General Motors Has ‘Nothing To Share’ About Rebooted Nikola Badger Pickup
The Nikola Badger electric pickup made a surprise reappearance this week, more than three years after it was shelved, when Sparks Motors owner Dave Sparks announced he had created a new company that acquired the rights to bring it to production.
The truck was announced by Nikola Motors in 2020, but the project paused amid a securities fraud controversy that struck the company and led to the conviction of founder Trevor Milton last year.
Sparks was involved in developing the prototypes, which the new business entity Ember now owns, and said he plans to finish the job and put it on sale.
THE NIKOLA BADGER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A 908 HORSEPOWER PICKUP
The prototypes are constructed from a combination of original parts fabricated by Nikola and off the shelf components, including its powertrain.
However, just before the project was paused, Milton and General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced that GM would build the truck on the Ultium electric vehicle platform used by the GMC Hummer EV in exchange for a stake in Nikola that was worth approximately $2 billion at the time. That deal fell apart when the project ended, but could it also be resurrected?
Sparks has not responded to an email request for comment from American Cars And Racing, but General Motors has.
“We have nothing to share at present,” a spokesman replied when asked if Ember had reached out about using the Ultium platform.
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Sparks didn’t offer any timeline for when a production Badger may come to fruition and made clear that there was no guarantee that it ever would, but said it won’t be sold under the Nikola brand name.
General Motors has slowed the rollout of its own electric vehicles, but is already providing the Ultium platform to another automaker.
The new Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX both use it, although they will be the only models that come from the partnership as Honda has announced it is developing a next-generation electric vehicle platform of its own that will debut by 2026.