Under the collaboration, the two companies will engage in vehicle testing and intend to purchase 100 Nikola Class 8 battery-electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles, according to an announcement released Thursday.
“The Nikola Tre trucks are exactly the type of zero-emission solution we need to be using at the port,” TTSI President Vic LaRosa said of the Nikola Tre FCEV trucks, which aim to travel up to 500 miles.
TTSI trucks run 18 to 20 hours a day, making the benefits of the Nikola portfolio a perfect match for TTSI’s needs, LaRosa added.
“The expected availability of the (Nikola Tre BEV, which was designed to haul for up to 350 miles) aligns with our desire to reach our sustainability goals quickly and the FCEV is ideal for longer-range applications,” he said. “Nikola’s value proposition of the truck and hydrogen fuel bundled together made this partnership even more appealing to our leadership team.”
The companies will begin with the testing of four trucks – two BEVs and two FCEVs – in the early half of 2022. If testing goes well and government funding is in place, the firms would move forward with 30 BEVs in 2022 and 70 FCEVs in 2023, the companies said.
“The drayage and port operations present an excellent use case for BEV and FCEV trucks where operational efficiency cannot be compromised,” said Jason Roycht, Nikola’s Global Head of FCEV business unit. “We hope to jointly demonstrate with TTSI the advantages of both technologies during vehicle trials at the port of Los Angeles/Long Beach. The planned conversion of the TTSI fleet over the next several years will provide a roadmap to implement zero-emission trucking that we hope many in Southern California will follow.”
