Nikola Corporation (NASDAQ: NKLA) reported positive earnings for Q1 2022, beating Wall Street estimates in EPS and revenue. Shares of the automaker’s stock jumped over 4 percent on the news, which also included a growing order sheet for its all-electric Tre battery-electric semi-truck.
Nikola reported an Adjusted Loss Per Share of 21 cents, which beat Wall Street consensus estimates of 27 cents per share. Additionally, Nikola reported revenue of $1.9 million, beating Wall Street predictions of about $100,000, Refinitiv said.
“During the first quarter, we reached a significant milestone with the start of serial production for the Nikola Tre BEV at our Coolidge, Arizona manufacturing facility and are currently delivering saleable trucks to dealers for customer deliveries,” Nikola CEO Mark Russell said. “We look forward to scaling production and delivering 300 – 500 production vehicles to customers this year.”
Nikola said the final 10 units of a 40-unit fleet of pre-series Tre BEVs came off of production lines at the automaker’s Coolidge, Arizona production facility in Q1. Production of the Tre officially began on March 21, and Nikola began shipping saleable Tre units to dealers in April as deliveries began. So far, Nikola has received POs, LOIs, and MOUs for a total of 510 Tre BEV units, it said.
Nikola’s Coolidge Manufacturing Facility is also well underway with Phase 1 completed, giving the automaker a production capacity of 2,500 trucks thus far. Phase 2 expansion has already begun and is expected to be completed in 2023. The Phase 2 portion of the facility will provide a production capacity of 20,000 trucks per year on two shifts.
Earlier this week, Nikola announced a $200 million investment from funds advised by Antara Capital. The investment is a senior unsecured note bearing interest of 8 percent if paid back in cash, and 11 percent if paid back by the issuance of additional notes. The company expects the notes to mature in May 2026.
Nikola’s impressive quarter is a quick turnaround from what the company experienced in 2021. Nikola’s founder and former CEO Trevor Milton was indicted on several counts of fraud last year by the SEC, and Nikola seemed to be on a spiral downward following a scathing report from Hindenburg Research. Nikola admitted it fabricated the capabilities of some of its products, and Milton had misled investors about the company’s forecast and capabilities. Since then, Nikola has slowly climbed its way back to relevance in the EV sector.
Nikola shares were up 3.82 percent at the time of publishing at 2:13 PM in New York.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is not a NKLA Shareholder.
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