Company CEO Lohscheller views the Canadian market as one of the most promising in the world.
Michael Lohscheller, CEO of Nikola Corporation has said that he feels Canada is among the most promising markets in the world for the company’s hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
Nikola is now working to have its vehicles on Canadian roads before the end of next year.
Nikola has already begun demonstrations of its tech in the Canadian province of Alberta as a part of a collaboration with the Alberta Motor Transport Association (AMTA), and has also partnered with TC Energy from that province, in order to begin the installation of fueling stations for its hydrogen fuel trucks
“It is our intention to bring the trucks as soon as possible to Canada,” said Lohscheller as quoted in a recent TruckNews.com report. “It’s a very big market. Similar to Europe. There is a lot of support and incentive money, but more importantly an understanding and mindset that decarbonization needs to happen. Sometimes in the U.S. it’s like, alright, we need to do that. But in Canada and Europe people really pay attention to this topic.”
Nikola views the Canadian fuel cell trucks market as being similar to Germany in several ways.
According to Lohscheller, there are a number of areas in which the Canadian and German markets are quite similar, particularly where the potential for fuel cell trucks running on hydrogen as a replacement for diesel in the transportation industry is concerned.
“I see Nikola’s key markets as the U.S. – West Coast and East Coast primarily – and Canada and Europe and in Europe, primarily Germany. So Canada is really important to us,” explained Lohscheller.
“People always think we are a truck company but maybe we’re actually an energy company with a truck division once you have it all set up,” he added. “The infrastructure is probably more important than the truck itself. What’s why we try to think the other way around in terms of hydrogen.”
