Nikola Wins Research Grant From DOE

Scandal-plagued electrical truck maker Nikola declared Thursday that it won a $2 million grant from the U.S. Vitality Office to create hydrogen refueling technologies.

The grant was formally awarded July seven — three weeks prior to Nikola founder Trevor Milton was indicted on three counts of criminal fraud for lying about “nearly all features of the business” to strengthen the startup’s inventory revenue.

“Even prior to the indictment, the looming authorized complications were very well identified as the corporation disclosed it experienced been given subpoenas from both the Justice Office and the Securities and Trade Commission,” CNN observed.

Nikola said the grant was for advancing its investigation into autonomous refueling technologies for upcoming hydrogen fueling stations. Some of the electrical vans Nikola is producing would be run by hefty responsibility hydrogen gas cells.

“This funding is important to progress essential hydrogen fueling technologies that can boost the total efficiency of gas-mobile commercial automobiles, even though sustaining the protection and reliability requirements necessary,” Pablo Koziner, who prospects Nikola’s hydrogen fueling small business, said in a information launch.

Milton was pressured to resign as Nikola’s govt chairman in September 2020 immediately after brief-seller Hindenburg Research alleged the corporation was “an intricate fraud constructed on dozens of lies in excess of the program of [Milton’s] profession.” Nikola admitted in a submitting previously this calendar year that an inner investigation showed Milton experienced deceived buyers.

In reaction to the grant award, Hindenburg observed that Milton’s indictment quoted him as indicating that “Nikola was creating hydrogen and was executing so at a lessened price, when [he] realized that in fact no hydrogen was being generated at all by Nikola, at any price.”

The brief-seller extra that it uncertainties “a $2 million grant will enable change that lie into a fact.”

According to The Verge, the grant will come at a time when the Vitality Office “is having prepared to ramp up funding activity to enable progress the United States’ progress of clean strength technologies — a priority under President Biden.”

The section “makes funding awards dependent on a arduous, merit-dependent critique method that includes multiple know-how gurus examining apps,” it said Thursday.

Office of Vitality, electrical vans, grants, hydrogen refueling, Nikola, Trevor Milton