Hopium, Nikola, Tevva, Nel announce key developments

Hopium, a French carmaker, has announced the registration of the first 1,000 pre-orders for the Hopium Māchina- a high-end hydrogen-powered sedan. With an announced price of €120,000, positioning the Māchina in the mid-luxury market, the closing of this operation represents an on-board turnover of €120 million anticipated by 2025, the expected delivery date of the vehicles. Pilot Olivier Lombard, Hopium’s founder and CEO, said, “By being the first to reserve their model, they have demonstrated their support for our project and their trust in hydrogen technology, the energy source of the future.”

Nikola Corp and Tumim Stone Capital LLC agreed on a 2^nd $300 million common stock equity line purchase agreement, allowing Nikola to issue ~$600 million of its common stock in aggregate to Tumim. This will provide Nikola with access to approximately $800 million of liquidity at the end of 2021 and will provide ample liquidity for Nikola to fund its planned operational milestones through the end of 2022, including the commercial delivery of BEV trucks as well as the start of road release and pilot testing of FCEV trucks. The shares will be issued at a 3% discount to the three-day forward volume-weighted average price from the date a purchase notice is issued. Since entering into the original equity line purchase agreement on 11^th June 2021, Nikola has issued approximately $47 million of common stock to Tumim. Nikola has no obligation to utilise either facility fully and will continue to consider other sources.

Tevva, Electric truck company, has unveiled the new Tevva Truck – the first British designed 7.5-tonne electric truck intended for mass production. It offers a range of up to 250 km in fully electric form or up to 500 km with its patented range extender technology REX, which has now been upgraded to use hydrogen fuel cells. The Tevva Truck will be manufactured in a brand-new facility in the London Thames Freeport area, close to central London and Europe. Production of the Tevva Truck is due to commence in July 2022. The facility is expected to begin manufacturing 3,000 trucks per year by 2023.

Nel Asa has also received a purchase order from the Community of cities Touraine Vallée de l’Indre (CCTVI) for a hydrogen fueling station (H2Station) used for light and heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles in the region of Tours, France. This will be the first hydrogen fueling station in the region. It is partly funded by the European Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking in the Cosmhyc-DEMO project and is scheduled to be operational by Q3 of 2022. The contract has a total value of approximately € 1,0 million and includes installation and commissioning. The station will be tested to power a hydrogen garbage truck acquired within the framework of the Interreg NWE program – Hector.