Recently, Nikola Announces a $2 million DOE Grant after the Founder was Indictment. The hydrogen trucking startup Nikola announced that it won a two million grant from DOE. DOE is the popular acronym for the Department of Energy.
The Department of Energy announced the grants in July however, Nikola is promoting the news just two weeks after the founder and former chairman Trevor Milton was indicted for allegedly committing fraud. The grant from DOE was meant to help Nikola research autonomous refueling technologies for hydrogen refilling stations.
Nikola Announces a $2 million DOE Grant after the Founder was Indictment
The DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy transportation office was behind awarding the grant. The grant was issued as a part of the Department of Energy hydrogen and fuel cells R&D program. This program (the DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cells R&D program) is focused on providing the reliability and sustainability of using hydrogen as a zero-emissions power source.
Further News on the Topic
According to an article on The Verge, the Department of Energy grans comes at a time when the department is getting ready to ramp up funding activity to help advance the United States development of clean energy technologies (a priority under Joe Biden).
The first move made by one of Energy’s secretaries Jennifer Granholm after she was appointed was reviving the department’s loan program. This loan program has been largely dormant since the early Barrack Obama administration. New says that the program made a number of bets on clean energy startups in the aftermath of the recession that blew up in the administration’s face.
One of these bets was on the solar tech company Solyndra which went bankrupt after China dramatically drove down the cost of solar panels. They also made one of these bets on Fisker Automotive which went bankrupt after problems with its battery supplier.
Conclusion
Nikola has spent a lot of last year’s (2020) trying to rebound from Milton’s ousting of which came after he was accused of lying about the progress the startup had made by the time it went public. For more information, please see Nikola announces $2 million DOE grant after founder’s indictment – The Verge
