• Nikola Motor Company (Nikola), a developer of heavy-duty battery electric vehicles (BEV) and fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV), has signed a letter of intent with Saia LTL Freight (Saia), a less-than-truckload (LTL) company, to supply or lease 100 “Nikola Tre” BEV trucks, depending on the success of demonstrations.

• The company expects to deliver the trucks over 2022–2024, with an initial target of 25 trucks for this year.

• The demonstration program will begin in H1 2022, using three trucks at separate Saia locations.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Yesterday, Nikola announced a similar deal with USA Truck to supply 10 BEV trucks with the option for the latter to purchase 90 more, enhancing Nikola’s growing BEV order book. Other recent pre-orders include agreements with Heniff Transportation Systems (December 2021), Hamburg Port Authority (September 2021), Tri-Eagles Sales (October 2021) , and Total Transportation (May 2021), with these alone adding up to at most 165 BEV trucks. The company also commenced delivering its BEV trucks to customers in December. </ul>