Toronto, Ontario — In this weekly Tuesday Ticker, electric truck maker Nikola risks being delisted from NASDAQ while Ford and Tesla see an uptick in share price thanks to a Supercharged partnership.
Nikola could be nixed
Controversial electric truck maker Nikola is at risk of being delisted from NASDAQ, the company disclosed last Thursday in a regulatory filing.
The company received a delisting notice from the public exchange on May 24, the reason being that Nikola’s share price has remained under US$1 for more than 30 days. To keep its listing, the company must comply with NASDAQ’s minimum price rule (a share price of more than US$1 for 10 consecutive days) by November 20.
The company’s highest-ever share price is from June 19, 2020, when shares of Nikola closed at US$65.90 per share. Since then, shares have fallen 99 percent, trading at US$0.59 on Monday morning.
Nikola has long been the subject of controversy, dating back to September of 2020, when the company admitted a 2018 video of their semi-truck prototype cruising down a desert road was a hoax. Company founder Trevor Milton had portrayed the vehicle as fully functional when, in reality, it had been towed to the top of a shallow hill. The crew let the vehicle roll down the hill, allegedly tilting the camera to alter the perspectives.
Milton was the subject of later controversy for his construction of false statements allegedly made to drive up Nikola’s stock price. Damien Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Milton lied about “nearly all aspects of the business.”
In the meantime, Nikola is working to issue more shares, urging its shareholders to vote in a proposal that would allow Nikola to increase the number of shares of its stock.
All charged up
Shares of Ford jumped more than six percent last Friday after the automaker announced a deal that will see its cars outfitted with Tesla Supercharger-compatible charging ports.
The deal will give Ford drivers access to more than 12,000 Supercharger stations across North America, doubling the number of fast chargers available to Ford EV customers beginning in Spring 2024, said Ford in a press release. The OEM has more than 10,000 existing fast chargers in its BlueOval Charge Network.
A Tesla-developed adapter will provide Ford F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit vehicles fitted with the Combined Charging System (CCS) port access to Tesla’s V3 Superchargers. Ford will equip future EVs with the NACS charge port, removing the need for an adapter for direct access to Tesla Superchargers, starting in 2025.
Market analysts believe this move puts pressure on other OEMs with smaller charging networks and sparse access to fast chargers.
Without addressing any of Ford’s comments, General Motors said on Friday that it believes “open charging networks and standards are the best way to move forward to enable EV adoption across the industry.” Meanwhile, Ford is “totally committed” to a single U.S. charging protocol using the Tesla port.
“Working with Ford, and perhaps others, can make it the North American standard, I think that consumers will be all better for it,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last Thursday.
Tesla has previously discussed opening its private network to other electric vehicles, and American White House officials announced in February 2023 that the OEM had promised to open 7,500 of its charging stations to non-Tesla drivers by the end of 2024.
One Response
Soooooo… by this rationale in the ICE environment, select gas stations would only be applicable to select OEMs?
I have a Ford so I can only fill up at an approved Ford gas station?
Time for a little Government intervention here kids. Think about this.