This Tesla rival sees its $220,000 hypertruck hitting roads soon

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While Tesla CEO Elon Musk is tweeting away on bitcoin — and signing off on buying the crypto for the EV maker's balance sheet — Hyliion (HYLN) founder Thomas Healy is head down in getting his $220,000 electric powertrain semitruck to market.

Healy tells Yahoo Finance Live the truck — dubbed the Hypertruck ERX that reportedly gets 1,300 miles on a single charge — could soon find its way to roads soon.

"The hypertruck is going to be coming to market next year. Later year this year, we are going to start delivering demo trucks to fleets and then next year, starting commercialization," Healy said.

Hyliion shares popped about 4% on Healy's disclosure.

Healy founded Hyliion in 2015, and it came to public markets in October 2020 after merging with a SPAC. The company is focused on developing the power plants for semitrucks, and has created both all-electric (the ERX) and hybrid-electric technologies.

The Hypertruck ERX is able to charge the batteries that power the electric motor via an onboard generator, which is fed by renewable natural gas. Last month Hyliion disclosed a battery breakthrough of its own, saying it developed a new battery that could be fully charged in eight minutes. In late February it chose trucking veteran Peterbilt as the chassis supplier for testing of the ERX.

Said Healy of the Peterbilt deal, "It's a faster way to get to market that fleets already know and love as opposed to us trying to revolutionize a brand new chassis."

To be sure, Healy and his team have to be looking over their shoulders.

Tesla's flashy class 8 truck known as the Tesla Semi hit delays earlier this year, with Musk saying the truck won't see mass production until the company could make its own batteries. Even still, the company said it will look to deliver its first Semi by the end of 2021. It's expected to cost about $200,000 and get up to 500 miles on a single charge.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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