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This is being discussed on Sheppard's AeroTruck thread.
The technical issues of a gas turbine charging a battery pack is questionable from an efficiency standpoint. It does allow a small and light weight power pack to charge a very large battery pack. But, does a gas turbine which has near double the fuel consumption on a mass/power/time scale of a modern diesel engine have the ability to haul 80K pounds of freight the stated 1200 miles without plug in charging? I really don't think so. Some simple math doesn't think so.
One interesting claim from the Nikola website is their procurement of natural gas wells to provide 1 million miles of free fuel to the first 5000 buyers. This would certainly offset their premium cost over current top Class 8 tractors.
I feel Sheppard's approach is far more practical now and in the near future. If you take the AeroTruck and use a smaller 11-12 L diesel engine with a reasonable electric boosting drive, you get the best of both worlds in that you can cruise on diesel engine power alone in flats and low loads and still have excess stored power to drive uphills with the ability to regain some of that energy on the downhills. Such a truck could happen NOW.
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