at two weddings? Lohscheller: Yes, you are right. We are a small company with 1,200 employees. You can’t do everything alone. That’s why you need good partners. Although we want to produce the hydrogen ourselves, we are also happy to get like-minded partners on board. In Europe we work together with Iveco on sales, the fuel cell comes from Bosch and the electric axles from Fiat Powertrain. We know very well where we need partners, but also what we can do better. Question: And that would be? Lohscheller: The Americans are simply far ahead when it comes to software. What we can do when it comes to connectivity is pretty impressive. This is also a focus of ours. But we also make the batteries and motor management ourselves. For this reason, we took over the battery manufacturer Romeo Power. We have a lot of new ideas at Nikola, we want to implement them quickly, but we also take risks. This distinguishes Nikola from classic automobile manufacturers. The motto here is: We want to be the best and maintain our lead. Question: As part of the cooperation with E.on, Nikola receives support from the Essen Business Development Corporation. It’s a good start for sure, but wouldn’t Nikola have to think bigger to be successful? Lohscheller: We are happy about every partnership and we value the contact to the companies. These agreements are important to us because we are starting out with new technology and don’t already have thousands of trucks on the road. You can tell that there is currently enormous enthusiasm for hydrogen. And that everywhere. In addition, a location like Essen is extremely important, since a lot of traffic flows through the city in the Ruhr area. Question: Another goal is that the total cost of ownership of a Nikola hydrogen truck is no higher than that of a diesel truck. That’s ambitious… Lohscheller: The truck business is an investment, so cost-effectiveness is crucial. Of course, a hydrogen-powered FCEV truck is initially more expensive than a diesel. But over a longer period of time, we need to be able to show the economics of an FCEV truck as if it were a diesel truck. Question: And how do you intend to achieve that? Lohscheller: There are several variables that we are currently working on intensively. The maintenance and the costs for wearing parts are significantly cheaper than with diesel. How expensive the hydrogen is is of crucial importance. If we succeed in making the hydrogen available cheaply, you will be close to diesel in terms of total cost of ownership. In some countries there is also support for the purchase of a hydrogen truck. Question: Hyundai also wants to build a hydrogen truck. What makes Nikola better? Lohscheller: Quite simply: We have the best truck in our weight class with a range of up to 800 kilometers. Nobody can do that. A refueling process takes 20 minutes, we have 70 kilograms of hydrogen in our tanks with a pressure of 700 bar. That contains more energy than 350 bar. That’s just the way it is. In terms of software and telematics, we are one step ahead of the others anyway. With us you can, for example, calculate the repair in advance. Question: What’s next for Nikola? Lohscheller: The customer will decide what he needs. In the US, where the distances are greater than in Europe, I would imagine that hydrogen plays an important role, while in Europe it is already very electric. We can offer both solutions, a good prerequisite for establishing Nikola as a leading zero-emission mobility company in North America and Europe.

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