Earlier this year analysts were predicting Nikola would produce 300-500 trucks in 2022. With the first production model rolling off its assembly line yesterday, and as the article states, the ability of manufacturing just one truck per day but soon expanding to as many as 5 trucks made in a day, the 300 to 500 trucks built in 2022 seems a safe bet:
Nikola Inc., which aims to be a leader in battery- and hydrogen-powered heavy trucks, has begun production of electric semis at its new Arizona plant, getting to market at least a year ahead of Elon Musk’s delayed Tesla Semi.
The company’s Coolidge plant, about an hour southeast of its Phoenix headquarters, marked the start of commercial production of battery-powered Tre trucks Wednesday at a ceremony joined by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who convinced the company to set up operations in the state. The plant’s initial phase is a 250,000-square-foot facility that’s building just one truck per day currently. A 160,000-square-foot expansion that’s nearly complete will help boost Tre BEV output to five per day. A second phase of the factory opening in 2023 will make Tres powered by hydrogen.
“We have been a pre-revenue startup for years, where everything we spent we had to raise from investors,” Nikola CEO Mark Russell said at the event. “Today marks the day when we transition to customer deliveries. We have trucks that we can deliver to customers and get paid for. We’re now going to be a revenue-producing company and will be forever.”