Five Nikola electric trucks catch fire at Phoenix headquarters, company says ‘foul play suspected'

CNN

Nikola, a company that produces electric and hydrogen-powered trucks, tweeted on Friday morning that some of its semi trucks were damaged by a fire that broke out at the company's Phoenix headquarters.

The tweet stated that a vehicle had been seen near the trucks affected just before the incident. An investigation was underway.

CNN spoke to a Nikola spokesperson who said that more information will be released when it becomes available.

Captain Todd Keller of the Phoenix Fire Department said that the first fire report came in at around 4:30am MT. Keller stated that by 8:00 am Phoenix Time, firefighters were still spraying a lot of water onto the five trucks in an attempt to cool them down enough to be moved into large bins, where they would then be covered with sand and water.

It can be hard to control fires that involve electric vehicle batteries. Fires can re-ignite through chemical reactions due to the amount of energy that is stored in batteries.

Keller stated that the trucks were part of more than 30 vehicles stored in the headquarters building. Keller could not comment on whether arson was a possible factor until the Fire Department completed their investigation. This could take several days or weeks.

Nikola's stock dropped by about 8% in the late afternoon of Friday.

The company is currently asking shareholders to approve a reverse split of shares in order to increase the stock price. It currently stands at $1.30 per share. The company announced it is also cutting back on spending.

Hindenburg Research published a damning report on Nikola in 2020. The fund researches and shorts companies' stocks, then publishes reports pointing out their shortcomings. The report claimed, among other things that the company had overstated the progress of prototypes and the value some business deals. Nikola claimed that the accusations were false.