Embattled hydrogen truck maker Nikola reveals it lost nearly a billion dollars in 2023
Quarterly losses have narrowed from a disastrous Q3, with potential boost ahead from California zero-emission vehicle subsidies
US hydrogen truck maker Nikola has revealed that it registered a net loss of $966m in 2023 — a far deeper deficit than the $784m loss it recorded in 2022.
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The Arizona-based company has also recorded a negative figure for its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (outside of generally accepted accounting principles, but pulling in values such as stock-based compensation and legal fees) of minus $519m, according to a press release issued today.
However, the final quarter of the year saw the company’s losses narrow to nearly $154m — from $426m in Q3, when the firm reported negative revenue following its battery-electric truck recall.
This came on the back of the shipments of its first 35 Tre fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), earning the company $11.5m in the quarter — double the revenue from the same period a year earlier.
Its full-year income amounted to $35.8m.
Nikola also highlighted that 355 of the 360 vouchers supplied by the state of California’s Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) for hydrogen fuel-cell trucks had been for the Tre FCEV.
“There are more requests for our fuel cell truck alone than all other truck OEMs combined on both battery and hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks in the same period,” said the company’s CEO Steve Girsky.
HVIP offers $240,000 off purchases of new hydrogen fuel-cell trucks, but only $120,000 off battery-electric models. However, Nikola added that despite its recall, it still had 33 vouchers requested for its battery-electric truck since October 2023.
Girsky had also this month taken on the role of acting chief financial officer, after the previous CFO Anastasiya Pasterick left in November 2023, after less than a year in the role, to work for hydrogen aviation start-up Universal Hydrogen.
Nikola is currently in the process of fitting the recalled electric trucks with new battery packs, with the first set to be returned to end-users by the end of Q1 and all units sent back by the end of Q2 or beginning of Q3. The truck company also plans to retrofit its battery-electric trucks that have already been produced with the new battery packs and sell them in late Q3 or early Q4.
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