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Courtesy Nicola
Oil companies may have something to say about the development of the American electric-vehicle industry. But this may not be what investors can expect.
Friday, the French energy giant
The total
(Ticker: TOT) announced an investment in Hyjon Motors, an American company that produces hydrogen fuel cell-powered heavy-duty trucks. If hydrogen-powered trucks are familiar, this is the reason
Nikola
(NKLA) also wishes to produce.
“Total ambition [is] Girish Nadkarni, CEO of Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures, said to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. “We are pleased to partner with Hazone, one of the major suppliers of hydrogen fuel cell powered commercial vehicles, and look forward to working closely with them while expanding our operations worldwide.”
Hyzon’s valuation is small. For example, Nicola has a market capitalization of about $ 9 billion.
Hyliion
(HYLN), another alternative-fuel trucking company supplying electric powertrains, valued at approximately $ 5 billion, based on approximately 162 million shares following the completion of the company’s SPAC merger.
Nevertheless, Hyzon plans to deliver 5,000 fuel cell trucks over the next three years and has sufficient capacity to deliver 40,000 vehicles a year by 2025.
Paccar
(PCAR), a major truck manufacturer, delivered around 200,000 trucks worldwide in 2019. Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne believes that Nikola will deliver about 9,000 fuel-cell-powered trucks in 2023 and 2024.
Nicola has also planned the capacity and construction of a hydrogen filling station, making its business model slightly different from other truck manufacturers.
Its stock may react to the news. Nicola shares are down 2.6% at $ 24.36 in recent trade.
S&P 500
And
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Are up 1% and 0.8% respectively.
More competition is coming for all alternative-fuel trucking start-ups, and some are also coming from the oil industry. It existed before the total announcement, but of course investors are not always aware of all the players investing in hydrogen and fuel cell technology. The alternative-fuel heavy-duty trucking industry is still in its infancy.
Improvement and amplification
Hyzon Motors is based in the US. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that it was based in France.
Write Al Root at [email protected]
.