Nikola Corporation, has just announced it will be competing with Tesla, Ford and General Motors in the electric pickup truck market.
More commonly known for their zero-emission big rigs, Nikola Corporation has certainly turned some heads with the strikingly designed, Badger.
The Badger itself will be driven by electric, however this is to be developed by an on board hydrogen generator.
The Badger has also been designed with an battery pack capable of powering the pickup without the need of the generation of electricity from hydrogen.
This is a similar approach to that taken by Nikola on the big rigs, where the company is developing hydrogen trucks, however will also sell the battery trucks with a shorter range.
It has been said that the hydrogen unit in the Badger, will just be a scaled down unit from one of Nikolas big rigs.
“Nikola has billions worth of technology in our semi-truck program, so why not build it into a pickup truck?” Trevor Milton, Nikola’s CEO and founder.
“I have been working on this pickup program for years and believe the market is now ready for something that can handle a full day’s worth of work without running out of energy.”
The Badger has been promised to pack quite a spec heavy punch, including 600 miles of range from a full tank of hydrogen.
900 bhp and with 0-60 taking just 2.9 seconds, don’t expect this environmentally friends pick up to be a walk over at the lights either.
However, that range will be required as in the UK, considering there are only 16 fuel stops for hydrogen vehicles at present, mostly located around the M25.
This may not matter though, as Nikola is yet to disclose when the vehicle is actually going on sale, while the startup has secured funding for the zero-emission trucks from a European trucking company, there is no such guaranteed funding for the Badger.
Nikola claim the Badger, “will be built in conjunction with another OEM utilizing their certified parts and manufacturing facilities,” but, they failed to mention who the manufacturer is.
Of course it’s great to see another start up producing something that really could be of use to the environment, however they have a long way to go, especially considering Tesla have made the gap even greater now overtaking VW as the largest net worth car manufacturer in the world.
So we really wish them all the best and they certainly have the right ethos, but it is going to be a long slog to beat The CyberTruck.
To finish a quote from Nikola, “The Badger is designed to handle what a construction company could throw at it and is engineered to outperform all electric pickup trucks on the market in both continuous towing, HP and range,”
