Skip to content

World Of EV

  • Home
    • Recently on Facebook
  • Blog
  • About
  • Privacy
May 9, 2018 / General News

Tesla Semi: Why Competitor Nikola is Suing for $2 Billion | Inverse

Tesla Semi: Why Competitor Nikola is Suing for $2 Billion | Inverse

Tesla is facing legal action from Nikola Motors over the design of its Semi electric truck, according to court documents published Tuesday. Nikola, a Salt Lake City-based startup, claims the design of its $375,000 hydrogen-powered One vehicle inspired the $150,000 Tesla Semi all-electric truck announced in November 2017. It claims that the company has been harmed by Tesla’s infringement in excess of $2 billion.

A Nikola Motors spokesperson tells Inverse that the company “has no formal comment since it is a pending legal case,” and that it is “protecting its intellectual property and the lawsuit speaks for itself.”

“It’s patently obvious there is no merit to this lawsuit,” a Tesla spokesperson tells Inverse.

The lawsuit claims Nikola sent a letter to Tesla on November 7, nine days before the unveiling, that the company identified patented design features and demanded Tesla to not unveil its truck. Nikola was quiet about this action in public, though — on November 15, the day before the unveiling, Milton told Inverse that the Tesla Semi would be “good for the industry, very bad for Tesla’s balance sheet and good for Nikola […] we are happy either way.” A series of deleted Twitter posts from a Nikola employee during Musk’s reveal criticized his claims of up to 500 miles range, suggesting 200 miles was more likely. Milton told Inverse after the reveal that “we look forward to Tesla’s fleet customers reporting their numbers from road testing,” and in a follow-up Twitter post, he mentioned that trucks “[take] countless hours to design and engineer.”

Very interesting truck @Tesla. Takes countless hours to design and engineer. Congrats on launching the truck @elonmusk . It's not easy. Be fun seeing the fleet tested numbers.

— Trevor Milton (@nikolatrevor) November 17, 2017

The court documents outline Nikola’s steps from filing a patent for its designs in December 2015, unveiling the design on May 9, 2016, and unveiling a live prototype to a crowd of 600 journalists at its headquarters on December 1, 2016. The company claims it received orders to the value of $4 billion, while Tesla’s June 2016 earnings report showed a loss of $272.6 million.

Nikola then references Musk’s Master Plan Part Deux, published on July 20, 2016, that announces an electric truck will be unveiled the following year. Tesla released a teaser image in April 2017 of the truck, with an unveiling planned for November. In the days after the unveiling at the Tesla Design Studio in Hawthorne, California, Tesla’s market share jumped $2 billion.

Nikola notes a number of design similarities in the documents including a wrap windshield, an aerodynamic look that enables a similar drag coefficient (0.37 for the One and 0.36 for the Semi) and a mid-entry door:

Mikola compares the Tesla Semi in court documents.

The court papers even document CEO Trevor Milton’s long-held ambition to revolutionize trucking, stating that “from childhood [he] wanted to revolutionize the trucking industry by decreasing the trucking industry’s reliance on fossil fuels.”

The news comes just days before Nikola Motors makes an announcement in New York:

May 3rd. Our CEO is off to New York for the announcement.

— Nikola Motor Company (@nikolamotor) April 26, 2018

The company stated in the court documents that it plans to move its headquarters to Arizona in July, spending $15 million to build a 130,000-square-foot building in Phoenix plus a million-square-foot manufacturing plant in Buckeye. The lawsuit, which demands a jury trial, has been filed with the United States District Court in Arizona.

The Tesla Semi is set to hit the roads next year, while the court documents claim the Nikola One will enter production in 2020.


If you liked this article, check out this video: “Three Times Elon Musk Failed Harder Than You Ever Will”

On – 02 May, 2018 By Mike Brown

Original article: https://www.inverse.com/article/44406-tesla-semi-nikola-suing

Post navigation

Previous Post:

Infiniti’s Electric Vehicles Will Have A Range Of At Least 311 Miles

Next Post:

Tesla police vehicles now going on patrol in Luxembourg

About WOEV

World Of EV is a news site related to Electric Vehicles in general, or green energy related news.

Search

Archives

  • May 2018 (27)
  • April 2018 (64)
  • March 2018 (8)
© 2019 World Of EV