2019 Gold & Silver Shovel Awards Project of the Year: Nikola Motor Corp. to Build Hydrogen-Electric Trucks in Arizona
The $1 billion Nikola assembly plant is helping to build Arizona’s future in the creation of new-technology vehicles.
by Steve Kaelble | Area Development
For those planning a new facility, it certainly makes sense to pick a place where others in the business are already operating. Industry clusters afford access to experienced labor, existing suppliers, and other support systems. But what if you’re in an industry so new and different a critical mass of activity hasn’t really emerged just yet? You begin with a clean slate and blaze a trail.
Such was the case with Nikola Motor Corp. Yes, its product is big trucks, and there certainly are places where lots of big trucks are already being built. But these are trucks of the future, propelled by cutting-edge hydrogen-electric technology. The company last year picked Arizona — a state without a long history of motor-vehicle assembly — for a billion-dollar assembly plant that’ll create 2,000 or more jobs. Arizona may not have a significant past in traditional auto assembly, but it is quickly building a future in creating new-technology vehicles.
“If you look at what’s happening in Arizona in this space, it’s starting to become ground zero,” says Tom Stringer, who leads the national Site Selection and Business Incentives practice with BDO, and who represented Nikola as a consultant. “This was an over year-and-a-half national selection process. We had very specific requirements, in an industry in its early stages of development.”
