Nikola Starts Production on Battery Electric Tre Semi Truck

Hey, remember Nikola? You know, that electric semi truck company that looked ready to take the world by storm only to have its founder, accused of generally unacceptable business shenanigans, end up stepping down and later being charged with fraud? Well, Nikola's back, and according to a CNBC report Wednesday, its Tre electric truck is finally in production.

Nikola's original claim to fame was its hybrid fuel cell technology, which is cool, but the first run of Tre trucks isn't hydrogen-powered. Instead, they're fully battery-electric, with a range of around 350 miles. Nikola envisions them as being for short-haul use, such as in and around ports.

The company says it's fully settled all the claims that stemmed from its previous CEO, Trevor Milton, and is eager to distance itself from that. Whether it will be able to remains to be seen, but going into production on a truck that companies can buy is a good start.

While things are starting with battery-electric power exclusively, Nikola isn't giving up on hydrogen power. It plans to release a later, longer-range version of the Tre powered by hydrogen fuel cells. We'll be curious to see what those are used for, given the extremely limited nature of the hydrogen fueling network -- it's mostly just Southern California -- but the company estimates that the cruising range of that model will be around 500 miles.

Of course, with a name like Nikola and an electric semi truck, there will be comparisons to and its electric semi. That's fair, but right now, it looks like Nikola is ahead, since its truck is actually in production. We've seen delay after delay on Tesla's truck for years now, so who knows when it could actually hit the market.

We asked Nikola for comment but didn't hear back in time for publication.

Nikola's vehicles promise quite a bit

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Watch this: Inside the Nikola One hydrogen-electric semi-truck

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