San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Staying the course on electric semis
Even with Nikola’s troubled past, Holt sees it as the future
A country music group played softly in the background as men wearing cowboys boots and trucker hats ogled an odd European-looking, flat-faced semitruck that stood out among the traditional tractors and trucks that surrounded it.
The men were trying to learn about the truck — a hulking, battery-powered electric Nikola-branded semi that’s among a few dozen of its kind in the U.S. — and how it can help their business’s bottom line. After all, diesel is costly these days, and electric motors have far fewer moving parts that need maintenance.
That’s the way that Holt Truck Centers — a subsidiary of the Holt companies, which are owned by the same family as the San Antonio Spurs — is trying to pitch customers on the value of the electric semitrucks. Last summer, Holt Truck Centers signed a deal to become the certified dealer of Phoenix-based Nikola Corp.’s trucks in Texas.
Big rigs like the ones Nikola has begun producing could eventually replace the dieselburning trucks on the road today and reduce the nation’s air pollution.
But Holt’s move is not without risk. Competitors aren’t equally embracing electrified big rig transport. And Nikola
has had major troubles: Its founder was convicted of fraud last month, its second CEO departed this month, and the company has seen losses mount as it has struggled to produce enough trucks to meet its timelines and cost estimates. Other electric vehicle competitors, including Tesla Inc.’s semitruck, are also coming to market.
Meanwhile, Holt’s business has long consisted of selling diesel-powered heavy-duty equipment such as trucks, tractors and generators to other businesses — often to oil and gas companies or other industrial operations. But the venerated San Antonio enterprise is trying to carve a
path to an electrified future, even if Holt sees diesel equipment sticking around for some time.
“Diesel engines aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. They’re going to be around for a long time,” said Brandon Acosta, vice president at Holt Truck Centers, as he stood in front of a steel case on the Nikola truck that holds nine lithium-ion batteries weighing 1,100 pounds each. “But we want to be part of the future. The only way we get there is being a part of it. We’ve got to help Nikola be successful.”
Nikola’s past
Since 2020, Nikola has sought to distance itself from
its founder, Trevor Milton, who was convicted of fraud last month for lying to investors about the capability of Nikola’s products and technology to boost his company’s stock price and personal wealth.
A now-infamous video that Nikola posted to social media in early 2018 depicted one of the company’s hydrogen-powered electric trucks on a highway test drive. But it was later revealed that the truck wasn’t functional; it had been towed to the top of a remote hill and rolled down the road.
Milton will be sentenced in January.
Former Nikola executive Mark Russell took over as CEO following Milton’s departure in September 2020. Then the executive job turned over again in August, when Russell announced he was leaving and Michael Lohscheller was named CEO. Lohscheller worked for a Vietnamese electric vehicle company as recently as late last year.
Nikola said Thursday that it produced 75 trucks at its Arizona factory from July through September. That brought the total number of trucks the company has manufactured to 125, having built the first 50 Tre battery-powered trucks earlier this year.
After setting a goal to build 300 to 500 electric trucks this year, Nikola said it now manufactures three trucks per shift — meaning it will likely fall short of the low end of its production target.
Nikola generated $24 million in revenue from truck sales during the three-month period. The company’s quarterly loss topped $236 million, and Nikola has lost more than $536 million this year.
Nikola’s once-high-flying stock — the company at one point had a higher valuation than Ford despite no having revenue — has tumbled amid the Milton saga. After Nikola reported earnings Thursday, its shares sank 3.5 percent to $3.18. The stock has dropped by 69