Nikola Motor, a start-up company which ventured into developing electric long-haul trucks, has partnered with Bosch to develop commercial vehicle powertrain.
The partnership will help in bringing to market fuel cell and commercial vehicle eAxle for Nikola’s class 8 hydrogen-electric range of trucks.
Nikola Motor plans to launch its Nikola One and Two, class 8 hydrogen-electric truck lineup by 2021. The trucks are claimed to deliver more than 1000hp and 2000 ft/lbs of torque, which is nearly double the horsepower compared to an average semi-truck on the road, with zero emissions.
The start-up’s truck lineup includes a new commercial vehicle powertrain, which was the result of the partnership between Nikola Motor and Bosch. They claimed to have designed and developed the powertrain from ground up.
Bosch board of management member and Commercial Vehicle Organization head Markus Heyn said: "Bosch is an incubator of electromobility solutions. No matter whether at established OEMs or start-ups, Bosch is accelerating development and helps achieve fast breakthroughs on the market."
“Breakthrough mobility technology requires visionary targets, speed to-market and disciplined structure to ensure long-term success.
"Together with Nikola we are pushing ourselves to realize new levels of technological achievement and market penetration."
Bosch claims that its eAxle is a scalable, modular platform, where the motor, power electronics and transmission are all packed inside a compact unit. This makes it ideal for vehicles ranging from small passenger cars to light trucks. By using this eAxle technology, Nikola aims to commercialise the first dual-motor commercial vehicle eAxle for its line up of long-haul trucks.
As per the German automotive spare parts company, its eAxle will prove to be useful on a commercial electric vehicle. The technology vision of Nikola and integration expertise from Bosch can help push the trucks in realising unprecedented targets in e-machine efficiency.
Nikola founder and CEO Trevor Milton said: “We have been aggressively pursuing our goal of bringing the most advanced semi-truck ever built to market.
“The powertrain requires an innovative and flexible partner able to adapt quickly to the speed of our team. Bosch has empowered us to come to market quickly with automotive-grade hardware and software so our vision can become a reality.”
