Column: Nikola battles for funding as key trucks launch

The ghosts of Nikola's past are still clattering around in the startup commercial truck maker's corporate attic. But they aren't distracting CEO Michael Lohscheller, the 31-year auto industry veteran who became Nikola CEO just over a year ago.

The company, founded by disgraced former CEO Trevor Milton, convicted last year on three counts of fraud related to false statements made to investors, is now under professional management, thanks to Lohscheller and his team.

A former CFO of Mitsubishi Motors and Volkswagen, Lohscheller has also been CEO of Opel and Renault's German, Austrian and Swiss operations. He completed a short stint leading VinFast before moving to Nikola. So he knows a thing or two about fiscal responsibility, especially about making sure companies don't promise things they can't deliver.

With a battery-electric Class 8 truck now on sale, a fuel cell version coming in less than a year and plans in place for a network of hydrogen fuel stations, Nikola under Lohscheller is moving fast. But the illegal activities of Milton are still among the first things potential partners, investors and customers think of, Lohscheller said, while visiting Detroit last week. The only way to quell that ugly history is to deliver high-quality products that work as advertised, he said.

"Execution and performance is the only way to convince customers," Lohscheller told reporters.

Nikola's Class 8 Tre truck can travel 330 miles on a charge with a full payload under certain conditions, such as on flat highways in moderate temperatures. Its fuel cell truck will be able to travel more than 500 miles on a tank of gaseous hydrogen, Lohscheller said.

The company gave demonstration rides in both trucks last week. I took a 10-minute spin in the battery-powered version, sans trailer, in downtown Detroit. Nikola's manufacturing deal with Iveco — one of the world's largest makers of commercial vehicles — has resulted in a very high-quality, comfortable cab. The truck's 645-hp electric motor is quiet and torquey.

An electric motor in such a large, hard-working vehicle makes for a rather strange experience behind the wheel. You expect to hear the clatter of an internal combustion engine and the whine of gears from a massive 18-speed manual transmission. But you hear nothing, except for an odd rattle when the truck goes over a bump.

Like every other startup, Nikola is in search of funds to continue its mission to deliver zero-pollution cargo-moving trucks. Last week, it floated a $100 million stock offering that underwhelmed Wall Street.

The company's cash is being spent in three major areas: building trucks, creating a network of hydrogen fueling stations and developing software for autonomous driving. Any one of those pursuits would be a huge project for a startup. Perfecting all three seems like a moonshot.

But Lohscheller has been able to sign up partners to help defray some of the costs. And thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, which heavily incentivizes zero-emission trucks, Nikola could be in a good spot. California decreed all heavy-duty trucks must be electric by 2035 just last week.

"At the end of the day, our customers are interested in service, total cost of ownership and uptime," Lohscheller said. "I am saying, let us compete with our truck and with everyone else. And we are doing so in a very credible way."