Nikola Corporation has cut spending in several areas in an effort to focus in on its North American operations, which include the Hyla brand.
Nikola Corporation, one of the global leaders in zero-emissions transportation and energy supply and infrastructure solutions, via the Hyla brand, has earlier announced a progress update on its business optimisation efforts, which are expected to result in a marked decrease in cash spend and streamlining of operations.
“Nikola has initiated a more focused business plan this quarter, concentrating on North America, zero-emission truck production and our Hyla hydrogen business,” CEO Michael Lohscheller says.
“Our battery-electric truck is in the marketplace and performing well for our customers and the hydrogen fuel cell electric truck will go into production in a matter of weeks. We are proactively managing costs and reducing expenses. We are streamlining operations, including our organizational structure, to efficiently execute our objectives.”
The company says its actions are consistent with comments from its first quarter earning announcement among others, including the following:
- Realigning cost structure and reducing cash use by reorganising workforce and rationalising spend in all areas of the business.
- Concentrating on the North American marketplace, including the planned sale of the company’s joint venture share to Iveco Group.
- Localising the supply chain where possible, including transitioning battery manufacturing from Cypress, Calif. to the Nikola plant in Coolidge, Ariz., along with planned assembly of Bosch fuel cell power modules in Coolidge. Both actions are expected to reduce material cost of the trucks.
- Prioritizing a capital-efficient approach for the HYLA hydrogen energy infrastructure business, including a strategic partnership with Voltera to develop up to 50 hydrogen stations over the next five years.
- Focusing on launching the company’s Class 8 hydrogen fuel cell electric truck in Q3, which currently has 178 sales orders from 14 end customers.
- Optimizing production at the Coolidge, Ariz. manufacturing facility to accommodate Nikola’s battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks on one assembly line.
- Ongoing restructuring of legacy Romeo business and shut down of legacy Cypress operations.
In conjunction with these initiatives, Nikola says it also conducted a thorough review of its organisational structure and made the decision to reduce its headcount, which is expected to decrease personnel-related cash spend by more than $50M annually.
The reduction affected roughly 150 team members across multiple sites who were previously supporting (in part or in full) the company’s European programs, as well as approximately 120 employees based predominately at the company’s Phoenix and Coolidge sites and previously announced actions from Cypress. Nikola is supporting those affected with transition assistance.
The company says the decisions preserve 900 jobs and are intended to create a sustainable structure that matches the organization’s focus and positions the company for future growth.