Shares of embattled electrical truck producer Nikola surged throughout early buying and selling Thursday after the corporate reconfirmed production targets and introduced a restricted collaboration on hydrogen fueling stations with TravelCenters of America.

The plans embrace putting in hydrogen fueling stations for heavy-duty vans at two websites in California for TravelCenters of America, which is the biggest publicly traded firm that runs full-service journey facilities within the U.S. The preliminary stations are “a primary step for the events to discover the mutual growth of a nationwide community,” in line with Nikola.

Shares of Nikola seesawed in Thursday morning buying and selling, hovering by greater than 21% after board member Jeffrey Ubben informed CNBC the corporate is “just about on goal” relating to its production plans.

Most notably, buyer production of its first semitruck, a battery-electric automobile referred to as the Nikola Tre, starting in Europe within the fourth quarter, adopted by a plant in Arizona coming on-line to supply the automobile in 2022.

“We’re checking bins,” he stated on “Squawk on the Street.” “There’s great momentum right here. The workforce is head down right here. That’s all I can say.”

Nikola inventory was buying and selling at at $12.20 a share as of 10:55 a.m., up about 18%. The shares, which as soon as traded as excessive as $93.99, fell beneath $10 earlier within the week for the primary time because the firm went public through a reverse merger with a particular function acquisition firm, or SPAC, in June. Nikola, which was briefly valued greater than Ford Motor final 12 months, now has a market worth of lower than $four billion.

The collaboration between Nikola and TravelCenters of America is topic to negotiations and execution of a definitive deal agreed upon by each firms, in line with a press launch.

“The key right here actually is to have this built-in resolution,” Ubben stated. “The hydrogen stations and the fuel cell truck.”

Hydrogen fuel cell electrical automobiles are seen as a long-range resolution for the trucking trade, which is trying to maneuver away from diesel-powered vans. They function much like battery-electric vehicles however are powered by electrical energy generated from hydrogen and oxygen as an alternative of pure batteries.

FCEVs are also faster to fuel than battery-electric automobiles, which the automotive and trucking industries are also exploring for shorter journeys. But in addition they function lots of the identical hurdles akin to greater prices and charging/fueling infrastructure.

In a separate vote of confidence for hydrogen fuel cell expertise, international auto provider Bosch introduced plans Thursday to speculate 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) within the expertise by 2024. The Germany-based firm believes the marketplace for hydrogen in Europe will likely be value nearly 40 billion euros ($48.2 billion) by 2030 – with annual development charges of 65%.