After months of behind the scenes talks, the announcement has been made: a new 1 million square-foot manufacturing plant for the Nikola Motors company is going to be built in Buckeye, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix.
The plant is expected to cost $1 billion to build and will be a facility outfitted with the latest high-tech advances in order to build Nikola’s much-awaited new semi-trucks.
Regarded by industry analysts as an obvious market for Tesla Motors, the Salt Lake City-based Nikola plans to introduce its own all-electric semi-truck, the Nikola One, next year as the next wave in the move away from diesel-powered trucks.
Nikola, which also builds electric vehicle drivetrains, energy storage systems, and hydrogen stations, will build its new facility on a currently vacant 500-acre site near the intersection of Sun Valley Parkway and the Wintersburg Parkway.
“Nikola Motor Company’s selection of Arizona demonstrates that we are leading the charge when it comes to attracting innovative, industry-disrupting companies,” Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said in a statement upon the announcement of Nikola’s building plans.
Plans call for Nikola to move its corporate office to Arizona later this year. Although an exact schedule for when work on the new facility will begin has not yet been announced, company officials have said that they would like to have the plant up and running by the latter part of 2019.
As a sign of the increasing competition between the two companies, Tesla Motors, founded in 2003, was named in honor of the legendary engineer Nikola Tesla, who created the alternating current power transmission, among other things.
Nikola Motors is also named in honor of Nikola Tesla.
By Garry Boulard
