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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

#91

Post by standeven »

hot_gril wrote: post #40
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…

There are a lot of hydrogen vehicles on the road already, especially buses.

Where?

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#92

Post by hot_gril »

standeven wrote: post #91
hot_gril wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of hydrogen vehicles on the road already, especially buses.

Where?

Uh nvm, a lot of the ones I was thinking of are natural gas. The hydrogen ones are mostly in China.

I've also seen many Toyota Mirais on the road in California, but turns out their sales are poor nowadays.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#93

Post by mschuster91 »

MadnessASAP wrote: post #43
mschuster91 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It certainly does not! (At least, not in any meaningful sense). The problem is, there are applications that for the foreseeable future cannot be made to work on batteries - airplanes larger than bushcraft and large-scale maritime shipping (the large ocean liners carry upwards of a million gallons of fuel). Assuming we want to convert these away from fossil fuels - which we have to! - there are only two renewable al…

There are some enormous issues regarding hydrogen storage that will need to be resolved before it will be usable on aircraft. Pressure vessels are heavy, hydrogen is explosive, both of those are incompatible with aircraft.

That's why I said: "synthfuels made from hydrogen and sequestered CO2 as base chemicals."

You need to combine the hydrogen and CO2 into methane and from that into longer-chain liquid hydrocarbons, and that process is complex and energy-intensive even if you use microbes for the job.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#94

Post by AbstractH24 »

soneca wrote: post #29
perihelions wrote: post #17

A sample of old HN threads (this one's the origin of the "HTML5 supercomputer" classic), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24436721 ( "Nikola: How to Parlay an Ocean of Lies into a Partnership with GM (hindenburgresearch.com)" (2020), 414 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473231 ( "Nikola admits prototype was rolling downhill in promotional video (arstechnica.com)" (2020), 248 comments) https://news…

There is also this older one (when they launched?): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11683508 To give HN credit, the overwhelming sentiment at the time is that this was a very suspicious and scammy endeavor already right at launch.

So what companies is HN calling out in 2025?

Wondering who I should expect to collapse in 2030.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#95

Post by GJim »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #89
sofixa wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 feas…

I challenge the assertion that hydrogen is feasible. Is hydrogen more energy dense (in either energy per unit volume OR per unit weight) than traditional fuels? It might be better than batteries, but I'd be surprised if it was any better than current fuels.

> Is hydrogen more energy dense ... than traditional fuels

Chemically, yes. But in reality, very far from it.

The bulky high pressure cylinders needed to store the gas (unlike propane etc, it doesn't liquify) easily weigh an order of magnitude more than the mass of gas they contain.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#96

Post by andix »

sofixa wrote: post #77
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.

Thanks for pointing that out, I don't know a lot about Nikola and the Icevo partnership. The YouTube channel is still worth watching.

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#97

Post by kjs3 »

miztrskinnr wrote: post #44
kjs3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They achieved the tallest of orders; made line go up!

Well, yes, there was a product that never worked, and conviction + prison sentencing for fraud, and the bankruptcy, and out of work workers and shafted suppliers...but we shouldn't let that detract from the positive!

Re: Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

#98

Post by MadnessASAP »

mschuster91 wrote: post #93
MadnessASAP wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some enormous issues regarding hydrogen storage that will need to be resolved before it will be usable on aircraft. Pressure vessels are heavy, hydrogen is explosive, both of those are incompatible with aircraft.

That's why I said: "synthfuels made from hydrogen and sequestered CO2 as base chemicals." You need to combine the hydrogen and CO2 into methane and from that into longer-chain liquid hydrocarbons, and that process is complex and energy-intensive even if you use microbes for the job.

Ohhhh.... That is what you said, apologies. Yes I'm all aboard the synthetic fuels train so long as it remains carbon neutral and can run at some reasonable degree of efficiency. Or we figure out how to make enormous amounts of power in a renewable and cheap manner.
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