The vote is “a must-win for the team at Nikola, to put it bluntly,” Jeff Osborne, a senior analyst, at TD Cowen, the American investment arm of Canada’s Toronto-Dominion Bank, told Automotive News.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Nikola CEO Michael Lohscheller hosted an online fireside chat with company stockholders last week to answer questions about the company’s plans for profitability and to convince them to vote for the share authorization proposal.
Nikola plans to focus its operations in North America with an emphasis on fuel cell trucks and its nascent hydrogen refueling business, HYLA, Lohscheller said.
Previously, Nikola had partnered with Italian commercial vehicle maker Iveco Group to market battery-electric trucks in the U.S. and Europe while it developed its fuel cell truck. The company ended a joint venture with Iveco to build battery-electric trucks in Europe in May. To raise cash, Nikola sold its stake in Iveco back to the company for $35 million. Iveco also purchased 20 million shares of Nikola.
Nikola is relying on California and federal environmental and vehicle incentives to sell its trucks and build a green hydrogen fueling network, Osborne said.
“The company needs the capital to move forward with the fuel cell variants of the Nikola Tre, which holds a great deal of promise,” Osborne said.
The extra shares would give Nikola the ability to raise capital to survive until 2024 and 2025 when it expects demands for its trucks to ramp up, Osborne said.
“The proverbial ‘hockey stick’ of potential demand is not until the back half of 2024 and into 2025, thus the need for capital to bridge that gap,” Osborne said.
