The long-term outlook for Nikola is looking a little less positive this morning after the cancellation of one of their biggest contracts.
In August Nikola announced an order from Republic Services for a minimum of 2,500 electric garbage trucks, calling it a “landmark deal.” The contract had an option to expand the order to 5,000 units, with production initially expected to begin in 2022.
This morning the companies announced that they have decided to jointly end the partnership because of “new technologies and design concepts would result in longer than expected development time, and unexpected costs.”
This is just the latest setback for Nikola after a report from Hindenburg Research alleged massive fraud, questioning whether the company had any proprietary technology at all.
Last month General Motors announced it was also pulling out of a deal with Nikola that was at one point worth an estimated $2 billion. That all but ended the Nikola Badger pickup truck before a prototype was even produced.
Shares of Nikola (NKLA) were down sharply in early morning trading after the news was announced.
