This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ second Autonomous and Electric Vehicles Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Building hydrogen fueling infrastructure from pipelines and electrolyzers to stations.
DETAILS: The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) promotes the production of low-carbon hydrogen, which is good news for Nikola Motor Corp., which wants to produce and sell the fuel for long-distance trucks in North America. Pablo Koziner talks about the IRA and the rest of Nikola’s lineup of projects, including electric trucks and how to charge them.
SPEAKER: Koziner is the president of Nikola Energy.
BIO: Koziner leads Nikola’s hydrogen fueling and battery charging business.
KEY QUOTES FROM KOZINER:
On the Inflation Reduction Act: “I think it’s a clear demonstration that the U.S. government, Congress and the Senate stand behind the investments in hydrogen that are required to bring higher levels of decarbonization into our energy infrastructure by providing tax credits, like the [clean] hydrogen production tax credit that could provide up to a benefit of $3 per kilogram of hydrogen.”
On embracing electric vehicles: “There’s a lot of work ahead as the market starts to embrace more electric vehicles. Today, we are highly reliant on grid power. Now, as you have more vehicles charging on the grid, that grid will create more demand and demand at different times of day. … And that’s something that ultimately we’re all going to be wrestling with.”
On thinking outside the box: “One of the best-kept secrets at Nikola is our people, who are passionate, highly innovative. And every day we come to work, and as we try and be a part of a growing industry, whether it be battery electric charging or the fuel cell trucks solution, we’re thinking [about the] customer in terms of how we can support early adoption, the reliability and uptime of products, and we understand it takes time to scale these solutions.”