Nikola Motors drags Tesla Semi by refunding all deposits

Nikola Motors, a company developing several electric vehicles, including a battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell semi truck, announced that it is refunding all deposits for reservations on its trucks and it took a swipe at Tesla in the process.

In its latest announcement, the company says that it is refunding all deposits for reservations on its trucks:

“Great news! All reservations will be refunded 100% and you won’t lose your place in line. We don’t use your money to operate our business. We want everyone to know we have never used a dollar of deposit money to operate the company on like other companies do. You can now reserve the Nikola One and Two at https://nikolamotor.com/without any deposits. Our support team will be reaching out to everyone to refund their deposits over the next 30-60 days. How awesome is that!!!!!! Over 8 billion in pre orders, so who needs deposits.”

The reference to “other companies” is undoubtedly a swipe at Tesla, which is taking $20,000 reservations for the Tesla Semi electric truck.

This is not the first time that companies have attacked Tesla over their reservation process. Nissan also criticized it in a series of ads in 2016.

The Nikola One and Two will reportedly be equipped a 320 kWh battery pack and a fuel cell system, which Bosch is helping design.

After launching the vehicle in 2016, Nikola claimed to have a backlog of 7,000 orders worth $2.3 billion. Now they have claimed that it increased to $8 billion over the last 2 years.

According to Electrek, Nikola Motor refunding the deposits could prove to be a mistake. Deposits tend to add value to a reservation. However, with Nikola Motor being a more recent startup, this could be their chance to gain credibility.