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Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

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Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#51

Post by howlingfantods »

coliveira wrote: post #28
suraci wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMCI lost 60% after its auditor failed to audit and resigned after that, it roses 300% SMCI is also a target of hindenburg https://hindenburgresearch.com/smci/ before this, I didn't even know that a company that couldn't be audited could still be listed.

Auditing a company is not a normal procedure. Many companies, even in the S&P500, may have trouble during an audit. I remember there was a serious report about GE at one time, they decided to split the company as a response.

Public companies have to undergo a financial audit every year. If you’re referring to a tax audit from the IRS, then yes, those are rarer.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#52

Post by ggreer »

dismalaf wrote: post #35
GJim wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hydrogen has its place in our energy economy It certainly does not! (At least, not in any meaningful sense). A) How do you store it? Hydrogen does not compress to a liquid (except a cryogenic temperatures), meaning storage requires bulky, heavy and dangerous high pressure storage..... or cryo kit. B) Where do you get the hydrogen from? Electrolysis of water gives less hydrogen energy out than electrical energy you…

> Electrolysis of water gives less hydrogen energy out than electrical energy you put in.... This is literally all energy storage... Lithium-ion batteries lose about 10-20% during charging and another 5% during discharge. How do you figure any energy storage medium would give you more than 100% of the energy you put into it?

The efficiency of using electricity to split water, then compressing and transporting the hydrogen, then using that hydrogen in a fuel cell to power an electric motor, is much worse than using electricity to charge a battery to power an electric motor.

Also electricity is available almost everywhere. Hydrogen is only available at a few specialized fueling stations.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#54

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

bayesianbot wrote: post #6

I always wondered how it kept some value for a long time after the Hindenburg Research report[1]. To me, the report (and the CEO's empty response to it) made it clear there was pretty much no value in it, but the stock only lost 50% in the following week. [1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/

I totally agree. But it feels like, at least over the past 20ish years or so, that the increased "gambling-ification" of the stock market has made it so these events take longer to resolve (i.e it takes longer for the stock price to go to 0) even if all participants eventually think it will go to 0.

That is, even though the stock will (and, in this case, did) eventually go to 0 with very little statistical probably of an alternative, there is enough volatility in the interim that stock market participants are just playing that volatility in the short term (i.e. trying to time the market, trying to not be "bag holders" in WSB parlance) even if everyone knows in the long term it's going to 0.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#55

Post by dylan604 »

martinky24 wrote: post #23
DC-3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the natural extension of the startup ideology to non-software industries. How many times on this website have you seen 'founders' be celebrated for doing 'epic demo hacks' at least this fraudulent? How many tech startups achieve massive valuations with a broken product and a totally hypothetical pathway to profitability? It's easy to see through this showmanship when the product is a car. So why not when the pro…

Can you point me to one single example of "a founder being celebrated on this website for 'epic demo hacks' that are fraudulent"? Genuinely asking. Be sure that the fraud is obvious at the time of the post (and not in retrospect), is actively celebrated at the time.

You mean anyone that uses growth hacks? There have been many growth hack posts here. Pretty much every single start up has used some to attract investors.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#56

Post by SoftTalker »

dismalaf wrote: post #33
idontwantthis wrote: post #5

Remember when they rolled a car down hill because it couldn’t even drive?

How do you even make an electric car that can't drive? Electric drivetrains are way, way simpler than ICE ones...

No they aren't. We've been making ICE vehicles for 100 years. The drivetrains are well understood and don't present any technical hurdles. Especially in trucks. EV heavy trucks are still pretty uncharted territory.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#57

Post by TremendousJudge »

pbronez wrote: post #13
fohara wrote: post #8

Apparently some of the software in Nikola vehicles was written in Crystal [1]. [1] https://manas.tech/blog/2020/02/11/nikola-motor-company/

Interesting. That’s only the second time I’ve heard of crystal being used in production. The first is Kagi, which uses it in search query processing.

>in production

are there Nikola trucks on the road right now?

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#58

Post by faefox »

Me000 wrote: post #10
idontwantthis wrote: post #5

Remember when they rolled a car down hill because it couldn’t even drive?

Imagine if someone had said this about Tesla. They would have been swamped if wall of text responses. At least Nikola delivered what they promised.

Trevor, is that you?

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#59

Post by guywithahat »

kimbernator wrote: post #25
bayesianbot wrote: post #6

I always wondered how it kept some value for a long time after the Hindenburg Research report[1]. To me, the report (and the CEO's empty response to it) made it clear there was pretty much no value in it, but the stock only lost 50% in the following week. [1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/

It's almost like stock value and real value have been entirely decoupled

I mean they still had ~$50 million in cash on hand, plus some teams and prototypes. I certainly wouldn't have invested, but if you have $50 million, the potential to sell more stock, and a prototype there's still a lot you can do.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#60

Post by hot_gril »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54
bayesianbot wrote: post #6

I always wondered how it kept some value for a long time after the Hindenburg Research report[1]. To me, the report (and the CEO's empty response to it) made it clear there was pretty much no value in it, but the stock only lost 50% in the following week. [1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/

I totally agree. But it feels like, at least over the past 20ish years or so, that the increased "gambling-ification" of the stock market has made it so these events take longer to resolve (i.e it takes longer for the stock price to go to 0) even if all participants eventually think it will go to 0. That is, even though the stock will (and, in this case, did) eventually go to 0 with very little statistical probably o…

This one in particular was the perfect storm because it was an EV company during an EV bubble / govt subsidy frenzy, combined with the overall auto market being out of wack at the time, and pandemic-era extremely low rates.
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