Hydrogen Powered Long Haul Trucking with Nikola's Chief Engineer Christian Appel

MotorTrend

MotorTrend's Ed Loh & Jonny Lieberman chat with Nikola's Chief Engineer & Head of Vehicle Platforms - Christian Appel! The guys explore Nikola's ground-breaking Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Semi Truck

Transcript

00:00:00 (dramatic music)

00:00:02 - Welcome to another episode of the inevitable,

00:00:18 your podcast from Motor Trend on the future of the car,

00:00:20 future mobility, where are we going,

00:00:21 how are we gonna get there,

00:00:22 how are goods and services going to be shipped to us?

00:00:26 Johnny, my co-host extraordinaire.

00:00:29 - Yes, Ed.

00:00:30 - Today we have a very special guest

00:00:33 who did a very special thing for the first time ever.

00:00:35 - Yeah, this is our 60 some odd, 66 episode.

00:00:39 - We had someone actually bring a vehicle to us.

00:00:42 - Yeah, and it was illegal for us to drive it,

00:00:44 so of course I drove it.

00:00:45 - We got in and drove around in a class A tractor,

00:00:50 a truck, something that you would normally see

00:00:52 towing a huge trailer down the road.

00:00:55 Nicola, Nicola.

00:00:57 - Nicola, and it's powered by hydrogen,

00:01:00 it's a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle,

00:01:02 and it was great, it was really cool.

00:01:06 - They pulled this 13 foot, 15 foot, I don't know,

00:01:08 giant truck, white truck, outside of the building,

00:01:13 we got a preview, again we got to drive around

00:01:16 with their head of vehicle platforms, Christian Appel,

00:01:21 nice guy, super nice guy, young guy.

00:01:23 - And then we talked to him for like 90 minutes,

00:01:25 so check this one out.

00:01:28 All right, here with Christian Appel,

00:01:30 who is a German gentleman, who's now an American gentleman,

00:01:34 who works for Nicola, and they make this fancy

00:01:38 hydrogen semi-truck, as I call them.

00:01:40 - Well let's start there, thank you so much

00:01:43 for bringing this giant vehicle,

00:01:46 this is a first for us in this podcast,

00:01:48 we've never had, nobody's ever bought a vehicle.

00:01:51 - No, we tried, people have promised,

00:01:54 and then last second, we thought Franz

00:01:56 was gonna bring the Cybertruck,

00:01:57 and then he just brought his Model 3 or whatever.

00:02:00 - But this is not a small vehicle,

00:02:02 I think the wizards here at Podcast One

00:02:05 who helped do the editing, you might see some clips

00:02:07 of us gawking at this thing parked out

00:02:10 outside of the studio, it's funny for you guys listening,

00:02:14 we record in Beverly Hills, it is commercial,

00:02:18 but it's a commercial sized residential,

00:02:20 it's a narrow, beautiful tree-lined street.

00:02:24 - Well not so tree-lined anymore, no.

00:02:27 - And a class A semi-truck, basically an 18 wheeler

00:02:30 without the trailer, without 12 of the wheels,

00:02:35 pulled up here, it's how tall, like 22 feet, more than that?

00:02:42 - No, it's 13, a little over 13 feet.

00:02:46 - 13 feet, oh sorry, right, okay.

00:02:49 - 20 feet wouldn't fit under anything,

00:02:51 13 feet's about right.

00:02:52 - I'm screwed all the way.

00:02:54 They brought it here and, do we disclose that Johnny--

00:02:58 - Yeah, I drove it.

00:02:58 - Illegally got to drive it down the street?

00:03:00 - It's fine, catch me if you can, Copper.

00:03:02 - I thought you told me you have a commercial's license.

00:03:04 - It's with my motorcycle license.

00:03:05 - Same thing, which he doesn't have.

00:03:08 - In my head, I'm very licensed, and I drove it fine,

00:03:11 it was fine, and there's no gears,

00:03:13 last time I drove a semi-truck,

00:03:15 I think there was like 18 gears.

00:03:16 - Oh yeah, well that's the thing, right,

00:03:18 like, you know, it must be easy to drive,

00:03:20 if you can drive it, but a boat, ding.

00:03:23 But then Christian drove us around the block

00:03:25 a couple times.

00:03:26 - Yeah, so Christian, what is this thing?

00:03:27 - Yeah, what is it?

00:03:28 - Tell us everything.

00:03:29 - Yeah, absolutely, first of all, thanks for having me here,

00:03:31 this is super exciting.

00:03:33 We really like to show our product and talk about it,

00:03:36 but more so show it, and that's why we wanted to make sure

00:03:38 we bring it outside and have you guys feel it,

00:03:41 and drive it, and ride in it, and be able to see

00:03:45 what this is all about.

00:03:46 So it's a hydrogen fuel cell electric truck, semi-truck.

00:03:50 We have a fuel cell in there, and a battery pack,

00:03:55 so the fuel cell is 200 kilowatt, or 270 horsepower,

00:03:59 fuel cell, and then we pair that with a 164 kilowatt hour

00:04:02 battery, and that goes to a drive train

00:04:05 that has a continuous power output of 536 horsepower.

00:04:09 - And then the torque, which we were calculating,

00:04:11 it's like, so it's 900 newton meters, or 1800 newton meters,

00:04:15 which is like, I don't know, I'm gonna pull out

00:04:17 my converter here.

00:04:18 We gotta do this in freedom units.

00:04:21 So in terms of freedom units, it is,

00:04:24 oh, that's not what I wanted.

00:04:27 Yeah, it's 664 times two, so it's 1,328 pound-feet of torque,

00:04:32 but with the gear reduction, we're thinking it's times 21.5.

00:04:38 - That's right.

00:04:39 - So it's 28,552 pound-feet of torque when it comes to

00:04:45 twisting force. - Twisting force.

00:04:47 - Driving off the line. - In the lowest gear?

00:04:49 - Well, there is no multi-speed.

00:04:51 It's one speed.

00:04:53 It's a fixed gear ratio, and that is actually really nice,

00:04:56 and gives you a really smooth ride,

00:04:58 as well as an acceleration, as well as deceleration

00:05:01 during regenerative braking.

00:05:03 - So you're talking about the gear reduction

00:05:05 from the, theoretically, the output shaft of the motor

00:05:08 to whatever the single-speed transmission is.

00:05:11 - That is right.

00:05:12 - So 28,000--

00:05:12 - But this is real quick.

00:05:14 This is like when the Hummer people say,

00:05:16 yes, 11,000 pound-feet of torque.

00:05:19 You're like, fine, but what are the motors?

00:05:21 We don't care about wheel.

00:05:22 We care about motor.

00:05:23 So motor, it's 1,300, which is a lot.

00:05:25 I mean, I don't know anything about trucks, but--

00:05:26 - Yeah, well, that is my question.

00:05:28 It's very impressive, but how does it stack up?

00:05:32 How does this output to a conventional, modern-day diesel--

00:05:35 - Detroit diesel.

00:05:36 - Yeah, diesel Class A truck.

00:05:38 - Yeah, I would say, I mean, the startability at grade

00:05:42 is probably very comparable with a diesel day cab,

00:05:47 but when it comes to acceleration,

00:05:49 and I mean, zero to 60 is not really relevant to a truck,

00:05:53 right, but what is relevant is coming on and off.

00:05:55 - This seems pretty quick.

00:05:56 - It is, it is.

00:05:57 I think in Bobtail, we're like 12 seconds or something.

00:06:00 - Well, that's pretty good.

00:06:02 - And then fully loaded, we're just under 30 seconds.

00:06:05 That's talking 82,000 pounds.

00:06:07 But what is relevant is if you're driving on an on-ramp

00:06:11 onto the highway or something,

00:06:12 it's an advantage to be able to flow

00:06:15 with the traffic much better, right?

00:06:17 - Yes.

00:06:18 - And so that's where the acceleration part of it

00:06:20 becomes much more relevant,

00:06:21 and the acceleration is much, much superior

00:06:24 compared to a diesel day cab.

00:06:25 - Okay, primarily because, well, there's gears to shift,

00:06:29 right, so you get a little delay

00:06:31 every time you're going up a cog or down a cog.

00:06:34 But you just described the qualitative,

00:06:38 quantitative, like output to output,

00:06:41 how do Nikola or the class-leading

00:06:43 hydrogen electric trucks compare from, say,

00:06:46 I don't even know if horsepower and torque

00:06:47 are the appropriate metrics, but numbers-wise,

00:06:49 how do they compare to a diesel?

00:06:51 - I mean, you can definitely compare it in power.

00:06:54 I mean, you're very well aware of the torque characteristics

00:06:57 of an electric motor versus a diesel engine.

00:06:59 So if we talk about peak torque,

00:07:02 you also need to talk about when that torque is available

00:07:05 as it comes to RPM, and that makes the difference

00:07:07 in the acceleration event.

00:07:09 When you talk about horsepower, I mentioned 536 horsepower.

00:07:13 That's comparable to, if you talk about diesel day cabs,

00:07:18 probably more on the upper end of horsepower ratings,

00:07:21 so the lower end is probably--

00:07:23 - They've always been very low horsepower, but very torquey.

00:07:27 That's the thing with a diesel.

00:07:29 - But you have to shift through all of those gears, right?

00:07:31 And today, I mean, it's much more comfortable

00:07:34 with automatic shifting compared to the old days

00:07:37 where it was manual and unsynchronized.

00:07:40 That's actually what my grandfather used to drive.

00:07:43 - Yeah, no, I drove a manual 18-wheeler years ago.

00:07:47 It was, let's just say, a Bobcat.

00:07:49 That's the term for no trailer.

00:07:50 - Bobtail. - Bobtail, sorry.

00:07:52 And just at a proving ground, but yeah,

00:07:56 it was like, I forget how it worked,

00:07:58 but it was like nine forward speeds plus a transfer case.

00:08:03 - You're probably three gears to get through

00:08:05 a normal intersection.

00:08:07 - Yeah, at least, at least.

00:08:09 Well, and the other aspect of it is not only performance,

00:08:13 it's drivability, right?

00:08:15 Because every gear shift you do on a diesel truck,

00:08:18 you have the motion, right?

00:08:19 You have the rocking motion of the gear shift, right?

00:08:22 And that's something you don't have.

00:08:24 And that's one of the aspects when you talk

00:08:27 to a lot of the drivers, and I do talk a lot to our drivers

00:08:30 and external drivers, our customers,

00:08:33 that they really appreciate just the smoothness of the ride,

00:08:36 not having interruptions with shifting,

00:08:38 and then obviously overall, the noise and the vibration

00:08:41 is much, much less than you have

00:08:43 in a conventional diesel truck today.

00:08:44 - So I wanna talk about that, just so overall--

00:08:48 - Let's get to the numbers.

00:08:48 - Yeah, the numbers on the truck.

00:08:50 Is it a, how many wheels are, how many motors?

00:08:54 - Two motors. - Two motors,

00:08:55 and where are they?

00:08:56 - They are both in one E-axle,

00:08:58 so it's what we call a six by two drivetrain architecture.

00:09:01 So we have one driven axle and one tech axle in the rear.

00:09:05 So both motors go into the one E-axle.

00:09:08 - Tech axle?

00:09:09 - Yeah, it's just a rolling axle.

00:09:12 The second rear axle is not driven.

00:09:15 - Also, is that, and that's a common setup

00:09:17 for a diesel or electric, or is this more for a,

00:09:20 is this unique to the hydrogen electric?

00:09:23 - I wouldn't say unique, but the majority of trucks

00:09:28 in the US are six by four, or you have four by two trucks

00:09:32 for local distribution, but most of the trucks

00:09:34 are six by four, meaning both of the rear axles are driven.

00:09:37 - Yes, why don't you drive the rear axle?

00:09:41 - Yeah, this was an early design choice we did,

00:09:45 and back then we had the collaboration with Iveco,

00:09:49 and we still work with them, but we also used

00:09:52 to have a joint venture with them,

00:09:53 and we wanted to develop an axle that also works

00:09:56 for the European market, and in Europe,

00:09:58 all of the trucks are essentially a four by two architecture,

00:10:03 and so you need the power on one axle

00:10:05 versus distributed on two axles.

00:10:08 Now, going forward, we're definitely looking

00:10:10 into six by four options as well,

00:10:14 but the advantage we have, even though it's

00:10:16 a six by two architecture, and there's some people

00:10:20 that were worried about the performance of that

00:10:22 when it comes to traction, well, the advantage we have

00:10:25 is we have a fully controlled electric air suspension system

00:10:29 and with that, that is calibrated to be able

00:10:31 to fully load the drive axle first

00:10:34 before it loads the tag axle, so you will always

00:10:37 have maximum traction even though you only

00:10:41 have one driven axle.

00:10:43 - Which axle is the tax axle, the middle or the rear?

00:10:45 - It's the rear.

00:10:46 - The rear, okay, so it's not the actual--

00:10:47 - So the middle axle is the driven.

00:10:49 - And there's no, I don't know, tractive downside

00:10:53 to just not having the rear wheels powered?

00:10:55 I imagine there must be some.

00:10:57 - Yeah.

00:10:58 - That's why you're looking into--

00:10:59 - Right, I mean, once you go into the corner cases

00:11:02 of very low traction where it makes a difference

00:11:04 whether you have four tire patches or eight tire patches.

00:11:08 - The Ice Road Trucker guy.

00:11:09 - Yeah, okay.

00:11:11 - I'm gonna ask a really dumb question

00:11:12 just because I'm trying to, you're scrambling my brains

00:11:14 with six by four and four by two.

00:11:16 So American--

00:11:18 - Too many numbers.

00:11:19 - American Class A trucks, a total number of wheels

00:11:22 are six, right?

00:11:24 You have the two front wheels and then you have

00:11:26 the two axles in the back.

00:11:28 - Yeah, well, most axles, so three axles.

00:11:31 - Three axles.

00:11:31 - Most trucks, there's the super singles,

00:11:34 so the white single tires, but most trucks have

00:11:37 dual tires on the rear axles, right?

00:11:40 - This is confusing, but it's three axles,

00:11:42 so there's two, it's for steering,

00:11:44 and then there's essentially two axles in the back.

00:11:46 - That's correct.

00:11:47 - And in America, the middle one, the first one

00:11:50 is the powered one for Nicola's truck.

00:11:52 - Correct, for Nicola.

00:11:53 But most diesel trucks have--

00:11:55 - Both of those are powered.

00:11:56 - Both of those are powered, correct.

00:11:57 - Okay, but hang on, in Europe, the truck is four--

00:12:01 - Two axles.

00:12:02 - Two axles.

00:12:03 - Only two axles, and so that's why,

00:12:04 so this allows you efficiencies for both markets.

00:12:07 - Correct, correct.

00:12:08 - I noticed, though, 'cause you were showing me the cabin,

00:12:10 and I still wanna get to the numbers,

00:12:12 like the range and everything like that,

00:12:13 but there was a differential lock,

00:12:16 so you're just locking, you're not locking,

00:12:19 you're just locking up that single axle.

00:12:22 - Correct, that's correct.

00:12:23 - Okay, 'cause when I saw that--

00:12:24 - Not between the axles.

00:12:25 - My mind was like on the, I don't know,

00:12:28 like the AMG 6x6, which had five differentials,

00:12:32 but there was a lock that would lock the rear axle

00:12:35 to the middle axle, basically.

00:12:37 - We actually, my former company, we worked on that one, too.

00:12:40 - I've driven it, I've jumped it, it's wonderful.

00:12:43 - Yeah, yeah, it is, I bet it is, I didn't jump it.

00:12:46 - We'll get to it, we have a lot to talk about,

00:12:48 actually, with your former, but let's get to this.

00:12:49 Okay, so 70 kilograms of hydrogen.

00:12:52 - That's correct, yeah.

00:12:53 - What does that mean to an American?

00:12:54 (laughing)

00:12:56 'Cause you have five massive tanks,

00:12:57 and like 70 kilograms is, I don't know,

00:12:59 160 pounds, something like that?

00:13:01 - I aspire to be 70 kilograms.

00:13:03 - What?

00:13:04 That's light. - That's like body mass.

00:13:05 - That's very light, I can do the math.

00:13:07 - I used to be 70 kilograms.

00:13:09 - I'm about 105 kilograms.

00:13:10 - That was before I moved to the US.

00:13:11 - It's a very competitive Judo weight,

00:13:13 it's like in Judo weight class, it's a very competitive,

00:13:15 okay, so that's 154 pounds.

00:13:16 - Actually, I don't aspire to be that thing,

00:13:18 that's 78 maybe, 78.

00:13:19 - Okay, but what does that mean?

00:13:21 What does that mean?

00:13:22 - The reason we use kilograms is, first of all,

00:13:26 it's, I would say, I mean, the industry isn't that large

00:13:29 in semi-hydrogen, semi-trucks, right?

00:13:31 But we use miles per kilogram as a fuel economy number.

00:13:35 - Okay.

00:13:35 - And what makes it a little easier

00:13:38 is that a kilogram of hydrogen has comparable energy amount

00:13:43 than a gallon of diesel.

00:13:45 So a gallon of diesel is 37.2 kilowatt hours

00:13:50 or something like that on average.

00:13:52 A kilogram, a gallon of diesel,

00:13:55 a kilogram of hydrogen is 33.3 kilowatt hours,

00:13:59 I believe is the exact number.

00:14:00 And so it's kind of a bit comparable

00:14:03 where you have a kilogram of hydrogen

00:14:05 is about 0.9 diesel gallon equivalent.

00:14:09 - But when you say kilogram,

00:14:12 hydrogen doesn't weigh anything, right?

00:14:14 I mean, it does?

00:14:15 So if you compress it, there is weight.

00:14:19 - Well, it is a very light element, obviously.

00:14:21 - Okay, okay.

00:14:22 - But yeah, but the compressed hydrogen,

00:14:25 I mean, 700 bar, 10,000 PSI,

00:14:27 this is the amount, the weight of the hydrogen.

00:14:30 - It weighs 70 kilograms.

00:14:31 So we have pictures and you'll see them

00:14:34 if you're watching the video, but like massive tanks.

00:14:38 Like I remember I drove the,

00:14:39 this is a hundred years ago, the Honda FC Clarity,

00:14:43 and it had a hydrogen tank, which looked like a--

00:14:45 - Tiny, yeah.

00:14:46 - Like a propane tank, a little bit taller,

00:14:50 a big 10 gallon propane tank.

00:14:53 These are just massive tanks, but it's only 70,

00:14:57 it's only 70 kilograms, it's crazy.

00:14:59 Yeah, there are these massive carbon fiber tanks,

00:15:01 essentially bulletproof, you know, close enough.

00:15:04 And the fuel's pressurized to 10,000 PSI, 700 bar,

00:15:09 if you're into the whole metric thing.

00:15:11 And then how much range does this give the truck?

00:15:14 - The range is about 500 miles.

00:15:17 It always depends on the payload,

00:15:20 on the route you're driving, on the driver.

00:15:22 - When we say 500 miles of range,

00:15:24 that's loaded with a trailer.

00:15:25 - Yeah, that's loaded with a trailer.

00:15:26 - That's 82,000 pounds or something, whatever.

00:15:29 - Typical, you know, average highway speed.

00:15:31 - So as a bobtail, how far can that thing go?

00:15:33 - Well, we don't really measure that.

00:15:35 - Come on, you must have some like--

00:15:37 - Well, over 700 miles.

00:15:39 - Okay, wow.

00:15:40 - On bobtails.

00:15:41 - It's shaped like a barn, Johnny.

00:15:42 It's not gonna go that much further.

00:15:43 - Yeah, but there's a lot of hydrogen.

00:15:46 - Yeah.

00:15:46 - And I think a lot of people don't get this with hydrogen.

00:15:50 Like, what does the hydrogen do?

00:15:51 You're just putting energy into the batteries

00:15:53 because it's an electric vehicle, right?

00:15:55 I mean, is that true?

00:15:57 - Well, almost, almost.

00:15:59 The way I like to explain it is you have a fuel cell

00:16:02 that converts essentially the hydrogen

00:16:05 and the oxygen out of the air,

00:16:07 it creates the electric potential,

00:16:09 and then it goes through a electrical interface

00:16:13 and actually a DC-DC converter.

00:16:15 So we modify the voltage level through the DC-DC converter

00:16:20 to match the battery voltage level.

00:16:22 And then you can think of it as essentially

00:16:24 the fuel cell power module, the battery,

00:16:27 and then the inverters, motors, and all of the other units

00:16:30 being on the same high voltage rails.

00:16:32 - So the battery and the fuel cell work together

00:16:34 to spin the motors. - They work together.

00:16:36 They can work together to spin the motors,

00:16:39 meaning to provide the drive power,

00:16:41 but also, let's say you're just cruising along,

00:16:44 maybe not full load, or you're cruising along

00:16:46 just highway speeds, then the fuel cell

00:16:48 can also power the batteries, charge the batteries.

00:16:52 So the fuel cell runs, provides all of the drive power

00:16:54 you need, and then also simultaneously charge the battery.

00:16:58 So the battery is kind of a power and energy buffer,

00:17:01 you could say, to some extent.

00:17:02 - So it's sort of like the way the Chevy Volt worked,

00:17:05 was like, you know, when the engine turned on,

00:17:08 and a lot of plug-in hybrids operate this way,

00:17:11 but like, depending on exactly what it needed

00:17:13 and when it needed it, the battery would either get charged

00:17:16 or spin the traction motor, and then the engine

00:17:19 would spin the planetary gear set and transmission,

00:17:22 so it's complicated, so you can do a lot

00:17:23 of different things.

00:17:24 - Can you, do you charge the battery independent of--

00:17:28 - No. - No, so there's no--

00:17:30 - No, we didn't include a charge plug,

00:17:32 because we want just ease of use and operations, right?

00:17:35 The way this works is, you drive your truck,

00:17:39 you pull up to a hydrogen refueling station,

00:17:42 you hook up, you know, nozzle, and at the end of the day,

00:17:46 that's very comparable to what you do with the diesel today,

00:17:48 you fuel up, you're done, and you go.

00:17:51 There's no secondary charging operation.

00:17:52 - I noticed there was a EV mode, a battery mode.

00:17:56 So in other words, if you run out of hydrogen,

00:17:58 which I've done, if you run out of hydrogen,

00:18:01 then you have 160 kilowatt hours of battery,

00:18:04 best case scenario that you can drive around on

00:18:07 for a little bit.

00:18:08 - That's right, and we designed it that way, by the way,

00:18:11 so if someone would run out of hydrogen,

00:18:14 and we obviously have range estimation,

00:18:16 and we warn the user at some point and say,

00:18:17 "Hey, you're really low on fuel," and all of that,

00:18:20 but it's designed in a way-- - It'll happen, it'll happen.

00:18:22 - If you run out, it automatically switches the truck

00:18:25 into battery electric mode,

00:18:27 and you have the little extra of mileage, you can go, right?

00:18:30 And it's not a lot with the amount of batteries we have--

00:18:33 - Because of the weight of the vehicle.

00:18:34 - Right, and they wouldn't always sit at, you know,

00:18:36 100% SOC, because we keep 'em more like at 50 on average.

00:18:41 - Right.

00:18:41 - And I can talk a little bit more about why that is,

00:18:44 but you still get the little extra of mileage,

00:18:46 and I've actually tried that myself, too, you know,

00:18:49 purposefully run it out of hydrogen,

00:18:52 and kept driving back to our base,

00:18:54 with switch back to battery electric mode,

00:18:58 but the real motivation we did that is,

00:19:00 you still are, you know,

00:19:03 sometimes you face restricted environments

00:19:05 where you're not allowed to run the fuel cell.

00:19:07 Think about a shop, a repair shop,

00:19:11 that's not hydrogen safe, quote unquote,

00:19:14 and there we need to essentially lock out

00:19:16 the hydrogen system, but then we can still run the truck--

00:19:19 - Whatever the reason, you have the option

00:19:21 to go hydrogen or battery electric.

00:19:23 What's the voltage that you're running at?

00:19:26 - We're running around 700 volts nominal, yeah.

00:19:28 - Okay, okay.

00:19:30 So, Johnny, I wanna challenge something that Johnny said.

00:19:32 He said that, "Oh, it's a big tank,

00:19:34 "and it takes up so much of the truck."

00:19:36 I mean, I looked at the truck,

00:19:37 I don't stare at these things all day long.

00:19:39 Is it dimensionally that much bigger

00:19:41 than a standard class A diesel truck?

00:19:43 Or is the equipment--

00:19:45 - I just meant the tanks are humongous.

00:19:46 - Yeah, sure, but the tank, and the battery,

00:19:49 and the motors, it is taking the place of

00:19:52 an entire, you know, normal internal combustion

00:19:54 powertrain and transmission-- - Also, like,

00:19:55 the sleeper cab part. - And the fuel,

00:19:58 and, you know, whatever fuel tanks you have for that truck.

00:20:00 So, I mean, it doesn't look that much bigger,

00:20:04 and you are using Avecco as your partner,

00:20:06 and that's fundamentally based on a diesel truck, right?

00:20:10 - Yeah, yeah, so we are taking up a little bit more space

00:20:14 today than a diesel truck,

00:20:15 and that is mainly due to the tanks.

00:20:17 Tanks, just from a package point of view,

00:20:20 volume point of view, take up some space,

00:20:22 so that's why we have this backpack behind the cab

00:20:25 that has three tanks.

00:20:26 - And normally, in a class A,

00:20:28 that would be like the living quarters.

00:20:30 - Right, right. - The sleeping compartment.

00:20:32 - In a sleeper truck, that's correct.

00:20:33 - In a sleeper truck, yeah.

00:20:33 - Yeah, so just, if you're just listening,

00:20:36 you know, it's a big cab,

00:20:37 like you could put five people in the cab, no problem,

00:20:40 even though there's only two seats.

00:20:40 - We did, we put four people. - We put four, but it's okay.

00:20:43 It's Beverly Hills, they don't, you know, they're cool.

00:20:45 And then where the sleeper part you'd crawl into would be,

00:20:49 there are three big tanks stacked up in this backpack design

00:20:53 and then two more saddle tanks

00:20:55 kind of in front of the rear wheels,

00:20:56 and then the two big battery packs in the middle,

00:20:58 kind of like in the center of the spine of the frame.

00:21:01 - That's kind of a challenge, though, isn't it?

00:21:02 Because it's not a problem in this country.

00:21:05 In the US, we have the Kenworths,

00:21:07 got the big engines in the front,

00:21:09 and we don't care how long the truck is, right?

00:21:11 But in Europe, you are very tightly regulated

00:21:15 on the overall length of the truck.

00:21:17 But then, right, there's some calculus here,

00:21:19 because European trucking distances are,

00:21:23 they're not like as extreme, right?

00:21:25 You, country to country, you can do easily

00:21:28 in a couple hundred miles at the most.

00:21:30 You're not necessarily,

00:21:31 you're not sleeping in their trucks per se that often.

00:21:34 - Well, most of these trucks are sleeper trucks,

00:21:37 and actually the truck we're using here as a day cab,

00:21:40 the bones of that, is from a European sleeper model.

00:21:44 But since they are so regulated in length,

00:21:47 that's why there's the four by two architecture

00:21:49 that we talked about earlier,

00:21:51 as well as you have a very tiny sleeper configuration,

00:21:56 essentially, compared to the North American condo cabs

00:21:59 that have those big sleeper cabs.

00:22:01 - Yeah, maybe. - And microwaves,

00:22:02 and everything's bigger and better in the US, right?

00:22:04 - Yeah, hey, you're here. - That's why you're here.

00:22:06 (all laughing)

00:22:08 But yeah, but it gives us some advantage,

00:22:11 because you talked about, oh, is it then,

00:22:13 you know, bigger the truck, or longer, or whatnot.

00:22:16 Well, utilizing this cab over architecture

00:22:19 that you saw in our truck, well, it moves the cab forward.

00:22:23 So we can afford having that backpack there

00:22:27 without growing the wheelbase

00:22:28 beyond what is normal for a US day cab.

00:22:31 So we're actually right, our wheelbase is right

00:22:33 in the competitive set, you could say, of a day cab.

00:22:37 And then, obviously, you were in the cab,

00:22:40 so you see the other advantages.

00:22:42 You have a very good view from that cab.

00:22:43 - You can stand up in it. - Yeah, yeah.

00:22:45 - If you're six foot nine, you could stand up in it.

00:22:47 - Yeah, you can.

00:22:48 And the maneuverability is great, too.

00:22:50 - And you can take a nap in it.

00:22:51 I mean, Ed and I, at one point, we were sitting on,

00:22:54 I mean, it looked like a bay window chair.

00:22:59 - A settee. - A settee, yeah.

00:23:01 But you could easily take a nice nap in there.

00:23:03 - Okay, I'll just do it.

00:23:06 I'll ask you to speak on behalf of all German truck drivers,

00:23:09 just for a moment here.

00:23:11 Do they like, do they look at,

00:23:13 there's a Sylvester Stallone movie, "Over the Top."

00:23:15 - Oh, the greatest, yeah.

00:23:16 - Armwrestler, and George Kenworth.

00:23:18 Do they look at American semi-trucks and go,

00:23:21 oh, man, it would be so cool to have one of those

00:23:23 with the, you know, is that--

00:23:25 - Pipes. - Yeah, in cars, right?

00:23:28 The longer the hood, right, the more,

00:23:31 like you got a V12 in there,

00:23:32 then you go back, it goes back to classic car days.

00:23:34 Is that a thing?

00:23:35 Are they like, are they jealous of American,

00:23:37 or do they look and they go, that is not efficient?

00:23:40 And now they're French, for some reason.

00:23:41 - Not very efficient. - Right.

00:23:43 - That wouldn't fit in Paris.

00:23:46 - Yeah, what's the appreciation on that at all?

00:23:49 - I don't know if I can speak for all European drivers, but--

00:23:53 - Just the Germans.

00:23:53 - Let me start, but for myself, I grew up, right,

00:23:57 and then, actually, I got exposure to the US pretty early.

00:24:00 My aunt moved to the US when she was 18.

00:24:03 So I got to the US the first time when I was,

00:24:05 I think, six years old, and I just loved the US trucks.

00:24:08 - Right. - The nose,

00:24:10 and the big steel pipes. - Cool.

00:24:12 - You know, it's just so cool, and the extra lighting,

00:24:14 which, you know, you can't do that stuff in Europe, right?

00:24:17 It's all regulated, how many lights can you have.

00:24:20 - You should go to the Philippines,

00:24:21 and you go to Japan.

00:24:22 - So I think, I mean, at the end of the day,

00:24:24 it's often what you can't get, right?

00:24:26 - Yes. - It's most desirable.

00:24:28 And I think that's a little bit of it.

00:24:32 At the same time, I do think that since the regulation

00:24:36 is so tough in Europe, overall length and so on,

00:24:39 you gotta be much more creative,

00:24:41 and maybe more technology-driven, actually.

00:24:43 So these modern trucks over there, I mean,

00:24:46 they're fabulous, I mean.

00:24:48 - And I also noticed, we're, again,

00:24:50 driving around the mean streets of Beverly Hills,

00:24:51 but there was like a pretty tight thing.

00:24:55 I'm like, as you were driving, I'm like,

00:24:59 wow, there's no way, oh, look at that,

00:25:00 he just weaved his way through it.

00:25:02 - It was a pedestrian crosswalk, but it had a--

00:25:05 - Like a flag or something. - It had a flag

00:25:06 in the center of the road, and then it had like

00:25:08 a cutout portion, and a tree, and a sign,

00:25:11 and he just kind of weaved right through it.

00:25:13 - So they're much more maneuverable,

00:25:15 because you can see basically where the wheel is,

00:25:18 you're sitting on the wheel, the front wheel,

00:25:20 whereas, again, on a-- - Stallone couldn't do that.

00:25:24 - Condo cab, which is, I love that term.

00:25:27 You know, that's gotta be eight feet, 10 feet,

00:25:30 and it's a bit, you know, so you couldn't do that

00:25:32 as gracefully.

00:25:33 - Well, let's go back to talking trucks.

00:25:36 Speaking of things you can't do, or a forbidden fruit,

00:25:39 and possibly, I don't even know if this is true,

00:25:42 direct competition, the Tesla Semi.

00:25:44 Have you spent much time looking at it?

00:25:46 Does it look, is this, I know the range is comparable,

00:25:50 right, they're claiming 500 miles, and they can tow--

00:25:53 - Different versions, I think, to announce, yeah.

00:25:54 - They can tow an 82,000 pound trailer,

00:25:58 you know, that distance, they have some in operation

00:26:01 at a potato chip factory.

00:26:03 - But they're only towing like 42,000 pounds

00:26:05 for those potato chips or something, yeah.

00:26:07 - But, and then controversially--

00:26:09 - Corn chips, corn chips.

00:26:09 - They have a center seating position,

00:26:12 which people like lauded, but I also think is insane,

00:26:16 if you're trying to, you know, there's a McLaren F1 issue,

00:26:18 how do you pass people when you have to get

00:26:20 half the car over the road?

00:26:21 - Again, that's one of those things where I think

00:26:23 the CEO, whatever his name is, said like,

00:26:26 this is what we're gonna do, and the engineers are like,

00:26:28 okay.

00:26:29 - Anyways, comments on, first of all, is Tesla,

00:26:32 is the Tesla Semi any kind of competitor, or?

00:26:35 - Does it keep you up at night?

00:26:37 - Well, you know, the way I think about this is,

00:26:41 being a Tesla or others, it's great, it's great

00:26:44 that we have multiple companies pushing into this industry.

00:26:48 Because this is not a easy to decarbonize industry,

00:26:53 first of all, but there's a big lever.

00:26:56 There's a lot of trucks running on US roads,

00:26:59 European roads, all over the world, right?

00:27:01 And it's a big carbon footprint, and so I think it's great

00:27:06 the more companies are pushing into this direction,

00:27:10 whether it be battery electric, which we also do,

00:27:14 and there's definitely a market for that,

00:27:16 or fuel cell electric.

00:27:17 I think fuel cell electric is gonna be necessary

00:27:19 to cover all the range of Class A trucks you have today.

00:27:23 And that's why I invite everyone to help

00:27:27 decarbonize the industry, and there's gonna be

00:27:30 more radical approaches.

00:27:31 We took a different approach, too, with the cap over

00:27:34 architecture that we talked about, and there's always

00:27:37 benefits and drawbacks for every change you introduce.

00:27:41 - That's interesting, 'cause yeah, your approach

00:27:42 seems more thoughtful for the European market,

00:27:45 whereas I haven't seen Tesla even talking about,

00:27:48 they're kind of focused on Tesla Semi here, not--

00:27:50 - I have no idea, I don't pay attention.

00:27:52 They're not good at communicating.

00:27:55 Could you, let me ask you a question, though.

00:27:56 Like, you know, we all like the way condo cab,

00:27:59 I mean, look, semi trucks are all cool,

00:28:01 it doesn't matter what they're, but--

00:28:02 - I love semi trucks.

00:28:02 - If you like a condo cab, couldn't you just stuff

00:28:05 the nose with the tanks instead of backpacking them

00:28:09 behind the cab, couldn't you just, you know,

00:28:11 cram three of them?

00:28:12 - Hydrogen has a crumple zone, amazing.

00:28:15 - Well, I'm just kidding.

00:28:16 - Those tanks are pretty sturdy.

00:28:18 - Yeah, carbon fiber, right?

00:28:21 But they're bulletproof.

00:28:22 - It's plastic liner and then carbon fiber

00:28:23 wrapped around, type four.

00:28:24 - Anything that can hold 10,000 PSI is like--

00:28:26 - But you want, I was just joking,

00:28:27 you do want a crumple zone to deform.

00:28:30 - Well, on a semi truck, it doesn't matter what you hit,

00:28:32 nothing's, they're gonna crumple.

00:28:35 - So, I mean, for sure, we're looking into, you know,

00:28:37 in the future, for this market specifically,

00:28:40 talking about sleeper trucks--

00:28:42 - The culture of US truckers.

00:28:44 - I mean, we're definitely looking into what could be

00:28:47 our next step in terms of next generation of product,

00:28:50 you know, pushing more into the longer range, probably,

00:28:54 and looking into what is the demands

00:28:57 for the US market specifically.

00:28:58 - Well, on that note, can you, is it as easy as just,

00:29:02 if you, just stacking three more, three more,

00:29:04 could you, is it modular?

00:29:06 - Oh, yeah, I mean, we have, all these tanks are connected

00:29:09 through a rail system, essentially, a fuel rail,

00:29:12 and then supply to the fuel cell power module,

00:29:15 and we could, in theory, just keep adding tanks,

00:29:18 but you keep adding weight as well,

00:29:21 and these applications are payload sensitive,

00:29:24 and you also, if you just continue to stack 'em up

00:29:28 behind the cab, I mean, there's also a point

00:29:30 about the driving dynamics, and, you know, roll over--

00:29:33 - But I was thinking about Australia,

00:29:35 and they have this road train culture, right,

00:29:37 where they're just hauling across this giant continent,

00:29:39 you stack three trailers behind you, who cares?

00:29:42 You're not making any turns.

00:29:43 - We could, you know, you could increase the wheelbase,

00:29:45 stack up another few tanks, you could absolutely do that.

00:29:47 - Let me ask what might be an obvious question,

00:29:49 and I think I know the answer, but, like,

00:29:51 yeah, 10,000 PSI, but what if you made the tanks 20,000 PSI?

00:29:55 Can you pressurize, is there a point where hydrogen

00:29:58 can't be pressurized past, solid or something?

00:30:01 - No, there's, really, what we're looking into

00:30:04 in the future is, so we're all in now with this product

00:30:08 for 700 bar, 10,000 PSI, for the future,

00:30:12 there's lots of technology being developed

00:30:16 for liquid hydrogen onboard storage.

00:30:18 I mean, liquid hydrogen today is being handled a lot,

00:30:22 but for mobile applications, having the right

00:30:24 storage tanks there, as well as cryo-compressed--

00:30:28 - What's different about liquid hydrogen?

00:30:31 - Well, it gets cooled very much,

00:30:34 and then you have it in liquid form in tanks,

00:30:36 and then at that point-- - Is that better?

00:30:38 - Well, it's unpressurized, right?

00:30:39 So you can actually reduce the weight of the tanks.

00:30:43 You have more hydrogen you can store in the same volume,

00:30:47 but there's other challenges, like, you know,

00:30:49 the vacuum you need to keep it cool,

00:30:51 and the associated boiler, if you have,

00:30:54 with liquid hydrogen. - How cold are we talking about?

00:30:56 - Minus 200 Celsius. - So you're getting

00:30:59 down to the Kelvins, yeah. (laughs)

00:31:02 - Cold, very cold. - Okay, but so,

00:31:04 but that would make the tank smaller and lighter.

00:31:07 - Right, and those are the things we're looking into,

00:31:10 talking about the future, the next products,

00:31:13 what are the technology advancements,

00:31:14 that's one of the things-- - But you can't pressurize

00:31:17 gaseous hydrogen more than, it's not practical

00:31:19 to do it past that, for some engineering reason.

00:31:22 Somebody thought of that, okay. (laughs)

00:31:24 - Okay, so, all right, we've covered the range,

00:31:27 we've covered sort of a little bit on Tesla.

00:31:29 - Where do I get hydrogen?

00:31:30 - Well, we're gonna talk about that.

00:31:32 We're gonna talk about, so, first question is,

00:31:34 you said it's comparable to filling up,

00:31:37 volume-wise, you're comparable

00:31:39 to what a diesel truck can carry,

00:31:40 and the refueling time is same, similar?

00:31:45 - It's comparable, yes. - Okay, like how long?

00:31:47 How long from empty tanks to ready to go?

00:31:51 - I mean, the truck can do a full fill

00:31:53 in 20 minutes or less, but it always depends

00:31:57 on the dispenser as well, and that's no different

00:31:59 than a diesel pump, right?

00:32:01 I mean, there's different diesel pumps out there,

00:32:03 and it always depends on the other side of it.

00:32:05 So, it depends on the dispensing station,

00:32:08 but that's what we can do from a truck side today.

00:32:12 What we're also working on is we're working

00:32:14 with an industry consortium with all of the well-known

00:32:17 players in the hydrogen space, and we're working together

00:32:21 to develop a new standard, a new hardware,

00:32:25 which is called H70HF.

00:32:27 It's 700 bar, heavy-duty, high-flow,

00:32:32 and we're developing this hardware,

00:32:35 and then also the protocols that go with that

00:32:37 in order to actually enable the target of that group

00:32:40 is to develop the high-flow protocol

00:32:44 to allow essentially 10 kilograms per minute,

00:32:47 and at that point, you would be looking

00:32:49 at refueling time-- - Seven minutes.

00:32:50 - Seven minutes, eight minutes.

00:32:51 - But does that matter?

00:32:53 'Cause I always picture truckers drive a lot,

00:32:55 and then they get out and eat, or shower.

00:32:58 - Wait, 10 kilograms per minute?

00:32:59 100 kilograms per minute?

00:33:00 - No, it's 70 kilograms of hydrogen.

00:33:02 - Oh, okay, right, yeah, sorry.

00:33:04 - But right, does it matter that you can fill up

00:33:06 in seven minutes?

00:33:08 - Well, it does matter to some extent.

00:33:10 I mean, you are correct that there's a mandatory break

00:33:13 that drivers have to do.

00:33:15 There's kind of slip-seat applications

00:33:18 where you continue with a second shift,

00:33:20 and there is a certain amount of time you have between,

00:33:24 and if you're less, if you're,

00:33:26 like we bring this product to market now

00:33:28 with the 20 minutes, I think that's very competitive,

00:33:31 first of all, and it will allow,

00:33:34 or it will not cause any disruption

00:33:36 in the operations as they exist.

00:33:38 I think the better or more,

00:33:41 that the faster fueling times that we're talking about

00:33:44 with this new hardware and protocol,

00:33:46 they're gonna become relevant if we increase

00:33:49 the amount of hydrogen storage

00:33:50 to just not increase the fueling times

00:33:53 proportionally with that.

00:33:55 But I think, I do think 20 minutes is probably sufficient

00:33:58 to pretty much serve all of the applications

00:34:01 we see out there.

00:34:02 Once you go beyond 30 minutes,

00:34:05 more towards maybe an hour or something,

00:34:08 then it starts becoming impractical,

00:34:10 at least for, it always, again,

00:34:12 depends on the application, right?

00:34:14 Depends on the application.

00:34:15 But for many applications, that's gonna be a disruption.

00:34:18 - Right, and especially if,

00:34:20 it seems similar to EV,

00:34:22 like if an EV Class A truck is a competitor,

00:34:27 we think the recharge times are only gonna fall, right?

00:34:30 Like right now, 20 minutes,

00:34:32 20 minutes in a fast, state-of-the-art,

00:34:35 regular production vehicle is,

00:34:38 you're getting a fair amount of juice.

00:34:40 - Yeah, look, I mean, a Hyundai IONIQ 5

00:34:43 on a 350, 18 minutes, go from 10 to 80%.

00:34:46 - Right, so maybe that'll--

00:34:48 - But cars is different, right, than trucks.

00:34:50 Just the amount of energy,

00:34:51 and ultimately the charge power.

00:34:54 - Yeah, that's the only thing we know.

00:34:55 - But are you working towards some driverless future

00:34:59 where it's like, the truck drives and then--

00:35:02 - That's a Wolverine, we're gonna talk Wolverine

00:35:04 in the movie in a little bit.

00:35:06 So this new standard you're pushing,

00:35:08 is this also this,

00:35:11 so I went to the Motor Trend Hive mind,

00:35:14 and I said, "Hey, we got the guys from Nikola coming in.

00:35:16 "What do you wanna ask him?"

00:35:17 So our man, Frank Marcus,

00:35:18 who did a nice write-up on your truck,

00:35:21 said, "Hey, they just got Caltrans commissioned

00:35:24 "to build six hydrogen stations

00:35:26 "across Southern California."

00:35:27 Is that to this new standard you're talking about?

00:35:30 - Initially, so that hardware is still in development

00:35:33 as well as the protocol.

00:35:34 So we will come out the gate with,

00:35:36 as I mentioned, the existing one.

00:35:38 It's actually a modified H70 hardware,

00:35:42 and then also standard.

00:35:43 And that's how we're gonna build

00:35:45 these initial stations too.

00:35:47 But at the end of the day,

00:35:48 once we have the new technology fully developed

00:35:51 and tested and validated,

00:35:53 then we'll be able to also upfit these stations

00:35:55 as necessary.

00:35:57 - Okay, and then six in Southern California is a step,

00:36:01 but our other guy, Christian, said,

00:36:03 "Oh, great, you guys, I think there's 66

00:36:05 "hydrogen refueling stations for these trucks."

00:36:07 - No, he said that means we're on the road to 66.

00:36:10 - There will be.

00:36:11 Is that true?

00:36:12 Is there, how many places--

00:36:14 - I think he was making a 50-state joke.

00:36:16 - We're good, we're good.

00:36:17 - Could a hydrogen fuel cell trucker

00:36:21 stop at in this country currently?

00:36:23 - Well, most of the hydrogen refueling stations,

00:36:27 and pretty much all of them are in California,

00:36:29 they are for medium-duty passenger cars.

00:36:34 So those are 350-bar refueling stations,

00:36:38 and they're not necessarily compatible

00:36:41 to heavy-duty refueling.

00:36:44 So that is only really a handful of stations today.

00:36:47 - And just real quick, this is a pain point

00:36:50 Christian and I were talking about.

00:36:51 So the Honda Clarity and the Toyota Mirai, I think,

00:36:54 are 350-bar, so it's 5,000 PSI,

00:36:58 and it's only US.

00:36:59 Everywhere else in the world,

00:37:00 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are all 10,000 PSI, 700-bar.

00:37:03 So it's a bit of a, it's non-compatibility

00:37:07 for no good reason.

00:37:08 It's just this country picked that standard

00:37:11 for commercial vehicle, for passenger vehicles.

00:37:14 And so the commercial trucking industry

00:37:16 going hydrogen is gonna be 700-bar.

00:37:19 - At least most of the people you talk to in this industry

00:37:24 take the approach by now to go for 700-bar.

00:37:27 - Yeah, it just makes more sense.

00:37:28 You can store twice as much in the same space.

00:37:30 - Well, yeah, I mean, you can store more hydrogen

00:37:33 in kind of the same volume space, right?

00:37:35 So, exactly.

00:37:36 So yeah, today it's only a handful of heavy-duty stations

00:37:40 that are out there, but that's exactly right.

00:37:42 From the beginning, we included not only the truck

00:37:47 in our plan, development plan,

00:37:49 but also the infrastructure, right?

00:37:51 And so we are working with a lot of partners

00:37:54 on the infrastructure part, on the hydrogen production,

00:37:58 the distribution, the dispensing.

00:38:00 We have the partnership with Volterra,

00:38:03 and together with them, we will build 50 stations or more

00:38:06 throughout the country.

00:38:09 But that's gonna need to happen in parallel.

00:38:12 Some people refer to the chicken and the egg, right?

00:38:16 I mean, you have to have both.

00:38:17 And there's obviously a very famous example

00:38:20 in the recent history on electrification that showed you

00:38:23 that was one key of success is developing the product,

00:38:28 in this case, the passenger vehicles,

00:38:30 and the infrastructure to charge.

00:38:33 - Yeah, just supercharge a network,

00:38:34 and then charge other people to use it.

00:38:36 That'd be a good idea.

00:38:37 - And very similar to what we're doing.

00:38:39 I mean, we're aware that we cannot

00:38:42 just push a truck out there.

00:38:43 That's not gonna work.

00:38:44 We have to work on the infrastructure piece as much, right?

00:38:48 And at the same time, it's very capital intensive

00:38:52 to build up that infrastructure.

00:38:54 So that's why we're pulling in partners,

00:38:56 a lot of partners, and do this together,

00:38:58 because at the end of the day,

00:38:59 you cannot do something like that

00:39:01 if you don't have the right partners with you to support.

00:39:05 - Okay, all right, so here comes the tricky question.

00:39:07 - Oh, which way are you going?

00:39:09 - I'm going here.

00:39:10 So we're talking about decarbonizing.

00:39:12 We like that.

00:39:14 But who's making the hydrogen?

00:39:18 What are you making?

00:39:19 'Cause if you're burning natural gas or coal

00:39:21 to make hydrogen, you know what I mean?

00:39:23 You're not really decarbonizing.

00:39:25 So do you guys have a plan for that,

00:39:27 or are you kind of agnostic,

00:39:29 like, "Well, that's not really our problem"?

00:39:31 And look, that's a problem with the hydrogen industry.

00:39:35 So I'm just curious on Nicola's take on that.

00:39:38 - Oh, very good question.

00:39:39 I mean, you often talk about the colors of hydrogen, right?

00:39:44 The different colors you have.

00:39:46 Green hydrogen, and there's pink and gray hydrogen,

00:39:49 and so on. (Nicola laughs)

00:39:51 And there's a little different classifications

00:39:54 that people use.

00:39:55 At the end of the day, I think, realistically,

00:39:58 in the beginning, you might need to consider hydrogen,

00:40:02 or at least some mix that's not fully green.

00:40:06 And what I mean with that is,

00:40:08 hydrogen that comes out of some of these

00:40:12 traditional processes-- - Yeah, natural gas

00:40:14 seems to be the one that people--

00:40:16 - But then you do a carbon capture or something, right?

00:40:18 I mean, there's technology out there, too,

00:40:20 and that's considered blue hydrogen.

00:40:22 There's technology out there and processes to deal with that.

00:40:28 Ultimately, our target is to use green hydrogen.

00:40:31 - Right.

00:40:32 - And electrolyzer technology is making huge advancements,

00:40:37 and there's more and more big projects,

00:40:39 and as I mentioned, we're working with lots of partners.

00:40:43 But there's a transition period, right?

00:40:45 Realistically, you have to consider that

00:40:50 on the path to get there, right?

00:40:53 It's no different with electricity, right?

00:40:54 And charging your electric car.

00:40:56 I mean, would you not buy a car

00:40:58 just because, an electric car,

00:41:00 and in the early days,

00:41:01 just because you cannot guarantee

00:41:03 fully renewable power supply?

00:41:05 - Some people might, yeah.

00:41:05 I know exactly what you're saying, yeah.

00:41:07 - My point is, you gotta develop this industry,

00:41:10 and you can't stand in your own way

00:41:13 to decarbonize the second half.

00:41:14 - Now, does part of liquefying hydrogen,

00:41:19 'cause we know, we just had this guy, Carl,

00:41:21 on Porsche eFuel--

00:41:23 - I wanna ask him if he knows him,

00:41:24 'cause Carl came from Bosch, too.

00:41:25 - Yeah, he comes from Bosch, too.

00:41:26 Carl Dums, I believe his name was.

00:41:28 - Carl Dooms, Dums. - Dooms, D-U-M-S.

00:41:30 - Yeah.

00:41:30 - Bosch is a huge company.

00:41:33 - Yeah, yeah, but so--

00:41:34 - 400,000 people or something.

00:41:36 It's a tiny little company.

00:41:38 - But he was saying, "Well, look,

00:41:41 "we have this abundance of energy down in Patagonia

00:41:44 "that you can't do anything with it,

00:41:46 "except for we can liquefy hydrogen and carbon dioxide

00:41:51 "and turn that into methanol

00:41:52 "and turn that into gasoline."

00:41:53 And so, we're liquefying this energy,

00:41:56 'cause you can't, there's no power lines to go from.

00:41:59 The Andes to wherever.

00:42:02 So is that-- - Where people live.

00:42:03 - Is that a plan?

00:42:04 Is that one of the reasons that liquid hydrogen's appealing,

00:42:06 because then you can ship it?

00:42:09 - Correct, I mean, liquid hydrogen is appealing

00:42:12 because you can ship it better, you can pump it through.

00:42:17 But I think it's gonna be depending on geographics.

00:42:23 There's also approaches to use gaseous hydrogen

00:42:26 and pipelines with that.

00:42:28 What I think is gonna be interesting,

00:42:30 looking towards the future overall in the energy sector,

00:42:33 is how are we gonna establish

00:42:35 our kind of energy backbone, right?

00:42:37 And then energy storage and so on.

00:42:38 And obviously, coming from Europe,

00:42:41 I always have an eye on that, too.

00:42:42 And how can they, in Europe, it's also interesting,

00:42:45 because in Germany, because we're very dependent

00:42:49 on natural gas from certain areas.

00:42:51 (laughing)

00:42:53 - That might be attacking other areas of Europe at the moment.

00:42:55 - Well, yeah.

00:42:56 (laughing)

00:42:57 Don't wanna go into that more.

00:42:59 But my point is, it's interesting to think about

00:43:02 kind of the independence when it comes

00:43:03 to the energy infrastructure,

00:43:06 and how is that gonna look like

00:43:07 in a fully decarbonized world.

00:43:09 And I personally think that hydrogen is gonna play a role,

00:43:13 because it's a medium that is pretty good

00:43:17 for energy storage and transport.

00:43:19 And you can trade it, too.

00:43:20 - That's very high-minded.

00:43:25 I wanna bring this back to some reality.

00:43:28 Well, no, so Christian, you are head of vehicle platforms.

00:43:31 You said earlier that you spend a lot of time

00:43:33 talking to truckers.

00:43:34 You've done a great job of explaining the product

00:43:38 and all its advantages, but surely you must come across

00:43:42 folks who are like, "Come on, get out of here."

00:43:45 Like, diesel, it's so easy.

00:43:47 When you talk to the, literally,

00:43:51 you spend much time talking to actual truckers

00:43:53 and guys who do this for a living,

00:43:56 what do they say?

00:43:57 What is their pain point?

00:43:59 I'm gonna assume we don't have a lot of truckers

00:44:01 in this, listening to the podcast,

00:44:03 but let's pretend-- - Oh, hey, they drive a lot.

00:44:04 You gotta listen to something.

00:44:05 - Pretend that you're talking to them right now,

00:44:07 and this guy is like, "Give me a break.

00:44:09 "This is not happening."

00:44:11 How do you sell them?

00:44:12 And then, let's start there.

00:44:14 - Yeah, that's a very good question.

00:44:17 So I was myself surprised.

00:44:20 So I do talk a lot to truckers.

00:44:23 I like to drive our truck a lot,

00:44:25 and obviously we stop at truck stops,

00:44:28 and since it's different and new,

00:44:31 people would walk up to your truck and just ask questions.

00:44:35 One of the most surprising things for me

00:44:37 was I expected there was quite a healthy dose

00:44:41 of skepticism as well, but I didn't see that much at all.

00:44:46 You know, you have those very, like,

00:44:51 truckers that have been doing this job for like 20, 30 years,

00:44:54 they come up and you kind of,

00:44:56 and they drive those awesome, like, big rigs,

00:44:59 as I mentioned, chrome pipes and so on,

00:45:02 and they come up and they say,

00:45:04 "Oh, is this an electric truck,

00:45:05 "or is this the hydrogen truck?"

00:45:07 And you're like, "Wow, yes, it is."

00:45:10 And then, they're super interested,

00:45:12 and most of the time, I spend half an hour or something

00:45:15 talking to them, so I think, first of all,

00:45:19 I have a lot of respect for every truck driver out there,

00:45:24 because it's not an easy job, it really isn't.

00:45:27 And, you know, we talked a lot about decarbonization,

00:45:31 and that's what Nikola is about, to the largest degree,

00:45:36 but when it comes to the truck product itself,

00:45:40 the other important factor for us

00:45:42 throughout this whole development was,

00:45:43 and still is, the driver,

00:45:45 and making a better work environment for the driver.

00:45:49 And I think they appreciate that, and they see it,

00:45:53 and they're actually very interested in technology,

00:45:55 so I have yet to come across someone

00:45:59 who essentially says, "Oh, this is all, like, crap,

00:46:01 "and I don't think--"

00:46:02 - For a lot of what you mentioned, right,

00:46:04 the truck is, it's quiet, you don't have the shifting,

00:46:07 the rocking motion, right, it's smooth.

00:46:09 - And the smell of it, the smell of it is something, too.

00:46:12 - And then the torque, the instant torque,

00:46:13 and the takeoff when you're accelerating.

00:46:15 - Yeah, makes it a lot easier.

00:46:16 - A lot of safety technology, and yeah.

00:46:17 - So my only other experience with a hydrogen Class A truck,

00:46:21 we, Ed and I sat inside of the Hyundai version.

00:46:24 - Yeah. - Exeunt.

00:46:25 - Exeunt, and, like, you know,

00:46:29 it seemed to have the screen out of, like,

00:46:31 a 2017 foreign market accent.

00:46:35 Yours had this humongous, like,

00:46:38 I think bigger than the Tesla screen,

00:46:40 huge screen that was facing the driver.

00:46:42 It wasn't, like, the Hyundai one was just in the center,

00:46:45 and you could tell, like, oh yeah,

00:46:46 if we put the steering wheel here, here,

00:46:47 they can see the screen.

00:46:48 So it does seem like a more luxurious cabin,

00:46:51 but, like, what are the truckers you're talking to,

00:46:54 what are they like, like, you know,

00:46:57 what are their complaints about their trucks,

00:47:00 and what are they liking about your truck?

00:47:02 - Yeah. - So you mentioned some of it,

00:47:05 but like what? - Yeah, and I think

00:47:06 you also mentioned already a lot of good points.

00:47:09 I mean, a lot of it is what comes just with electric,

00:47:14 or fuels are electric trucks, as we said,

00:47:16 the noise, the smell, the vibration, and so on,

00:47:18 and especially on a cab over architecture.

00:47:20 I mean, cab overs, cab over trucks were a thing

00:47:24 in the US a while ago, but they almost went away

00:47:28 because how terrible they were executed, you know,

00:47:32 sitting on top of that rattling,

00:47:34 - Yes, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And that's why I said

00:47:36 earlier about, you know, European cab over trucks

00:47:39 have come long ways from that.

00:47:40 And so once they see our truck,

00:47:43 there's maybe this association with that old diesel

00:47:47 cab over truck in the US, and once they're coming,

00:47:50 you know, into the cab and climb into the cab,

00:47:53 then they realize this is completely different, right?

00:47:55 And I think they appreciate that.

00:47:58 Again, there's also some drawbacks

00:48:01 that come with that architecture.

00:48:02 You obviously have to climb into the cab,

00:48:05 but once you sit in there,

00:48:07 it is really very, very positive feedback.

00:48:10 - The sight line is amazing.

00:48:11 Like you don't have this giant nose to look over,

00:48:13 but I will say, this is, by the way, this is news to me.

00:48:15 I had no idea.

00:48:16 I mean, I own a diesel Land Cruiser,

00:48:20 and it's a four liter turbo diesel.

00:48:22 My wife says it sounds, she says, "It sounds like a bus."

00:48:25 And it does rattle and shake a lot.

00:48:28 And it never occurred to me that,

00:48:30 now I think about it, like the Kenworths,

00:48:32 that whole thing that's shaking is, you know,

00:48:34 three feet in front of you,

00:48:35 and is essentially decoupled, right?

00:48:37 And that's why all these cab overs are, they're suspended.

00:48:41 They're typically suspended over the powertrain

00:48:44 to keep them from shaking the occupants to death.

00:48:49 - We have a suspended cab, right?

00:48:51 And we did, I mean, the engineers,

00:48:53 the Nikola team is just awesome.

00:48:55 I mean, the dedication that you have there

00:48:58 in all of these different areas,

00:48:59 and everyone's very proud of their work.

00:49:02 And there's a lot of tuning that went into

00:49:04 the cab suspension and also the chassis suspension

00:49:07 to make the most comfortable ride possible.

00:49:10 So, all right, so you talked about the truckers

00:49:12 that you've been selling it to,

00:49:13 but I would understand that you're also probably

00:49:15 talking to the fleet owners.

00:49:17 So what are their complaints?

00:49:19 Or what's their skepticism in all of this?

00:49:22 Must be the charging, sorry, the refueling.

00:49:25 - Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day for the fleets,

00:49:28 this is a tool, right?

00:49:30 It's a working tool.

00:49:31 It's not an item you buy because you like it,

00:49:36 necessarily, you need it.

00:49:38 It's your tool.

00:49:39 And so a lot of it is about cost and reliability.

00:49:42 Every time a truck goes down,

00:49:44 I mean, that's a problem for them, right?

00:49:47 That they need to solve for.

00:49:48 So a lot of it is about reliability and cost.

00:49:50 So talking to fleets, especially the big ones,

00:49:54 they're very excited about this.

00:49:56 I mean, they have all of their own goals

00:49:59 when it comes to decarbonization.

00:50:02 And they're very interested in it,

00:50:04 but they also say it needs to work.

00:50:07 And so I think we're at the point,

00:50:09 we obviously started production

00:50:11 of the fuel cell truck here recently.

00:50:13 We're commencing with the first truck shipments

00:50:16 to customers this week.

00:50:17 But the proof is in the pudding.

00:50:20 So what comes now is we need to prove out that this works.

00:50:24 And not only the truck works, but as you said,

00:50:26 the infrastructure, the fueling works.

00:50:28 - So I imagine, because when I drove it,

00:50:33 you had me do it, when you come off the gas, there's regen.

00:50:36 So in other words, the motors are doing

00:50:38 a lot of the braking, so it's probably less brakes,

00:50:40 which is probably very important for a truck.

00:50:43 So you're using the physical disc brakes less,

00:50:46 or whatever the braking system, it's air brakes.

00:50:50 Yeah, so we're using that less

00:50:51 than you would in a standard truck.

00:50:54 And that's probably really, really good.

00:50:58 Is the weight about the same?

00:51:00 Are you gonna go through more tires

00:51:01 with a hydrogen vehicle?

00:51:03 - Yeah, so the weight of the tractor right now

00:51:05 for the fuel cell truck is a little heavier still

00:51:08 than the diesel.

00:51:09 - Okay, so a little bit more tire.

00:51:10 - And we're working really hard

00:51:11 on getting that further down.

00:51:13 So the tractor weight is more, and that means--

00:51:16 - A little being what, 10%, 20%?

00:51:19 - Well, it always depends on what you compare it with.

00:51:23 And there's the 2,000 pound exemption

00:51:26 that you have on a federal level

00:51:27 for battery electric trucks,

00:51:28 and on a state level for fuel cell electric trucks.

00:51:30 - Yeah, but for tires, there's no exemption, yeah.

00:51:32 - Well, for tires, it comes back on the overall

00:51:37 cross combined weight of tractor and trailer, right?

00:51:39 So what it really does is a higher tractor weight,

00:51:42 again, cuts into your payload,

00:51:43 so how much you can load into the truck.

00:51:47 But also tire, well, tire wear comes also down

00:51:51 to your drive train and the torque and so on.

00:51:54 And that was actually one learning we had

00:51:56 from our battery electric truck.

00:51:59 The e-Axle is actually even more powerful.

00:52:02 So for the fuel cell electric truck,

00:52:04 we toned that down a little bit,

00:52:06 because having so much torque off the line,

00:52:10 and then also power, you can go through tires much quicker.

00:52:15 And the fleets are not necessarily interested

00:52:17 in more tire cost.

00:52:20 - It's like a burnout, basically.

00:52:22 Is it like a slow burnout, basically?

00:52:25 If you put that much torque down at the instant roll off,

00:52:28 you're leaving more rubber.

00:52:29 - I mean, when we were driving earlier,

00:52:31 and I added a full tip in,

00:52:33 I think you saw the traction control coming in, right?

00:52:36 So that's wild.

00:52:37 And we've done a fair amount of burnouts during the testing.

00:52:41 - So what's the cost per mile difference between diesel,

00:52:45 especially here in California,

00:52:46 we're seeing diesel spiking over almost eight bucks a gallon.

00:52:49 How much is hydrogen?

00:52:51 Once you get to economies of scale,

00:52:54 where you've got all these H700, HFs are installed,

00:52:59 how much is hydrogen versus diesel?

00:53:02 What's the cost per mile advantage?

00:53:04 I assume there's an advantage.

00:53:06 - Well, for hydrogen,

00:53:08 the cost right now is obviously fairly high.

00:53:11 And actually, if you go to the refueling stations

00:53:14 around this area,

00:53:15 you'll see that it went up in the last couple of months.

00:53:18 So our target--

00:53:20 - Probably just greedily match the gas prices.

00:53:22 Go ahead.

00:53:23 (both laughing)

00:53:24 - So our target is for the fuel cell truck

00:53:27 to be on parity with diesel on the total cost of ownership.

00:53:31 And we always look at total cost of ownership.

00:53:34 That's what counts for a truck, right?

00:53:36 So it's the truck, the initial purchase price,

00:53:37 it's the maintenance,

00:53:39 it's the downtime calculated in,

00:53:41 and it's the fuel cost, right?

00:53:43 Driver cost is not necessarily a difference,

00:53:46 but driver retention plays a role.

00:53:48 And there's a lot of turnover in this industry.

00:53:51 Turnover meaning drivers essentially,

00:53:54 once a year you go through your whole staff

00:53:56 more or less in turnover.

00:53:56 - It's a tough job.

00:53:57 - And that's something that plays a role

00:54:00 because if you can give a better truck to the driver,

00:54:03 there is less retention.

00:54:05 And that means less--

00:54:06 - More retention, more retention.

00:54:07 - Sorry, more retention.

00:54:08 Yes, thank you.

00:54:10 And with that, you can lower your cost,

00:54:14 your overall cost for the fleet and so on.

00:54:16 So our target is to really go towards diesel parity

00:54:21 as the first step.

00:54:23 And with that, we need to get a better scale

00:54:26 of green hydrogen, absolutely.

00:54:28 And that's why I said earlier,

00:54:29 it's so important to play in all of these areas,

00:54:33 the hydrogen production, the distribution, dispensing,

00:54:37 because you need to be able to drive the whole ecosystem.

00:54:40 - Okay.

00:54:42 So you are head of vehicle platforms,

00:54:44 and we spend a lot of time talking about

00:54:45 the hydrogen electric class A truck.

00:54:48 - That's 'cause I'm sitting out downstairs.

00:54:49 - Yeah, I know.

00:54:50 And you've mentioned that there is

00:54:52 a full battery electric version.

00:54:54 And is it essentially the same product

00:54:57 just without the hydrogen?

00:54:58 Is it, you know, it's an Aveco chassis

00:55:01 with storage batteries and motors,

00:55:04 or am I oversimplifying it?

00:55:05 - There's a lot of shared parts,

00:55:08 but there's also a lot of differences.

00:55:09 And I would also say that in our partnership with Aveco,

00:55:14 and in the early days,

00:55:14 we obviously took advantage on the parts bin,

00:55:18 and it's been a great collaboration with them.

00:55:21 And we also use the cab, the core of it,

00:55:26 but we actually did develop all of the attached parts, right?

00:55:30 So we developed a whole new grill and bumper and so on.

00:55:33 And that's different even between the battery electric

00:55:35 and the fuel cell electric truck,

00:55:37 because the fuel cell electric truck,

00:55:38 we optimized more for aerodynamics,

00:55:41 and we also elongated the front to make space

00:55:44 for the larger cooling system

00:55:46 that's required for the fuel cell truck.

00:55:48 So there are some differences,

00:55:49 but there is also a lot of similarities

00:55:52 and a lot of parts that we carried over,

00:55:54 and a lot of learnings we carried over.

00:55:56 The e-Axle, for example, is the same

00:55:58 that we use in both products,

00:55:59 even though they might be rated differently

00:56:01 from a power level.

00:56:03 And so we developed this e-Axle

00:56:06 for the battery electric truck,

00:56:07 and we validated it, and we brought it into production,

00:56:10 and that's something we carried on to the fuel cell truck.

00:56:12 And then a lot of the auxiliary components

00:56:16 and air compressors and so on,

00:56:17 there's a lot of commonality.

00:56:20 But even in the chassis, right, you have no tanks.

00:56:21 - There better be, otherwise it gets really--

00:56:23 - Exactly, exactly.

00:56:24 So that was our approach to reuse, quote-unquote,

00:56:27 what we can, but since it is a completely

00:56:31 different powertrain, there was a lot of new development

00:56:34 required going from the battery electric--

00:56:35 - And how big's the battery on the BEV one?

00:56:38 - We have nine battery packs, and it's a total of--

00:56:41 - Each one's 80?

00:56:42 - Yeah, a little over 80, and it's 733 kilowatt hours total.

00:56:46 - And that's like, how much range is that

00:56:48 at 82,000 power trailer or hour?

00:56:50 - It gives us up to about 350 miles of range or so.

00:56:55 - Who's your battery supplier?

00:56:57 - It used to be Romeo Power,

00:57:03 and they got out of business,

00:57:06 and we essentially bought the IP

00:57:10 and are able to manufacture these packs now internally.

00:57:13 - Are they, they're pouches?

00:57:16 - They're pouch?

00:57:17 - Are they like the--

00:57:18 - No, they're cylindrical cells.

00:57:20 - Cylindrical, okay.

00:57:21 - In both products, actually.

00:57:22 We use different battery packs,

00:57:23 and different packs between the battery electric

00:57:27 and the fuel cell electric truck,

00:57:28 but they're both cylindrical cells.

00:57:31 - Okay.

00:57:32 - Would, you know, we know Toyota's working,

00:57:35 they claim in 18 months they're gonna have

00:57:38 solid state batteries for commercial use.

00:57:41 Like, is that, would that be game-changing?

00:57:43 Does that, let me ask you this,

00:57:45 if it can really, you know, triple the range

00:57:49 and half the weight or whatever,

00:57:50 like, does that kind of like make hydrogen

00:57:53 sort of like, eh, don't really need it,

00:57:54 we'll just all go battery?

00:57:56 Or are you looking at that, are you aware of that?

00:57:59 Like, how far off is that?

00:58:01 - Well, we're looking at everything, obviously,

00:58:03 you know, and we have both products.

00:58:05 It's always a crystal ball, right,

00:58:08 to some extent, of what will happen.

00:58:10 But in my personal opinion,

00:58:13 hydrogen will play a role in commercial trucking.

00:58:17 And in fact, in everything, every application

00:58:19 that's very energy-intense, right,

00:58:21 where you need a lot of energy,

00:58:23 because hydrogen is a good medium to store energy.

00:58:25 - So like boats or trains?

00:58:27 - Boats and trains and airplanes, and you know,

00:58:30 there's probably a lot we will see in the future, right?

00:58:33 And heavy trucks.

00:58:34 So even if you, with battery technology advancing,

00:58:39 you still need to recharge.

00:58:41 And you still need to provide the power to recharge.

00:58:44 And that by itself, especially talking mass adoption

00:58:47 of class A trucks is tricky, to say at least, right?

00:58:52 - Well, how long does it take to charge

00:58:53 a nine battery pack, one of your trucks?

00:58:56 Like, is that just overnight or is it longer?

00:58:59 - Yeah, we currently have 350 kilowatts

00:59:02 charging capability.

00:59:04 So it takes about 90 minutes or so to go from 10 to 280.

00:59:09 - Oh, really?

00:59:10 - Yeah.

00:59:11 - Two weeks in a level one.

00:59:12 - Oh, months, months.

00:59:14 - So there is a--

00:59:17 - That's actually quicker than I suspected.

00:59:19 That's not bad, dude.

00:59:20 - That's like nine Volkswagen ID4, the low range one, right?

00:59:25 82 kilowatt hour?

00:59:26 - 82 kilowatt hour, yeah.

00:59:27 - Anyways, in production cars,

00:59:31 so in production car manufacturing,

00:59:33 the sort of basic math is EVs represent

00:59:37 sort of an order of magnitude fewer parts, right?

00:59:39 That's roughly like if you have an internal combustion car,

00:59:42 you know, factor of 10 reduction in parts for the same EV.

00:59:46 Is that the same for class A trucks

00:59:48 or same from a diesel truck to an EV truck?

00:59:53 - Well, I'd also say that hydrogen truck

00:59:54 will say it had a lot of parts.

00:59:55 - Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

00:59:57 Is it more parts, more parts complexity?

00:59:59 - Yeah, battery electric trucks

01:00:01 are definitely less complexity.

01:00:04 I can't tell you what the factors of parts

01:00:08 between a diesel and a battery electric truck.

01:00:10 And a hydrogen truck definitely is also more complex

01:00:14 when it comes to parts than a battery electric.

01:00:17 So you do have a fuel system,

01:00:20 you do have an air intake system,

01:00:22 you do have an exhaust system and so on.

01:00:24 So it is comparable to some extent there.

01:00:28 Yeah, and battery electric is less complex.

01:00:31 - And how much of those parts, 'cause it's cool,

01:00:35 the whole cab like tilt forwards, very cool truck.

01:00:38 But like, I was just looking at them like,

01:00:40 this to me looks like, I remember when I was in Houston

01:00:43 at the Johnson Space Center,

01:00:45 they had a Saturn V laying on its side.

01:00:48 And I'd stand there with my dad and he goes,

01:00:50 what's a plumbing nightmare?

01:00:51 'Cause there's just pipes everywhere.

01:00:52 So it looks like all you're doing is cooling this thing.

01:00:55 Right, I mean, is that just like the biggest challenge?

01:00:58 - The cooling system, the thermal system

01:01:00 for a fuel cell truck is definitely

01:01:03 one of the bigger challenges.

01:01:04 And if you would talk to anyone else

01:01:07 that plays in this space, they would probably agree.

01:01:10 And the issue there is that, or the challenge is,

01:01:15 a fuel cell has a better efficiency

01:01:18 compared to a diesel truck.

01:01:19 We're talking a net system level cycle efficiency.

01:01:24 So in the truck and through a whole driving cycle

01:01:28 of maybe 50%, right, a bit more.

01:01:31 And if you compare that to a diesel, that's better.

01:01:34 But most of the heat rejection

01:01:37 happens inside the cooling system, right?

01:01:43 So the cooling goes through the plates

01:01:46 and the fuel cell stack.

01:01:47 And with that, you have to reject all of the heat

01:01:49 in the cooling system, different than a diesel engine

01:01:51 where you have a lot of the heat rejected through the exhaust.

01:01:55 So that's why it's a bit of a challenge

01:01:57 to develop the radiator and the fans

01:02:01 and the whole system to be able to deal with that.

01:02:03 - And again, I know Ed and I are lucky,

01:02:05 we got to look at it, but like the radiator

01:02:07 is the size of your dining room table.

01:02:09 I think it's about the size of this table

01:02:10 we're sitting at, bigger.

01:02:12 But yeah, in terms of square footage.

01:02:15 - Maybe a little smaller.

01:02:16 - And the fan looked like something on a Piper.

01:02:20 No, a Piper Cub, it was a big, I was like,

01:02:23 what is, I couldn't tell what it was at first.

01:02:25 Oh, that's a fan, it's massive.

01:02:27 I know everything's bigger with a semi-truck,

01:02:29 but it just seemed like a lot of cooling.

01:02:32 - And it was one of those areas, again,

01:02:35 where I think our engineers did a fabulous job

01:02:38 in developing the system because there's a lot

01:02:40 of controls that goes into that,

01:02:42 and there's multiple cooling systems.

01:02:44 And some of them are actually coupled.

01:02:47 So we can use the capacity on other systems

01:02:50 to quote unquote help out.

01:02:52 And we can also use some of the heat we generate

01:02:55 in the truck to heat the cabin or heat up--

01:02:59 - The battery. - The fuel cell

01:03:00 or the battery in a cold start scenario.

01:03:03 So there's a lot of development that went specifically

01:03:06 into the thermal system of this truck.

01:03:08 - Because Johnny asked about it,

01:03:10 and I kind of shut him down, how far are we,

01:03:13 'cause I saw the cameras on the windshield,

01:03:18 outward facing cameras on the windshield,

01:03:19 how far are we, and are you guys working

01:03:21 on autonomous trucking?

01:03:23 Like are we gonna see, did you see the movie

01:03:25 Wolverine, I think, I always tell people--

01:03:27 - Logan. - Sorry, Logan.

01:03:29 - Logan, the Logan movie. - Wolverine's terrible.

01:03:31 Logan, great.

01:03:32 - In the, it's in, oh shoot, that's DC Comic Universe?

01:03:36 No, Marvel.

01:03:37 - It's Marvel, but it's that weird one where Sony owns it,

01:03:40 so it's a whole thing.

01:03:41 - Anyways, I think that for all intents and purposes,

01:03:44 unless Blade Runner covered it,

01:03:45 that might be the general population's first sort of look,

01:03:49 at a wide scale, of this future that everyone's saying

01:03:53 about, oh yeah, one day, autonomous trucks

01:03:55 are just gonna be roaming up and down the US freeways.

01:03:58 - Three trailers, cold-hearted.

01:04:00 - Yeah, that's 90 miles an hour, right, 'cause who cares?

01:04:04 Are you guys, is that part of Nikola's sort of master plan,

01:04:07 or for the future, or how far out are we

01:04:10 from trucks driving themselves?

01:04:12 - So there's a lot of startups and companies

01:04:15 that are working on that specifically, right,

01:04:17 and a lot of it-- - You were at one of them,

01:04:18 right, Zoox?

01:04:20 - I worked with Zoox, yeah, when I was still at Bosch, yeah.

01:04:23 - Okay.

01:04:24 - But a lot of it has shifted

01:04:27 from passenger car applications,

01:04:29 or these kind of taxi applications,

01:04:31 to commercial vehicles, to trucks, so.

01:04:34 And I think the reason is because the application

01:04:38 might be initially a little bit easier to handle

01:04:40 if you're talking about a hub-to-hub application, right,

01:04:44 where you're only driving highway,

01:04:45 you don't have the complexity necessarily of a full city,

01:04:50 but you're driving highway exit to highway exit,

01:04:52 and you have hubs established to go between.

01:04:55 So I think this is the future,

01:04:58 and we're obviously working on these technologies as well,

01:05:03 and with various partners.

01:05:06 Nothing that I can be very definitive right now,

01:05:09 but yes, it's an area we're working on,

01:05:12 and I envision will play a bigger role.

01:05:14 The question is when, and I don't know

01:05:19 what you guys think about what the timing will be

01:05:22 that we see mass adoption, but for sure,

01:05:24 we're gonna see a lot of kind of demo applications

01:05:28 in the coming years, and it's definitely

01:05:30 one of the focus areas for us.

01:05:32 - But wouldn't, I have a question,

01:05:33 and it's something I thought about,

01:05:34 and I think I talked with a friend of mine

01:05:36 who works in the big federal government,

01:05:39 big idea type programs, but he was saying like,

01:05:42 and it makes sense to me, like,

01:05:43 what you really need is you need separate roads

01:05:46 for semi trucks, just get them away

01:05:49 from passenger vehicles, make them autonomous,

01:05:51 they can just do their own thing,

01:05:52 there's no way, there's no merging,

01:05:54 they just goes from like, you know,

01:05:57 San Pedro, Long Beach, goes to downtown,

01:06:01 there's a hub in downtown, but it's a road.

01:06:03 - Maybe in a tunnel.

01:06:04 - Yeah, a tunnel, something like that.

01:06:06 No, no, no, whatever.

01:06:07 - Maybe something like a train.

01:06:09 - Kind of like a train, except that,

01:06:11 except that there's no loading and unloading,

01:06:13 you know what I mean?

01:06:14 It's just that you load it on the truck,

01:06:17 but like, yeah, in a way, or like, you know,

01:06:19 LA to Vegas, just have like a road for,

01:06:21 has that come up?

01:06:22 Does anyone talk about--

01:06:23 - Tunnel.

01:06:24 (laughing)

01:06:26 - He's not, no, no, no, no, no,

01:06:28 but if you're talking about,

01:06:29 do people talk about like a separate road for trucks,

01:06:31 or forget about it?

01:06:32 - For sure there's people talking about that,

01:06:36 and a lot of things, but I mean,

01:06:38 it's new infrastructure then you need

01:06:40 to establish again, right?

01:06:41 And at this point, you need to talk about

01:06:43 what would be the best.

01:06:44 If you really do a dedicated lane like that,

01:06:47 well, you should talk about maybe

01:06:49 some more rail transport as well, right?

01:06:51 - That's a non-starter in the US.

01:06:52 - Well, if you do your separate lane,

01:06:55 you're gonna put induction charging pads

01:06:56 for the whole thing.

01:06:57 - This is not Japan, we will be building no trains.

01:06:59 - Okay, yeah, check out California,

01:07:02 so high-speed rail project.

01:07:03 - We should, oh, oh, oh.

01:07:04 - Let's keep going.

01:07:05 So, Nicola, head of vehicle platforms,

01:07:07 we've talked about, and you said there's two,

01:07:10 what else are you working on, anything else?

01:07:12 And I will give you an opportunity,

01:07:14 this is my next question, to tell us

01:07:16 about the origin story briefly, summarize.

01:07:19 You guys started out with a production pickup truck,

01:07:24 like how's that going?

01:07:27 Or like what else are you guys working on?

01:07:29 - No, we focus 100% on class A trucks

01:07:33 and the infrastructure that goes with it.

01:07:35 - In two products, BEV and hydrogen fuel cell.

01:07:39 - That's correct.

01:07:40 - No solar truck coming, no, we're gonna go off-road racing.

01:07:44 Eveco does amazing, I love watching this stuff.

01:07:48 Yeah, the big trucks, and there's a Kamaz, those guys.

01:07:52 - Oh yeah, the off-road truck racing.

01:07:54 - Can you get into that, that would be cool.

01:07:56 - That would be cool, no.

01:07:58 No, we're focusing on battery electric

01:08:00 and fuel cell electric, heavy-duty trucks.

01:08:04 And what are we working on?

01:08:06 We're really working on making this happen

01:08:09 and improving on those products.

01:08:11 So I mentioned a couple of areas already,

01:08:14 autonomous driving, new hydrogen storage technologies,

01:08:19 looking in the future.

01:08:21 - Like static commercial stuff, like non-moving,

01:08:24 like that kind of stuff?

01:08:26 People take battery, Tesla now does Powerwall.

01:08:28 Are you guys working on any kind of storage system?

01:08:31 - Well, only as part of the infrastructure overall,

01:08:35 potentially, as I said, developing the infrastructure

01:08:39 that has to come with those mobile products with the trucks.

01:08:43 And yeah, just making the product better, right?

01:08:46 There's still some areas we need to work on.

01:08:48 We mentioned the weight, so we need to get the weight down.

01:08:50 We obviously wanna scale up.

01:08:52 Right now, the focus is on scaling up the production

01:08:55 of the fuel cell truck, and with that,

01:08:57 we need to scale down costs.

01:08:58 So there's a lot to solve still there.

01:09:00 And we're no longer working on a pickup truck.

01:09:04 That was awesome.

01:09:05 Not the first product, we started out,

01:09:07 Nikola started out, the vision was a fuel cell,

01:09:12 electric truck, and the hydrogen that goes with it.

01:09:15 - Okay, and that all ended sort of spectacularly.

01:09:18 One follow-up question on other product lines.

01:09:21 Are you doing anything, any military applications,

01:09:24 you can speak of?

01:09:25 Are you doing anything like GM--

01:09:27 - Defense-related.

01:09:28 - GM famously, right?

01:09:29 They build their Hummer EV,

01:09:32 and then the GM Defense is a version of it.

01:09:34 - Yeah.

01:09:35 - It's defense contracts.

01:09:37 - You know, nothing I could comment on in detail.

01:09:40 - What does--

01:09:41 (laughing)

01:09:42 - No, let him go.

01:09:43 - No, I was gonna say that there is a lot of interest

01:09:46 from government, different departments,

01:09:49 to decarbonize, but also if you think about

01:09:54 battery electric technology, hydrogen electric technology,

01:09:58 if you think about the noise,

01:10:00 the heat footprint, and everything, right?

01:10:04 - Stealth.

01:10:05 - There's a lot of interest in these kind of technologies,

01:10:09 and then also talking specifically hydrogen,

01:10:11 when you talk about how do I transport, store energy,

01:10:15 how do I become independent, right?

01:10:18 And can create my own fuel.

01:10:20 So there's a lot of interest, obviously,

01:10:22 and so there are a lot of potential government agencies

01:10:27 that are interested in our products.

01:10:29 - What does fully ramped-up production look like?

01:10:33 How many units a month or a year?

01:10:35 - Yeah, where are you building these?

01:10:37 - We're building them in Coolidge, Arizona.

01:10:39 That's where our assembly plant is.

01:10:41 That's about an hour south of Phoenix.

01:10:44 - Near the Lucent factory.

01:10:45 - Yeah, it's not far.

01:10:47 - Hours south of Phoenix.

01:10:48 - Next to Casa Grande, yeah.

01:10:49 - Casa Grande, okay.

01:10:50 - Our neighbors.

01:10:51 (laughing)

01:10:52 - So then what, do you guys,

01:10:53 so where do you get,

01:10:55 Aveco sends the chassis?

01:10:57 Do they have something nearby, or how does it work?

01:11:00 - So we localized most of our parts with suppliers,

01:11:05 including the chassis, so that's coming from North America.

01:11:08 And it really has, the chassis itself,

01:11:11 meaning the frame, right,

01:11:13 has not, it's very different than the Aveco S-Way truck.

01:11:19 And then one of the items that we still get from Europe

01:11:23 and through Aveco is the cab itself.

01:11:26 - But what are production numbers?

01:11:29 'Cause I know what good car production,

01:11:31 I have no idea about trucks,

01:11:32 like how many, 100 a year, 1,000 a year?

01:11:35 - Yeah, so we're starting slow, obviously.

01:11:37 So we have just started production a few weeks ago,

01:11:40 and it's actually, it was a very great moment

01:11:44 for all of us to get there.

01:11:47 And we have produced, I think, now 17 trucks.

01:11:50 - Okay.

01:11:51 - And number 28, I think, went into the line now,

01:11:55 and we're initially talking about a truck a day

01:11:59 kind of production, so we're starting slow, initially.

01:12:01 - So like 200 a year type thing?

01:12:03 - Yeah, and then, but that's gonna ramp up

01:12:06 over the next couple of months already, substantially.

01:12:09 - What is Aveco doing for their best-selling Class A truck,

01:12:14 if you could estimate?

01:12:15 Is it like, are they doing like 2,000 a day or something?

01:12:17 Is that what-- - No, no, not that much.

01:12:20 - I don't know, same question.

01:12:21 - No, that's a good question. - That I know.

01:12:23 - I would need to look that up,

01:12:24 but what we're targeting, really,

01:12:26 and with the assembly line as it's set up today,

01:12:29 we can do a couple of thousand a year, yeah.

01:12:32 And we can then, we have a pretty modular concept

01:12:35 in our assembly plant, so we're able to scale that

01:12:38 beyond that, too, but initially,

01:12:40 what we're looking into is a couple of thousand units.

01:12:42 - Now, is this three-axle truck, is it just North America,

01:12:46 or can you, if I'm in Brazil or China or wherever,

01:12:51 can they work in those markets,

01:12:53 or is this one just focused on North America?

01:12:54 - Two-axle, yeah.

01:12:55 - Well, I would say the way we developed this product,

01:13:00 having Europe in mind, and knowing that Europe

01:13:02 has one of the most restrictions,

01:13:06 it would probably work in a lot of different markets.

01:13:09 Right now, we're completely focusing

01:13:12 on the North American market.

01:13:13 Not only U.S., Canada is a big market, right?

01:13:16 - Sure. - Very interesting market,

01:13:18 because they're pushing hydrogen very much,

01:13:20 and we have-- - Huge distances.

01:13:22 People forget that Canada's twice as big as the U.S.

01:13:25 in terms of distance, yeah, it's huge.

01:13:26 - Yeah, and we have orders from Canada already, too,

01:13:29 and there's huge interest coming from there,

01:13:33 but yeah, we're focusing on North America,

01:13:35 future expansion, Iveco is taking care of Europe.

01:13:39 - I was gonna say, would you, if, let's say,

01:13:42 this technology goes to Europe,

01:13:44 would you build 'em in Arizona,

01:13:46 or would you build 'em in Europe?

01:13:47 - No, I mean-- - 'Cause shipping,

01:13:49 it would be free, right?

01:13:50 - So, we're still partners with Iveco,

01:13:52 but they took over the JV that we used to have

01:13:55 for the European market, and so,

01:13:57 they're serving the European market

01:13:59 with these zero-emission trucks going forward.

01:14:02 And they have their own assembly plant there,

01:14:04 which we actually built together as part of the JV in Ulm,

01:14:08 and they will produce the trucks there

01:14:11 for the European market.

01:14:13 - And is Iveco, are they part of a bigger group,

01:14:18 or are they a standalone company?

01:14:19 - They're not like a man.

01:14:20 - No, you're not like Volkswagen or something?

01:14:23 - They were part of CNHI, CNH Industrial,

01:14:28 and they just had their separate IPO,

01:14:32 so it's an Iveco group now.

01:14:34 - 'Cause you do see a lot of them when you're in Europe,

01:14:37 but it's not here, there's no footprint here, really.

01:14:41 - So, you had the, again, at the top of this,

01:14:46 we talked about how you gave us this Joyride,

01:14:48 in basically the last of your pre-production--

01:14:52 - Gamma prototype 10. - That's right, yeah.

01:14:53 That's right, and then-- - That's the last prototype.

01:14:55 - Last prototype.

01:14:57 We'll go in the museum somewhere someday.

01:14:59 And then you-- - Longer than the first one.

01:15:01 - Right, you've done production, you're in 28.

01:15:03 Can you talk at all about who some of your customers are?

01:15:07 Is there any, has there been any publicity around?

01:15:09 Like, is there any big shipping companies,

01:15:11 or like, hey, this is great?

01:15:13 I don't know.

01:15:14 - Yeah, I mean, there's been a couple of announcements,

01:15:16 and those are the ones I can talk about.

01:15:18 I mean, everyone in this industry is interested

01:15:21 to understand where does it go, right,

01:15:23 and what are my options going forward

01:15:25 when it comes to serum emission.

01:15:27 - I mean, we literally-- - So we're talking to--

01:15:28 - When we were outside, sorry to interrupt.

01:15:29 When we were outside, there was a,

01:15:31 'cause we were outside this building,

01:15:34 and these delivery guys, a UPS guy and a FedEx guy

01:15:37 stopped their trucks. - And the Mercedes-Benz

01:15:39 service centers there, the Mercedes guy came out,

01:15:41 'cause they do a lot of diesel stuff.

01:15:43 - And the UPS guy and the FedEx guy were like joking,

01:15:45 like, oh yeah, we got one of these at work already.

01:15:47 The guy's like, no, no, no.

01:15:48 (laughing)

01:15:49 You know, but yeah, so, sorry, keep going.

01:15:50 - Yeah, no, my point is, we're talking

01:15:52 to all the big fleets, right?

01:15:54 But just to name some partners

01:15:57 we've been working with for a while.

01:15:58 I mean, we obviously have been working

01:16:00 with Anheuser-Busch for a while.

01:16:02 It's been a great partner.

01:16:04 Biagi is there, Biagi Brothers,

01:16:06 with Dey Hall for Anheuser-Busch,

01:16:09 and we've been testing the Alpha units back then,

01:16:12 the first prototypes with them,

01:16:14 and they're also right now testing the Gamma units again,

01:16:18 here in Southern California.

01:16:19 And we have worked with TTSI as well in the past,

01:16:25 so Drage Applications.

01:16:27 We're working with J.B. Hunt.

01:16:29 There was an announcement about that as well.

01:16:32 So, you know, we're talking to--

01:16:33 - So pretty diverse group of customers.

01:16:35 - Pretty diverse group of customers.

01:16:37 There's lots of interest, and again,

01:16:39 most of them, they wanna see it work,

01:16:41 and that's what I'm excited,

01:16:43 like in the next couple of weeks and months,

01:16:44 to just show how this product can perform

01:16:47 in the quote-unquote real world, right,

01:16:50 with our customers, and yeah,

01:16:53 then we'll see where a lot of these conversations

01:16:55 that we're having with all of these fleets ultimately go.

01:16:58 - When you need to do some kind of publicity stunt

01:17:01 towing beer, I might know a guy

01:17:04 who would be interested in towing--

01:17:05 - Towing whiskey, yeah.

01:17:06 - Oh, I love that. - He's a beer judge.

01:17:07 - I used to be. - But you need a CDL.

01:17:09 - Moro, yeah, if you wanna go--

01:17:10 - Well, I can drive, no problem.

01:17:12 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll drive shotgun.

01:17:15 - What kind of whiskey?

01:17:16 - Bourbon, bourbon, bourbon.

01:17:17 - I'm a single malt guy.

01:17:20 - Well, I can fix that, 'cause remember,

01:17:24 single malt Scotch whiskey is made in used bourbon barrels,

01:17:27 so once all the flavor's sucked out of it,

01:17:29 they cheaply ship 'em off to Scotland,

01:17:30 and then they put that junk in there,

01:17:32 but we can get you some good bourbon.

01:17:34 Oh, I'm just joking.

01:17:35 - It's fake and friends.

01:17:36 - Hey, no one knows that.

01:17:38 Look, Scotch has good marketing,

01:17:40 kind of like gasoline, but bourbon's superior,

01:17:42 kind of like hydrogen,

01:17:43 I think you're saying is better than diesel, so.

01:17:45 - Okay. - We'll school you.

01:17:46 - All right, we're running out of time.

01:17:48 - Well, you've got an interesting background, though.

01:17:50 - Yeah, that's something I get into.

01:17:51 So we talked about, Nicola, we talked about your day job.

01:17:53 We mentioned briefly that you did come,

01:17:55 you spent a lot of time with Robert Bosch,

01:17:57 GMBH, supporting a-- - GMBH?

01:18:00 - Yeah. - But check this out.

01:18:02 You worked on, apparently, the 918,

01:18:05 the McLaren P1, and the LaFerrari?

01:18:08 - And this thing called the E-Ray, maybe?

01:18:10 (both laughing)

01:18:11 So, yeah.

01:18:12 Talk about, what did you do

01:18:13 before you entered the class A truck field?

01:18:18 - Yeah, no, I started my career, essentially,

01:18:21 at Bosch Engineering, which is a subsidiary of Robert Bosch,

01:18:25 the big conglomerate of a lot of different companies

01:18:28 and household appliances. - A lot of real nerds.

01:18:30 - We know Bosch, yeah.

01:18:32 - Did you say nerds?

01:18:33 - Yes, super nerds.

01:18:34 Speaking of, you have a math degree.

01:18:36 - Yeah, I do, I do.

01:18:37 - You're not even, you're not, I mean, an engineer?

01:18:39 - I'm not even an engineer. - You're not even an engineer.

01:18:41 You do those numbers.

01:18:42 - Yeah. - I'm just kidding.

01:18:43 - No, I studied math, yeah, and physics, yeah.

01:18:46 But I did work with engineering students.

01:18:48 I actually did some teaching and so on.

01:18:52 - What type of physics?

01:18:53 - Physics was my minor, so it was experimental physics,

01:18:58 mostly.

01:18:59 - You mean like quantum stuff?

01:19:02 - No, no, no. - Oh, okay.

01:19:03 You seem kinda young.

01:19:04 Was Bosch your first job?

01:19:07 - Yeah, yeah, it was.

01:19:08 So I started my career at Bosch Engineering,

01:19:11 and what we did there was everything

01:19:14 that was low volume, right?

01:19:16 So a lot of the high volume, you know,

01:19:18 VW Golf or something, just all of the business units

01:19:21 at Bosch in the mobility sector that are working on those.

01:19:24 And Bosch Engineering was found to deal with,

01:19:26 originally it was actually Ferrari was one

01:19:28 of the main customers where Bosch realized

01:19:32 that they're not set up to necessarily work

01:19:34 with all of these small volume specialized customers, right?

01:19:39 And that's where they found Bosch Engineering

01:19:42 to be kind of the group that deals with those.

01:19:44 - So like, for instance, for the LaFerrari,

01:19:46 which is 499 units and has this, at the time,

01:19:49 incredibly high tech battery hybrid system.

01:19:53 That's what you were, battery integration, I see.

01:19:57 - Exactly, and actually that was my whole career

01:19:59 was around electrification, right?

01:20:02 Electric motors and hybrid systems and fuel cell and so on.

01:20:06 And yeah, as such, it was actually a really great first job

01:20:11 because you gotta work on all of these awesome applications.

01:20:14 A lot of the sports cars,

01:20:15 I know you mentioned a few of them,

01:20:17 but we had Maseratis there,

01:20:19 and Lamborghinis and Ferraris.

01:20:22 But then also other applications,

01:20:23 you mentioned the AMG 6x6, right?

01:20:26 That was one project, not myself,

01:20:29 but our teams worked on.

01:20:30 - Low volume, that was like 60 units or something.

01:20:33 - Or like mining vehicles, airport tractors.

01:20:36 I mean, all of these little, the things that little kids--

01:20:40 - Unimogs?

01:20:40 - Yeah, yeah. - Unimogs?

01:20:42 - I think so, yeah, I think so.

01:20:44 No, but it's all of these very fun applications

01:20:48 and projects that I was able to work on there.

01:20:51 And a lot of it was sports cars,

01:20:53 and it was in the days of when everyone tried to figure out

01:20:57 electrification of sports cars, right?

01:20:59 And the time of the LaFerrari and the P1,

01:21:02 P1 is such a fun car to drive.

01:21:05 And we did also this super cool program

01:21:07 where we electrified an Aston Martin DB9,

01:21:11 which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful cars.

01:21:14 - Yes, we know Ian Callum quite well, good friend of ours.

01:21:18 He's helped us out with judging some stuff.

01:21:20 And yes, I mean, it stops traffic.

01:21:23 - But you started in 2012, that's when you,

01:21:27 that's the start of your career?

01:21:28 - Yeah. - After, wow.

01:21:30 - Yeah. - You're old, dude.

01:21:31 - I started at Motor Show in 2010.

01:21:33 - You're old.

01:21:34 - You started in what, 2008?

01:21:36 - Seven, old.

01:21:37 We've done nothing with our lives.

01:21:38 - We've done nothing, I know, yeah.

01:21:40 We finally got a podcast,

01:21:41 10 years after podcast, we got a podcast.

01:21:43 - But you also worked, so you also worked

01:21:46 with some of these more future forward,

01:21:49 the Lucid, NIO, Faraday Future, and Fisker.

01:21:54 - Yeah.

01:21:54 - Also in the context of Bosch.

01:21:57 - Yeah, right, so it was in late 2016, I think, yes,

01:22:02 when I moved to the US.

01:22:04 So we saw a growing market at the West Coast, right?

01:22:09 - Sure. - With all of these startups,

01:22:10 and I had been working with a lot of them

01:22:13 already from Germany.

01:22:15 And so back then, I remember I sort of pitched my own role

01:22:18 and said, "Hey, we really gotta build up our business there

01:22:22 "from the Bosch side."

01:22:23 And so I was sent on an assignment,

01:22:26 international assignment with Bosch,

01:22:28 and moved to California.

01:22:29 So I lived in Northern California,

01:22:32 and we worked with all of these startups at that time.

01:22:37 Some of them still exist, some of them don't no longer.

01:22:40 - Lucid actually, I think in 2016,

01:22:43 had a different name, right?

01:22:44 - Ativa. - That's right, yeah, yeah.

01:22:46 - And NIO was Next TV.

01:22:47 - Didn't Eric Bach, did he come from Bosch?

01:22:50 - Eric Bach, no, he came from OEM,

01:22:54 and I'm blanking on which one.

01:22:55 - Okay. - Yeah.

01:22:55 He's the head of technology at Lucid.

01:22:58 - Right, he's the CTO, CTO.

01:23:00 - Yeah, he's from like-- - He's Rollinson's right hand.

01:23:02 - He's from like Mercedes or something.

01:23:03 - So let me ask you something.

01:23:04 I got a bunch of questions, we're running out of time,

01:23:06 in terms of sort of your view on this.

01:23:08 And first of all, so we had Jim Farley on the podcast,

01:23:13 CEO of Ford, and he's been in my ear a lot about,

01:23:15 Ed, you gotta look to the Nordics to look at EV adoption,

01:23:19 but the one you really, nobody in North America

01:23:21 is paying attention to what's going on in China.

01:23:23 And he told me this like three years ago,

01:23:24 and yes, and when he told me,

01:23:27 BYD had only just started to like hit the gas,

01:23:30 hit the accelerator, sorry, to pass Tesla.

01:23:32 But he also mentioned companies like Xpeng and NIO.

01:23:36 So long story short, how screwed is the Western world,

01:23:41 the Western auto manufacturers, the legacy brands,

01:23:43 when it comes to Chinese car manufacturers?

01:23:47 - Oh, that's an interesting question.

01:23:52 Actually, just recently, you had an auto show

01:23:55 in Germany, right? - Yeah, IA.

01:23:58 - And it was interesting to see just how many Chinese brands

01:24:03 showed up there, and showed up with pretty good product.

01:24:08 So-- - Real quick, real quick,

01:24:10 was it mostly EVs, or was it all EVs?

01:24:14 Well, 'cause I can see, you saw that article

01:24:16 about how China is now trying to,

01:24:17 they still have massive manufacturing capability

01:24:19 for internal combustion, and they're trying

01:24:22 to dump 'em on Europe, and they don't have enough boats

01:24:24 to ship 'em there, because like in Spain,

01:24:27 there's still a market for a $19,000

01:24:29 internal combustion car. - Yeah, right, right.

01:24:31 But I think it was always difficult

01:24:32 for these new OEMs out of China to really be competitive

01:24:36 in the space of internal combustion engines, cars.

01:24:40 But now with EVs, it's a different ballgame, right?

01:24:43 Suddenly it's a complete new game,

01:24:44 and they're pushing into European market,

01:24:48 and the US market, so I don't know if I would say

01:24:52 any of the legacy OEMs are screwed,

01:24:54 but I would say there's definitely

01:24:57 new competition coming up.

01:24:59 And a lot of it was startups that were established

01:25:01 in the US, but China is also pushing into these markets.

01:25:06 There's probably gonna be this phase

01:25:10 where you have a lot of players

01:25:12 trying to establish themselves in the market,

01:25:14 and some of them will, and some of them won't.

01:25:16 So it's gonna be a couple of interesting years ahead,

01:25:20 I think, I mean, I'm super excited.

01:25:21 You mentioned-- - Why are you excited?

01:25:23 What are you excited about? - Well, 'cause he's not

01:25:24 in that directly in this space anymore.

01:25:26 - Let him answer, what are you excited about?

01:25:28 What are you excited about?

01:25:29 - I'm excited because this is a unique time.

01:25:32 It really is a unique time in history,

01:25:34 and in this industry, right?

01:25:35 I mean, my whole career was about electrification

01:25:38 from the beginning, and I remember even before

01:25:40 I started my first full-time job--

01:25:41 - Yeah, you're 11 years old. (laughs)

01:25:45 Sorry, sorry. - No, you're right.

01:25:47 But even before then, I had internships,

01:25:50 and I was a working student at Bosch and so on.

01:25:52 So really, I was exposed to electric vehicles

01:25:56 fairly early, actually, when I was still in school.

01:25:59 I remember seeing, I think, in 2000 or something,

01:26:02 I saw a Prius for the first time.

01:26:05 And I was like, wow, this is amazing technology, right?

01:26:07 And then I actually had the opportunity

01:26:09 to see a Tesla Roadster fairly early.

01:26:13 Bosch had somehow procured one and got 'em to Germany,

01:26:16 and that must have been 2009.

01:26:19 And it was just amazing to see that.

01:26:21 So for me, this has been the center

01:26:23 of what I've been working on and interested in.

01:26:26 - It's interesting, though, 'cause--

01:26:27 - And now I've seen coming this--

01:26:28 - Oh, sorry, go ahead.

01:26:30 - Just seeing, to finish that thought,

01:26:33 seeing this industry now completely move, right?

01:26:37 And look at the numbers now on electric cars

01:26:40 that are being sold and all of the legacy OEMs finally

01:26:44 bringing really great products to the market, too.

01:26:47 And now being in the middle of what I think

01:26:49 is even greater to talk about trucks,

01:26:51 electric trucks and fuel cell trucks,

01:26:53 it's just amazing.

01:26:54 And that's a once-in-a-lifetime kind of shift

01:26:57 of an industry, and that's just exciting.

01:26:59 It's exciting to be part of that.

01:27:01 - When I interrupted you, I was trying to say,

01:27:03 it's exciting because the old dogma's being torn up.

01:27:06 Like, I was recently up at Francis Forcopolo's Winery,

01:27:09 and he's got the Tucker.

01:27:11 He owns a Tucker, and it sits there

01:27:12 in the middle of the winery.

01:27:13 And I remember back when Tesla was getting going,

01:27:17 everyone said, "You can't have a new car company.

01:27:19 "Look at Tucker, 1948."

01:27:21 - It's the last one that launched.

01:27:22 - Can't do a new one.

01:27:23 Porsche was also '48, no one talks about that.

01:27:25 But anyways, and they failed instantly, 51 vehicles.

01:27:29 And since then, it's just all being torn up.

01:27:33 It seemed inevitable, go ahead, Ed,

01:27:36 that gasoline forever, right?

01:27:41 And then I was reading today, I think Ernst & Young,

01:27:44 they did an analysis that 2036,

01:27:47 electric passenger car sales will pass hybrid

01:27:53 and internal combustion in 2036.

01:27:56 The US is actually tracking a little bit ahead.

01:27:59 By 2045, we'll only be five years

01:28:02 behind the rest of the world in EV adoption.

01:28:03 - I'd be surprised, but I think it might accelerate

01:28:05 even faster, but yeah, to your point,

01:28:07 I think everybody who, and I think about this a lot,

01:28:10 all the haters out there, you're like,

01:28:11 "Guys, you can think about it one way."

01:28:14 Yes.

01:28:15 - Your car does not go vroom, vroom, vroom.

01:28:17 There's one thing it doesn't do.

01:28:18 - We're in the golden age of internal combustion.

01:28:21 Cars have never been this powerful or this efficient.

01:28:23 But it's so exciting what else is going on

01:28:25 in the EV space, it's amazing.

01:28:27 But let me bridge that to software.

01:28:33 So I've been trying to push software-defined vehicles,

01:28:35 STVs, this whole thing.

01:28:36 - Oh, you should have seen the diagnostics on this truck.

01:28:38 - No, he showed me.

01:28:39 He walked me through it.

01:28:40 He told me that this truck is OTA.

01:28:42 But this really goes back to your time at Bosch.

01:28:44 I went two years ago, one of the most obscure conferences

01:28:49 I've ever been to, I went to AEK Ludwigsburg,

01:28:52 which is, have you heard of this?

01:28:53 (laughing)

01:28:54 - I actually lived in Ludwigsburg before I moved to the US.

01:28:58 - Nothing going on in Ludwigsburg, let me tell you.

01:29:00 - Oh, come on.

01:29:00 - It's not that bad.

01:29:01 - It's a beautiful town.

01:29:03 - There's one Irish pup there.

01:29:05 - But Ludwigsburg, so this is a conference

01:29:07 of a bunch of European, mostly German,

01:29:11 supplier, tier one, tier two suppliers.

01:29:13 And this is really focused on formerly, yeah,

01:29:16 formerly electronic systems and now software.

01:29:19 And the two leading speakers are obviously gonna be Bosch

01:29:23 and then Continental, right?

01:29:24 It's one of the two largest German tier one suppliers.

01:29:29 And I will tell you, and I went to this really unique

01:29:31 time where that year they decided that the whole conference

01:29:34 would be spoke in English, not German, thank God.

01:29:37 So I heard all these things, for me,

01:29:39 all these presentations in German,

01:29:41 and they were like no conference I've ever been to,

01:29:43 very openly talking about how serious

01:29:46 the software-defined revolution is.

01:29:49 And the guy from Bosch basically said,

01:29:51 "If we don't figure this out, we're screwed."

01:29:54 And the thing that I had no insight into any of this,

01:29:57 but like, and please correct me if I'm wrong,

01:30:00 I'm gonna give you a chance to speak.

01:30:01 The thing is, you know, Bosch and Continental,

01:30:05 all these suppliers, they're really good

01:30:06 at supplying the hardware, they develop the systems,

01:30:08 the manufacturing process, they test everything,

01:30:10 they sell it to the company, the OEMs.

01:30:12 You know, OEMs are really sort of just--

01:30:14 - Assemblers. - Assemblers of these,

01:30:16 of subsystems, they pay the bills,

01:30:17 all this stuff comes in there.

01:30:19 But up until like five years ago,

01:30:21 hey, well, here's the bill for all the hardware,

01:30:23 you want some software?

01:30:24 Okay, we'll give you the software for free.

01:30:26 And software is always an afterthought,

01:30:28 and I'm talking to a guy at Lucid,

01:30:29 he's like, "And it was all terrible.

01:30:30 "None of these suppliers know how to code.

01:30:33 "This is trash."

01:30:35 And as, this is sort of the fundamental problem with EVs,

01:30:39 as you're reducing all the parts complexity,

01:30:41 you're taking away all the mechanical systems

01:30:42 that the suppliers know how to work on,

01:30:45 and it's all driven by code,

01:30:47 a lot of these companies are kind of going away.

01:30:50 Which is why I think you're being a little optimistic

01:30:51 about some of the legacy car brands,

01:30:53 'cause this is not just a supplier problem.

01:30:55 - No. - This is a brand problem.

01:30:57 So, did I misstate anything?

01:30:59 Are you worried at all about the company

01:31:02 that you spent a lot of time with?

01:31:05 What's your, any thoughts in that direction?

01:31:06 - Yeah, absolutely.

01:31:07 I think, I agree with most of what you said,

01:31:11 that it's a shift, it's a shift in the industry.

01:31:14 And yes, differentiation came a lot

01:31:18 through hardware in the past.

01:31:21 And it's gonna be more and more through software.

01:31:23 And not only like infotainment systems

01:31:26 and little features that can be fun,

01:31:29 but just the whole experience of the car,

01:31:31 including performance.

01:31:32 - Controlling the machine. - You can just do so much more

01:31:34 with control systems on driving dynamics

01:31:38 and all of these active systems.

01:31:40 So, it's already extremely important,

01:31:43 and it's gonna be more and more important.

01:31:44 - How many, excuse me, my voice is going away.

01:31:48 How many software engineers are there at Nikola?

01:31:51 - I think, so, overall product development

01:31:55 is a little of 400 people,

01:31:57 and I think the group that does all of our controls,

01:32:01 and I'm gonna talk about that here in a minute,

01:32:04 all of the controls and hardware for controls

01:32:07 is I think around 100 or so.

01:32:09 So, it's a good chunk of the engineers we have.

01:32:12 And that was important for us from the beginning

01:32:15 to really vertically integrate on the software piece.

01:32:18 So, we developed all of the main vehicle ECUs in-house,

01:32:23 also the hardware, and then the base software

01:32:26 and the application layer software.

01:32:29 Because we agree, I guess, with what you said,

01:32:32 that this is gonna be important,

01:32:35 and it's gonna be a differentiator.

01:32:36 And you need to be able to make over-the-air updates,

01:32:39 and you somehow, it's very difficult to achieve that

01:32:43 with working with all of these different suppliers

01:32:45 and integrating them.

01:32:46 It's a nightmare. - It's a different language.

01:32:48 - It's a nightmare.

01:32:49 So, that was one of the most important things.

01:32:52 We said, nope, we need to own this, right?

01:32:54 And we fully own the value stream now,

01:32:57 from the concept to the architecture,

01:33:00 the software architecture to the implementation,

01:33:01 and it's all done in Phoenix.

01:33:03 It's all done in the same kind of building, right?

01:33:06 And we have access to the vehicles directly,

01:33:08 and we have very, very fast development and testing loops,

01:33:11 and we can push it out via over-the-air updates

01:33:14 and all of that mechanism in the backend.

01:33:18 We developed in-house as well.

01:33:19 And that's gonna be very critical going forward.

01:33:22 And you are right that the legacy OEMs

01:33:25 with all of the supplier integration

01:33:28 will face a big challenge there.

01:33:30 And they are.

01:33:31 - 'Cause that's sort of what, like,

01:33:32 Tesla stumbled into that as a real advantage.

01:33:35 But like, you know, these guys, Apple with the iPhone,

01:33:38 as we talked with Doug Field about,

01:33:40 they're very savvy about it.

01:33:41 We control the software.

01:33:43 Like, you're not giving us a piece.

01:33:45 - No, they control it.

01:33:46 They make it so that it's basically invisible.

01:33:47 Like, they're building something

01:33:49 that everyone else can sort of use,

01:33:50 as long as you play by their rules.

01:33:52 - They're not getting a widget from Johnson Controls

01:33:56 which has its own language on it

01:33:58 that your software has to try and--

01:34:00 - And it's a black box, right?

01:34:01 - Yeah.

01:34:02 - And if a problem comes up, you don't know how to--

01:34:04 - And you can't update it.

01:34:05 It's on debugger.

01:34:06 - Literally, yeah.

01:34:07 I had a conversation with Mike Bell from Lucid

01:34:09 about how they were like,

01:34:11 our guys figured out this problem

01:34:13 delivered by a key supplier.

01:34:14 They figured out in a weekend

01:34:15 after being told from the supplier,

01:34:17 they couldn't, like, no, it's no problem.

01:34:18 - I have a very similar story.

01:34:20 (laughing)

01:34:22 - Okay, so let's get personal.

01:34:26 You live in Arizona.

01:34:27 - I do.

01:34:28 - Okay, you got a family?

01:34:29 - Yeah, I have a wife and two kids.

01:34:31 - Nice. - Two boys.

01:34:32 - Two boys, great.

01:34:33 And they love it there?

01:34:34 - Oh, they love it.

01:34:34 We love it there, yeah.

01:34:36 - And everybody's, your wife's German?

01:34:38 Like, you brought her over?

01:34:39 - My wife's German, yeah.

01:34:40 - Okay.

01:34:41 - My kids are probably more American than German.

01:34:42 They're both born in the US and--

01:34:45 - Well, that makes them more American, yeah.

01:34:47 - They are very interested in, you know,

01:34:50 everything American and only so much

01:34:53 in the German heritage, but.

01:34:54 - Whether they can drink beer.

01:34:56 - You're welcome, and I'm sorry.

01:34:57 (laughing)

01:34:59 What do you got at home?

01:35:00 What are you driving?

01:35:01 - My daily driver is a Tesla Model 3.

01:35:05 - Okay, you like it?

01:35:06 You criticize anything?

01:35:07 You're like, oh boy, this ride is a little--

01:35:09 - You know, the car I had before was a Mustang,

01:35:14 GT convertible, stick shift.

01:35:16 - And then the kids ruined that, yeah.

01:35:18 - And actually, I had the car seats in there.

01:35:20 - Oh, nice.

01:35:21 - It works, it works.

01:35:22 It's not as great to get in and out,

01:35:24 but it does work.

01:35:27 Yeah, when they're little enough.

01:35:29 And so, it's obviously not bad, right?

01:35:32 But I would say it's the best daily driver I owned

01:35:35 in my life, it's just such a great car, period.

01:35:38 - Hard to fault.

01:35:39 - I mean--

01:35:40 - Hard to fault from like, you know,

01:35:41 reviewing cars point of view.

01:35:43 - Yeah, yeah.

01:35:44 - Which we kind of used to do more.

01:35:45 - Every car I would take on a track day,

01:35:47 you know, I would take a different car.

01:35:49 - Well, but people track them,

01:35:50 and there's a whole industry for tuning them,

01:35:52 and you know, you get the performance version,

01:35:55 beat a lot of people.

01:35:55 - Well, it's great performance,

01:35:57 but that's where we're coming back to the vroom vroom,

01:35:59 maybe, right?

01:36:00 I mean, to me, there's a little bit more than that.

01:36:03 But for my everyday driver, I don't know.

01:36:06 - Anything fun that you keep on the side,

01:36:08 or maybe have back at home, back in Germany?

01:36:10 No, no bike cars?

01:36:11 - No, not at the moment.

01:36:14 It's just been crazy the last couple of years.

01:36:17 - Sure.

01:36:17 - Developing this program.

01:36:20 But in the future, we'll probably see

01:36:23 if I can find some time for a fun project car.

01:36:26 - Something with a badge from Stuttgart?

01:36:28 Do you like, are you a fan of these cars?

01:36:30 - He's pointing at a Porsche, for those of you listening.

01:36:34 - I'm gonna come back to what I said before,

01:36:35 it's always the things you can't have that you love.

01:36:37 And I had this very defining moment when I was a kid,

01:36:42 and I must have been maybe 11, 12 years old,

01:36:47 and we were on lunch break in school,

01:36:49 and we were in town getting something to eat,

01:36:51 and this guy pulls up with a Camaro.

01:36:55 It must have been like a '70 or '71 Camaro.

01:36:59 - F-body?

01:37:00 - No, no, '70, '71, it's way old.

01:37:02 - It's older, yeah.

01:37:03 - Oh, sorry.

01:37:04 - And it was just awesome.

01:37:07 And I mean, for me, that was the car I wanted to own, right?

01:37:11 And going forward, and I grew up around Porsche

01:37:14 and Daimler, Mercedes-Benz.

01:37:17 I mean, not the biggest fan of Mercedes-Benz,

01:37:19 always been the BMW guy.

01:37:21 - Oh!

01:37:23 - Even though I grew up there.

01:37:25 Porsche are amazing cars, absolutely.

01:37:29 But again, I've been drawn towards American muscle

01:37:33 for whatever reason.

01:37:34 - But I mean, look, I've seen,

01:37:37 Sweden seems to be the, they're the most into it,

01:37:40 but yeah, when a Camaro or a Corvette

01:37:43 shows up at the Nürburgring,

01:37:44 first of all, it's always a Swedish guy.

01:37:47 People go crazy.

01:37:48 - They do, they just love it.

01:37:49 - Because you don't see these cars, right?

01:37:51 And now more and more, because now some of these models

01:37:53 are actually offered for sale in Europe.

01:37:56 That was not the case, right?

01:37:58 So there was always special imports,

01:37:59 and the mileage, I mean, the fuel economy was terrible,

01:38:03 and the gas prices, so not many people really owned them.

01:38:05 - Also, the number of Germans I know that own Mustangs,

01:38:09 in fact, I met--

01:38:10 - It is a thing, yeah.

01:38:11 - I met Bussi's Porsche's kid, Mark Porsche,

01:38:14 who runs like SEAT and manned trucking.

01:38:16 He has two Mustangs.

01:38:18 - Yeah, it's funny, 'cause--

01:38:19 - And many Porsches.

01:38:19 - All American automotive executives have a secret Porsche.

01:38:22 - All.

01:38:23 - It kind of goes--

01:38:23 - We could bust them, I mean, really,

01:38:25 the amount of like board memory type people I know,

01:38:29 yeah, domestic, yeah, it's ridiculous.

01:38:31 - What did you take your driver's test in when you--

01:38:35 - That's Ed's favorite question.

01:38:36 - That was a VW Golf, just like probably 90%

01:38:41 of the people in Germany.

01:38:42 - I would say depending on age,

01:38:44 it's either a Golf or a Scirocco, so older than you,

01:38:47 they all had Sciroccos.

01:38:48 - So it'd be a sixth gen Golf?

01:38:50 - No, that was a--

01:38:52 - Fourth gen.

01:38:53 - Fourth gen, I think, yeah.

01:38:55 - Ed and Dates.

01:38:56 (laughing)

01:38:57 - No, again, he's a kid.

01:38:59 - I think you're aware of driving license

01:39:02 and driving tests in Germany.

01:39:03 It's a little bit more involved.

01:39:04 We actually learn how to drive.

01:39:06 - Ouch, why?

01:39:07 For what reason?

01:39:08 (laughing)

01:39:09 - Come here, what do you need that for?

01:39:12 - Enjoy yourself.

01:39:13 Well, listen, this was awesome.

01:39:16 We covered a lot.

01:39:17 Can you believe that was--

01:39:18 - What's the one thing you didn't say

01:39:20 about the hydrogen, Nikola,

01:39:22 that you need to tell our audience?

01:39:24 - Yeah, I think we covered it pretty well, honestly.

01:39:28 - Oh, okay, cool.

01:39:29 - For more information, go to Nikola--

01:39:32 - Dot com?

01:39:32 - Nikolamotor.com.

01:39:33 - Nikolamotor.com, yeah, okay.

01:39:35 - Cool, Christian--

01:39:36 - Hold on, the one thing I wanna say is,

01:39:38 experience it for yourself.

01:39:40 And that's why we brought the truck,

01:39:41 coming back to the very beginning of this.

01:39:44 Experience it.

01:39:45 I don't wanna, I mean,

01:39:46 I love talking, obviously, about our products.

01:39:49 I really do.

01:39:50 I'm very passionate about it.

01:39:51 But I always encourage everyone,

01:39:53 experience it for yourself.

01:39:54 Get in the driver's seat if you have a CDL.

01:39:57 Or a closed course.

01:39:59 Or not.

01:40:00 Or take a ride, but experience what this is about.

01:40:03 I don't want us to talk about it.

01:40:04 I want us to deliver on the product.

01:40:06 And, you know, experience it.

01:40:08 - Awesome.

01:40:09 - Great.

01:40:10 - Thank you.

01:40:11 - Christian, thank you so much.

01:40:12 - Thank you, guys.

01:40:12 It was a pleasure to come here, so thank you.

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