Nikola's shares

Hydrogen-fuelled truck start-up Nikola reported its quarterly results on Tuesday, posting a loss and halving its year-end delivery forecast to just 25-50 units.

Nikola (NKLA) is a developer and manufacturer of zero-emission battery-electric and hydrogen-electric vehicles.

Nikola's shares fell 8.7% on Tuesday following the release of its second-quarter 2021 financial report, but rose slightly, up 0.8% before the start of trading on Wednesday.

Overall, however, the chart for Nikola shares shows that the current price is close to when the company went public via the Nasdaq exchange.

However, two days after this news, 'short-selling' firm Hindenburg Research published a report that pointed to false claims about the company's technology, which misled partners and investors.

Amid the allegations, a US authorities investigation was launched, Nikola founder Trevor Milton was charged with three counts of criminal fraud for lying about "almost every aspect of the business" in order to boost sales of his company's shares.

Milton resigned in September 2020, but the company is still reeling from the reputational blow.

General Motors has dropped plans to acquire Nikola and is now making good and fast progress towards its goal of switching to electric vehicles.

Nikola's current business position at the end of the second quarter of 2021

Nikola on Tuesday reported a loss per share of -$0.20 for the second quarter of 2021 against a loss of -$0.16 in the same quarter a year ago, which was slightly better than Wall Street analysts' estimates of -$0.29.

Nikola is not yet generating revenues as its first trucks: two Tre BEVs and five Tre FCEV Alpha trucks are just being assembled at its plant in Coolidge, Arizona. In a report on Tuesday, the company said it is expanding the production capacity of its US plant and expects the expansion site to be completed by the end of 2021.

Nikola forecasts

• Delivery of pre-production Nikola Tre BEV vehicles for use on public roads to transport customer loads.
• Announce additional customers/dealers for fleet testing.
• Start construction of first commercial hydrogen plant and/or centralised hydrogen production.
• Announce additional partners in the hydrogen infrastructure/ecosystem.