Photo by Raquel Baranow  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

On Monday, Nikola stock (NKLA) dropped sharply after it was announced the electric commercial truck-maker would be recalling all 209 of its battery-electric trucks voluntarily due to a fire risk.

The company will also be halting sales temporarily of its Class 8 Tre battery electric trucks pending a resolution of the fire issue. For trucks which will remain in operation, the company is recommending the trucks be parked outside. Although the company’s Tre electric trucks cost roughly $300,000, they qualify for commercial EV tax credits.

The recall over the fire risk was precipitated by a fire at the company’s Arizona headquarters in June, which damaged multiple battery-electric trucks.

The company said at the time that it suspected “foul play,” however the Phoenix Fire Department investigation found no evidence of arson, and a separate investigation by the company’s own outside expert came to the same conclusion. The investigator concluded that a single battery pack with a coolant leak was the likely cause of the fire. The company’s engineering team further isolated the issue to a “single supplier component” within the battery pack which was the source of the coolant leak.

CEO Steve Girsky, who just assumed the position less than two weeks ago said in a statement, “At Nikola, we take safety very seriously. We stated from the beginning that as soon as our investigations were concluded we would provide an update, and we will continue our transparency as we learn more.”

The company says that out of the more than 3100 battery packs it has installed on trucks to date, only two have ever experienced the “thermal event” which triggered the fire. The company says its engineers are examining potential solutions to resolve the issue in the field, and should have some idea of what will need to be done over the coming weeks.

The company pointed out that the issue with coolant leaks will not affect the hydrogen fuel cell EVs the company presently has in production, as those vehicles use a different design in their battery packs.

The company has been focusing more lately on hydrogen fuel-cell trucks. Just recently the company announced it would be using fuel cell power modules manufactured by Bosch in its trucks. The company has also entered into an arrangement for hydrogen supply, and trucks, with hydrogen producer Bayotech.

The company had announced earlier this year that going forward, as it ramps up its hydrogen fuel-cell truck assembly lines, it would only be building its battery-electric trucks on a “build-to-order” basis.