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Nikola, the US electric car company, issued a statement announcing the preliminary results of the battery investigation on Aug. 11, saying that it will voluntarily recall all electric trucks delivered to date and will suspend sales, and is currently submitting a voluntary recall application to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) until a solution is in place.

Nikola said in a statement: after the truck fire at its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, Nikola suspected human operation when it began its investigation in June, so it monitored the Phoenix plant where the damaged trucks were stored, and the fire broke out again last month. An internal investigation by the Nikola safety and engineering team indicates that a single supplier component in the battery pack may be the source of coolant leakage. On Aug. 11, Nikolai asked his truck users and dealers to take immediate safety measures, including considering parking them outdoors.

In 2014, with the help of new energy vehicles, the 32-year-old Trevor Milton founded Nikola, known as Tesla of the car world, because Nikola and Tesla are the name of American inventor Nikola Tesla Tesla.

As we all know, Tesla is a world-renowned electric car manufacturer co-founded by Martin Eberhard and Mark Tapenning. The company was named "Tesla" in honor of physicist Nikola Tesla Tesla, while Trevor Milton named the company "Nikola" because Tesla was already famous in the electric car market at that time. It is worth mentioning that Nikola is mainly based on the development of hydrogen fuel cells and batteries as the power of new energy heavy trucks.

In 2016, Nikola held a press conference to launch its first hydrogen truck product, Nikola One. Trevor Milton paints a hype about Nikola One's technology, saying the hydrogen truck takes just 15 minutes on a single charge, runs more than 1000 miles on a single charge, and has zero emissions and no pollution. In the same day's press release, Trevor Milton said that Nikola has been ahead of other automakers in technology for 10-15 years, and boasts that it has surpassed Daimler, Volvo and other mainstream truck companies within 1-2 years.

Nikola is known as "Tesla of the car industry". With Trevor Milton's remarks, it has attracted commercial vehicle company WABCO, hydrogen energy equipment manufacturer Nel, photovoltaic manufacturer Hanwha and so on. These global giants not only reached strategic cooperation with Nikola, jointly carried out technology research and development, but also participated in financing.

After five years of development, an unsold Nikola has been successfully put on the market. On June 3, 2020, Nikola announced a merger with VectoIQ Acquisition Corp. Complete the merger to become the first stock of hydrogen energy heavy truck in the world. Three days after listing, Nikola's share price doubled, with a market capitalization of up to $34 billion, surpassing Ford, a century-old carmaker.

On September 8, 2020, Nikola ushered in another highlight moment when General Motors announced that it had reached a strategic cooperation with Nikola to obtain $2 billion of newly issued common shares of Nikola with equivalent non-cash assets. GM will own 11% of Nikola and can nominate a board member. Affected by the news, GM shares rose 7.93% on the day. Nikola shares soared 40.79%.

Only the other day, Nikola was hit on the head by the short seller. On Sept. 9, 2020, short seller Hindenburg Research released a scathing report on Nikola and its founders. The report points out that Nikola never developed hydrogen fuel technology and cashed out by forging a large number of orders. Even more bizarre, the agency pointed out that the Nikola One displayed by Nikola was not a truck because the car itself did not have power. Hindenburg said that in the official promotional video, Nikola One appears to be able to drive because it is placed on a hillside and glides down by gravity. Nikola made the car model look like it was speeding by adjusting the shooting angle and editing acceleration during the video shooting. Eventually, Nikola pleaded guilty to the charges, and founder Trevor Milton resigned on September 20, 2020.

On Aug. 4, Nikola announced a personnel reshuffle. Michael Lohscheller, the company's chief executive, decided to resign because of family health problems. Stephen Girsky, a former GM vice chairman, will take over from Nikola CEO. Girsky, who is currently chairman of Nikola, will become the company's fourth CEO. It is understood that Girsky used to be the head of a special purpose acquisition company, which acquired Nikola through a reverse merger in 2020. Nikola said that when Girsky is transferred to CEO, Steve Shindler, who joined the company's board in 2020, will become chairman.

It is also the fourth CEO,Nikola appointed by Nikola since its inception to try to address a series of challenges, including running out of cash reserves, supply chain restrictions and a shift to hydrogen fuel cell technology.

In addition to CEO's resignation, Nikola also released the latest financial data. Nikola reported revenue of $26.04 million in the first half of 2023, compared with $20.02 million in the same period, and a net loss of $387 million, compared with a net loss of $326 million in the same period a year earlier.

Currently, the company's shares are worth $1.965, with a total market capitalization of $1.52 billion.

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