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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

#71

Post by immibis »

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...

Reality has a surprising amount of detail: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-...

I have no doubt it's entirely possible to make an electric truck, but you still have to spend a year in the trenches actually doing it and solving all the little design problems before you have something to show off.

Especially if you weren't previously making ICE trucks. Then you have to learn how to make a truck from scratch, instead of just the new electric parts. You can of course buy an ICE truck and convert it for your prototype, which I think is what Edison Motors did, but then you'll be showing off a rusty old truck that won't get any venture capital or journalist attention because it's nowhere near shiny enough.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#72

Post by stickfigure »

kjs3 wrote: post #34
fullshark wrote: post #2

Briefly more valuable than the ford motor company. SPACs were borderline criminal enterprises, though this one was outright criminal.

And yet...just watch all the people who will think because they raised $700m that they're a success to be emulated. People still fervently defend Elizabeth Holmes.

> People still fervently defend Elizabeth Holmes.

Dozens!

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#74

Post by dismalaf »

SoftTalker wrote: post #56
dismalaf wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There were literally electric cars 140 years ago. Getting enough energy density in a battery is a definite technological problem that's difficult, but making a car move with an electric motor isn't.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#75

Post by fransje26 »

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.

> Can you point me to one single example of "a founder being celebrated on this website for 'epic demo hacks' that are fraudulent"?

Something, something [..] bulletproof Cybertruck [..]

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#76

Post by dismalaf »

ggreer wrote: post #52
dismalaf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Electrolysis is actually around 80% efficient. The main issue is infrastructure, you're right about that.

But the comment I initially responded to said there's energy loss as though that's not the case with literally every type of energy storage.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#77

Post by sofixa »

andix wrote: post #24

If somebody is interested in how the Nikola Trucks drive, there is a great YouTube channel from a German truck driver, that drives the European version (IVECO) of the Nikola truck on a daily basis across Europe. https://www.youtube.com/@electrictrucker German channel: https://www.youtube.com/@elektrotrucker

> the European version (IVECO) of the Nikola truck on a daily basis across Europe

That's a wildly misleading way of wording that.

Iveco make trucks and vans and buses. Nikola bought some of them and rebadged them and tried to pass them off as their own revolutionary prototypes. There's a YouTuber driving the real thing, which is entirely unrelated to Nikola in any way.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#78

Post by sofixa »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #57
pbronez wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> are there Nikola trucks on the road right now

Importantly, under their own power, and not going downhill.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#79

Post by sofixa »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #47
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…

I wish I could upvote this twice. I grow so tired of people simping for hydrogen when batteries just win in every metric aside from the initial build cost, which when amortized over the life of the battery, will beat out hydrogen. On top of the storage problems, and the problems of the energy needed to create the hydrogen, you then have to have a massive hydrogen distribution network that's on par with the current ga…

> I grow so tired of people simping for hydrogen when batteries just win in every metric aside from the initial build cost, which when amortized over the life of the battery, will beat out hydrogen

Batteries suck in energy density and weight and in some cases, that really matters. Battery electric planes are not even close to being feasible other than for very small in size and range planes. Hydrogen is at least feasible.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#80

Post by huijzer »

belorn wrote: post #61
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…

Green hydrogen as a power source was and still is the primary plan in the Germany green party program in order to solve the grid-scale battery issue, and was the primary argument in EU when they defined natural gas as a green transition solution. Are you saying that this strategy was the natural gas industry all along, and that green hydrogen in grid-scale size is unlikely to solve the problem of climate change?

The fact is that we are now years and years into hydrogen and we still have (almost) nothing to show for it. The number of electric cars and trucks vastly outnumbers the number of hydrogen cars and trucks. So the hydrogen people moved on to factories. But with the history of cars and trucks in mind, it will probably lead to nothing too. Also note that all hydrogen cars and trucks are funded by subsidies and still they one by one go out of favor. It just appears that it doesn't work. It's probably time to call it a day by now.
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