General Motors will take an 11% stake in EV startup Nikola, both companies announced today. The American giant will assist in the design and production of the Nikola Badger, a pick-up that will bring an entirely new drive concept to the market.
Nikola and General Motors will form a strategic partnership whereby GM will acquire 11% of the shares in Nikola for an amount of $ 2 billion and appoint a director within the startup. There is quite a lot in return: the company will help Nikola design, homologate and build the Badger, the electric pickup that Nikola announced at the beginning of this year. As a result, Nikola expects to save a whopping $ 5 billion in total, while the partnership offers General Motors an opportunity to further roll out its EV technology to the market. This mainly concerns the supply of battery packs and fuel cells for both passenger cars and trucks.
This therefore constitutes an apparently interesting agreement for both parties. The new Ultium battery technology from General Motors is particularly interesting for Nikola, who wants to make a pick-up from the Badger that can be equipped with both a battery pack and a fuel cell if desired. The specifications that the manufacturer previously released were very promising. For example, the Badger should have a peak power of 906 hp and 1,328 Nm of torque, which enables the pick-up to accelerate to 60 mph (96 km / h) in 2.9 seconds. The combination of the two electricity sources, the battery and the fuel cell, should theoretically allow a range of 965 km.
The Badger will be unveiled to the public at the Nikola World event in Arizona in early December. At the end of 2022, the production of the pick-up must then start at a location to be determined. It is not yet known whether the environmentally friendly pick-up will also make the crossing to our continent.