Bill Hall left his job as a senior marine engineer at age 59, earned his CDL and started Coyote Container with two trucks and one trailer in Northern California.
Now he is among the first retail purchasers of a zero-emissions Nikola fuel cell electric truck.
Pragmatist or pioneer?
Hall sees himself as more of a pragmatist than a pioneer. He paid cash for a hydrogen fuel cell-powered Class 8 Tre after a $360,000 spiff from the California Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP). Hall did not disclose how much he paid for his truck.
“It [cost] me less than buying a [new] diesel drayage truck,” Hall told me in an interview this week. “It depends what you’re looking at. But different brands that would work for my use were in the $225,000 to $250,000 [range].”
Hall expects to put 40,000 to 50,000 miles a year on the Nikola Tre, driving it with loads anywhere in California that he would be able to refuel with hydrogen. So far, there are just a few stations capable of transferring 50 kilograms of super-chilled hydrogen gas into his truck.
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