Via its HYLA brand, Nikola Corporation has announced the results of its battery pack preliminary investigations and as a precautionary measure has also announced a voluntary recall of about 209 of its Class 8 Tre battery electric trucks.
The company started the filing process for the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Nikola has begun filing the recall of its battery electric trucks with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and has placed a temporary hold on the sale of those new vehicles until it has found a resolution to the issue identified in the battery pack investigations.
The company’s decision will have no impact on the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle production and infrastructure building. Those vehicles have a different battery pack design from the vehicles that are being voluntarily recalled.
The decision was made in response to a presentation made on August 10 by Exponent, a reputable third-party investigator. In that presentation, Exponent identified preliminary findings in which a single battery pack was found to have a coolant leak and was likely the cause of a vehicle fire at Nikola’s headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona on June 23, 2023.
The findings of that preliminary investigation were further supported by a small thermal incident that affected one pack on an engineering validation vehicle parked at the Nikola plant in Coolidge, Arizona on August 10. Neither incident led to any injuries.
Nikola conducted internal investigations into the electric trucks issue regarding coolant leaks.
The company’s safety and engineering teams were able to identify a single supplier component with the battery pack as the coolant leak’s likely source. It is already making efforts to provide a fix soon.
Tips for recalled vehicles
The recalled Tre BEV electric trucks can continue to operate, but Nikola’s team is encouraging that for optimal performance and safety, the following steps should be taken by customers and dealers alike, starting right away:
Always keep the Main Battery Disconnect (MBD) switch in the “ON” position.
When possible, park vehicles outdoors to improve connectivity with Fleet Command and for over-the-air updates.
