{"id":43583,"date":"2023-02-24T00:02:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T05:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=43583"},"modified":"2023-02-24T00:02:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T05:02:54","slug":"nikolas-dismal-demand-it-delivered-a-fraction-of-the-trucks-it-made-slams-stock-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=43583","title":{"rendered":"Nikola’s dismal demand \u2014 it delivered a fraction of the trucks it made \u2014 slams stock price – Autoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikola Corp said issues hitting demand are not expected to ease in the near future after it delivered fewer than a sixth of the battery-powered\u00a0truck<\/span>s it made in the fourth quarter, sending its shares down as much as 9% on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix, Arizona based EV startup, which has ambitions to bring to market the first hydrogen-powered heavy-duty\u00a0truck<\/span>s later this year, saw its cash reserves dwindle in the quarter and also forecast 2023 gross margins deep in the red.<\/p>\n

Nikola executives painted a dire picture on call with investors, noting the slower-than-expected uptake of battery-electric semi-truck<\/span>s due to issues including a lack of a charging network.<\/p>\n

“We don’t believe these challenges will be abated anytime soon,” Kim Brady, Nikola’s finance chief said.<\/p>\n

For the fourth quarter, it missed revenue targets by a wide margin and reported swelling losses.<\/p>\n

Nikola, like other smaller EV firms, is faced with high production costs and supply bottlenecks in a time when demand has stalled amid rising inflation.<\/p>\n

Tesla<\/a>, which for years struggled to ramp production to a mass level and went through a self-acknowledged “production hell,” has increased its market share with recently announced price cuts.<\/p>\n

Brady told investors Nikola would be better off delivering fewer Tre BEVs to preserve cash and minimize losses. That model has a maximum range of up to 330 miles.<\/p>\n

Tesla, which delivered its\u00a0first semi<\/a>\u00a0truck\u00a0<\/span>to PepsiCo\u00a0PEP.O<\/span>\u00a0in December, is yet to announce mileage range but a PepsiCo official told Reuters their Semis will have\u00a0a 500-mile range<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nikola said in the fourth quarter it produced 133\u00a0truck<\/span>s and delivered just 20 of those to dealerships<\/a>. It expects to deliver between 250 and 350 Tre BEVs this year, compared with 131 deliveries in 2022.<\/p>\n

Nikola shares, which hit a record high of $94 in June 2020 days after it went public, were trading at $2.15 on Thursday. Stocks of other EV makers including Lucid<\/a> Group Inc\u00a0LCID.O<\/span>\u00a0were also\u00a0down sharply<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lucid on Wednesday forecast\u00a02023 production<\/a>\u00a0well short of Street expectations and reported a major drop in orders during the December quarter.<\/p>\n

Another EV\u00a0truck\u00a0<\/span>maker Lordstown<\/a> Motors Corp\u00a0RIDE.O<\/span>\u00a0also said on Thursday it would\u00a0temporarily stop<\/a>\u00a0production and deliveries of its pickup\u00a0truck\u00a0<\/span>because of performance and quality issues with some components, sending its shares tumbling 11%.<\/p>\n

It expects a negative gross margin of 75% to 95% for 2023. At its investor day presentation early last year, the company had forecast a positive gross margin for the Tre BEV.<\/p>\n

At the end of December, Nikola had cash and cash equivalents of $233.4 million, down from $497.2 mln a year earlier.<\/p>\n

December quarter revenue of $6.6 million missed analysts’ estimates of $32.1 million from Refinitiv, and net loss widened to $222.1 million from $158.9 million a year earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikola Corp said issues hitting demand are not expected to ease in the near future after it delivered fewer than a sixth of the battery-powered\u00a0trucks it made in the fourth quarter, sending its shares down as much as 9% on Thursday. The Phoenix, Arizona based EV startup, which has ambitions to bring to market the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-concepts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}