Nikola Recalls Several Hundred Trucks

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Nikola trucks have caught fire, quite significantly, twice at their headquarters.
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The electric car manufacturer, Nikola, announces a recall of 200 plus of their electric vehicles this past weekend. The battery-electric vehicles that are affected by this recall are their Class 9 trucks. Along with the recall, they are planning on halting sales of the battery-electric vehicles until they get to the bottom of what has been going on with their vehicles. The reason behind the recall and halting of sales is that they have had two battery pack fires, causing significant damage to their image and their vehicles.

A third-party investigation showed that there was a coolant leak in the trucks.

The leak is what they believe to be the cause of the fires. Back in June when the first fire occurred, it was in a truck still in the headquarters of the company in Phoenix. Nikola originally advised that trucks currently owned and operated by businesses can still be used, they just advised drivers to park outside until they had a long-term resolution to the issue.

Because of the fires, the stock of the company plummeted quite significantly. There was a 20% drop in their shares after the fires started. However, looking at their stocks in the long term, they have had a 98% drop since they peaked in June 2020. June 2020 was when Nikola went public in their trading. They had merged with a special purpose acquisition company.

After the third-party investigation reported a coolant leak as the responsible factor, Nikola held an internal investigation.

From their internal digging, they found a single supplier component that they believe caused the leaks. Nikola believes their trucks are still safe for operating for the most part since they have only had fires in 2 of their 3,100 trucks. Still, the odds are risky which is why they decided to recall several hundred trucks and halt sales of further ones.

Originally, Nikola had reported foul play for the first fire that started. The first fire started in one truck but caused damage to four others. After their investigation, they corroborated the coolant issue. The same truck reignited a month later. In the same week, there was a smaller fire that started in a different truck.

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