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Tesla Semi rival Nikola targets $1B financing round amid $380M worth of new truck orders
As the company prepares to unveil working prototypes of its hydrogen-electric trucks next year, trucking startup Nikola Motor has announced that it recently completed an “oversubscribed” Series C funding round, which began last August. In a statement on Twitter, the company noted that it had received an additional $105 million from investors, bringing the total Series C funding round financing to over $205 million.
Nikola CEO and founder Trevor Milton noted in a statement to trucking publication Freightwaves that the company’s initial goal for its Series C funding round was $150 million. Inasmuch as its recent financing round was successful, though, Milton stated that the startup’s target next year would be even bigger — a $1 billion round that would likely start in the first quarter of 2019.
“It’s primarily for prepping the truck for full production. We’re going to start a $1B round in the first quarter of next year. It usually takes around 4-5 months to complete a round that big and that will go to the factory and everything else,” Milton said.
@nikolamotor has oversubscribed its C round financing at $1.1BB pre money valuation. This week we closed and received an additional $105MM bringing the total C round financing to over $205MM.
— Nikola Corporation (@nikolamotor) November 14, 2018
Nikola expects to break ground for its Arizona-based factory sometime next year. Milton notes that the facility would be tasked with manufacturing the company’s Nikola One sleeper and Nikola Two daycab once the vehicles are ready to enter production. Over the next six years, the trucking startup expects to spend about $6 billion to develop the facility. The $1 billion funding round for 2019 is expected to allow the company to deploy working units of its vehicles on US roads.
“The year 2019 is going to be a pretty amazing year because you are going to see all the products out on the road. The biggest criticism is when are you going to have trucks on the road? We’re really trying to help the industry, and you can’t do that if the truck can’t pull a load,” Milton said.
With its Series C funding completed, Nikola is now dedicating its efforts to its upcoming Nikola World 2019 exhibition, which is set to unveil a working prototype of the Nikola Two. A sample unit of the Nikola Tre, a new truck the company announced for the European and Australian markets, would also be available in the event.
While Nikola’s vehicles boast excellent specs, the company would have to establish a network of hydrogen refueling stations across the United States and Europe for its trucks to become a viable alternative to diesel-powered trucks. That said, the company has stated that it would have hydrogen coverage in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia by 2028. Within that timeframe, Nikola has announced that it would become America’s “largest energy consumer.”
For now, though, Nikola Motor remains optimistic, announcing that the Tre, its truck for the European and Australian market, has received $380 million worth of orders within the first five days since it was announced. The company also plans to start building its hydrogen network in 2020.
The United States’ trucking industry is ripe for disruption. Thus, vehicles form upstart companies such as Nikola and trucks from established electric car makers such as Tesla would likely accelerate the transition of the long-haul industry into the zero-emissions era. Considering the progress of the companies so far, though, the Tesla Semi, which is currently undergoing testing and expected to “earnestly” begin production sometime in 2020, would likely be saturating the market by the time Nikola’s hydrogen-electric trucks start rolling off the production line.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
