Electric Nikola Tre semi truck. Nikola is recalling all battery-electric Tres to fix a defect in the battery pack that could start a fire. In June 2023, five electric Tres were destroyed in a fire at Nikola headquarters.
Courtesy: Nicola
Electric truck maker Nikola opened sharply lower on Monday after the company announced it was recalling all of its electric semi-trailer trucks it has produced so far (209 in total) after an investigation into a recent fire found a defect.
The stock was down about 11% in Monday morning trading, to about $1.75 a share.
The recall does not affect Nikola’s latest model, a semi-truck powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Production of the fuel cell truck started last month.
Nicola explain Late Friday, a third-party investigation found that a fire in a truck parked at the company’s Phoenix headquarters on June 23 may have been caused by a coolant leak in the battery pack. The fire spread to other trucks nearby, resulting in the destruction of five trucks.
Nikola initially suspected the trucks were a deliberate act of vandalism. It said in a statement late on Friday that it now considered it “unlikely that murder or other external factors contributed to the incident”.
Nikola said a second truck used by the company’s engineering team suffered a similar battery pack failure on Aug. 10, though the problem was discovered before it caused a major fire.
Based on a third-party report, Nikola’s own engineers determined that a component in the battery pack made by an outside supplier could be the culprit. A repair service is expected soon.
The company will stop selling its battery-electric trucks until the repairs are complete.
Nikola is remotely monitoring all of its battery-electric trucks for signs of similar defects. Although the company says it believes the risk is low — only two of the more than 3,100 battery packs produced have suffered problems — it advises operators that while they can continue to use their trucks, they should be parked in outside until repairs are complete. was made.
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