- Nikola says its Nikola Two hydrogen-powered semi truck will have 500-750 miles of range, compared to the 300-500 miles Tesla has said its Semi will be able to drive between charges.
- Battery-powered vehicles require a trade-off between range and storage capacity, Nikola CEO Mark Russell told Business Insider.
- More range means a bigger battery, and less room for freight.
- Are you a current or former Nikola employee? Do you have an opinion about what it’s like to work there? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com, on Signal at 646-768-4712, or via his encrypted email address mmatousek@protonmail.com.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has mocked the idea that hydrogen fuel cells could serve as a viable alternative to batteries as a power source for electric vehicles. But, according to the electric-vehicle startup Nikola, which, among other products, plans to make semi trucks powered by hydrogen fuel cells, its models will have a range advantage over Tesla’s freight truck, the Semi, which will run on batteries.
“Diesel’s more energy-dense than a battery. Hydrogen’s more energy-dense than diesel fuel. So we can get a freight load a long way with just a little bit of hydrogen,” Nikola CEO Mark Russell said in an interview with Business Insider.
The Nikola Two semi truck will have 500-750 miles of range, the startup says, compared to the 300-500 miles offered by the Semi. Of course, like the other electric-vehicle startups that have promised head-turning specs, Nikola has not yet delivered any vehicles (it plans to release a battery-powered semi truck next year, with its hydrogen-powered models to follow in 2023), so it remains to be seen whether the production version of the Nikola Two will live up to the expectations the company has set.
But there’s a simple reason the Nikola Two will be able to travel farther than the Semi between refuelings, according to Russell. Batteries are heavy and take up space, creating a trade-off between a semi truck’s capacity and range. If you want more range, you’ll need a bigger battery, which means you won’t have as much room to carry freight. Russell gave as an example Anheuser-Busch, which has pre-ordered up to 800 semi trucks from Nikola. Anheuser-Busch transports beer from Los Angeles to Phoenix every day, Russell said, on a route that spans over 400 miles.
“If you tried to do that with batteries — to go 400 miles — then your battery is so big and heavy that you would have to take several pallets of beer, thousands of pounds of beer off of that truck and replace it with extra batteries to get that far,” he said.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
One potential issue with hydrogen-powered vehicles, and a possible reason why they’re not as popular with consumers as battery-powered vehicles, is that they require new refueling infrastructure; you can’t plug in a hydrogen-powered vehicle at your home or business. To address that concern, Nikola is building a network of fueling stations that will begin in California and eventually spread across North America and Europe. The cost of fuel will be included in the lease agreements it signs with customers.
Are you a current or former Nikola employee? Do you have an opinion about what it’s like to work there? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com, on Signal at 646-768-4712, or via his encrypted email address mmatousek@protonmail.com.