Many of my readers are antiquated gentlemen of substance who spend their days in their oak paneled rooms, sipping on an estate pipe, and do not access the low world of social media to keep up to speed with current events. In case you’re one of those chaps, let me bring you up to speed on the recent events concerning Tesla wannabe start-up, Nikola — ticker NKLA.
The stock came public via SPAC and had been soaring up until a research firm uproariously named Hindenburg issued a scathing report, highlighting what might amount to be fraud by Nikola founder, “Trevor”, on a massive scale. I of course, like many of you, give Trevor the benefit of the doubt and look forward to his rebuttal.
Here are some of the Hindenburg highlights.
Trevor appointed his brother, Travis, as “Director of Hydrogen Production/Infrastructure” to oversee this critical part of the business. Travis’s prior experience appears to have largely consisted of pouring concrete driveways and doing subcontractor work in Hawaii. $NKLA pic.twitter.com/V3eLoguEZx
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) September 10, 2020
Our investigation of the site and text messages from a former employee reveal that the video was an elaborate ruse— $NKLA had the truck towed to the top of a hill on a remote stretch of road and simply filmed it rolling down the hill. pic.twitter.com/n2NLDGInzR
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) September 10, 2020
Claims of owning energy producing assets is not new for $NKLA.
Trevor claimed $NKLA’s HQ has 3.5 megawatts of solar panels on its roof producing energy. Aerial photos and later media reports show they don’t exist.https://t.co/mk53j8Xp0O pic.twitter.com/DEOcIYHk27
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) September 10, 2020
At one point $NKLA even claimed to own natural gas wells. There is no evidence in company filings that these ever existed.https://t.co/0RJpgtGe8O pic.twitter.com/jEcyb8vIlJ
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) September 10, 2020
We present behind-the-scenes photos showing that $NKLA had an electricity cable snaked up from underneath the stage into the truck in order to falsely claim the Nikola One’s electrical systems functioned. pic.twitter.com/mVhGuwrMtg
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) September 10, 2020
Trevor claims $NKLA designs all key components in-house, but they appear to simply be buying or licensing them from third-parties. One example is $NKLA’s claims about developing in-house inverters, a key truck component.https://t.co/NFjJq2iB1J pic.twitter.com/GJ40ym8PoA
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) September 10, 2020
The masking tape covers the inverter’s label, which would have made it clear who actually developed the component.
We asked Cascadia whether the part was custom-built or open to the public, and they confirmed it is generally available. pic.twitter.com/CQJ0CPUBIP
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) September 10, 2020
It goes on and on. The stock, as you could imagine, careened lower on this news and sent shockwaves throughout the burgeoning “EV community.” While the company has yet to officially respond, Trevor has been very active on social media and issued the following statements.
CEO OF $NKLA IS GOING TO CUT THE TESTICLES OFF FROM SHORT SELLERS NEXT WEEK pic.twitter.com/blcHeyTj8x
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) September 12, 2020
CEO OF $NKLA, TREVOR, HAS ADVICE FOR SHAREHOLDERS DURING THIS HARD TIME pic.twitter.com/aNYuXyLEcn
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) September 12, 2020
TREVOR FROM $NKLA HAS SOME CHOICE WORDS FOR SHORT SELLERS ATTACKING HIS HS GRADUATE ENGINEERS pic.twitter.com/nsb4SREjn7
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) September 12, 2020
So naturally people have been fucking with Trevor, tracking down where he is at all times, in the event he might want to seek refuge in Syria or some place without an extradition treaty with the United States.
.@nikolatrevor's jet took off from Phoenix 90 minutes ago$nkla pic.twitter.com/qIwmMxQabH
— F@&k the Haters (@evdefender) September 11, 2020
He even managed to chime in on this ongoing intrigue via Twitter.
Those are employees heading to Germany for the Nikola Tre trucks.. You know, the that were not suppose to exist according to the hit job. Lol. I'm in utah / Arizona for the weekend.
— Trevor Milton (@nikolatrevor) September 12, 2020
Next week should be an interesting one for shareholders of NKLA and NKLAW.
If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter
Okay, let us assume all of this is gospel truth….what does this say about GM?
GM that just announced a large stake/deal w/ NKLA.
Look for a sharp sell-off there too? (just put GM on my watch list)
What it says is that most people don’t realize that the vehicles you see in car shows are generally just colorful boxes that can’t drive.
As an example, when GM first announced the Chevy Volt, it looked radically different and the one at the show had no engine.
They didn’t have a working version until years later and the stats never quite reached their aspirations. So did GM commit fraud? Of course not.
Hell you could pin the same complaints on Musk. This shit is going nowhere.
Trevor poured a hydrogen-infused driveway for me last Fall. It looked great. He does nice work.
PS
Unfortunately, this summer while I was using my oxyturbo charcoaled grill the whole GD thing BTFU. No worries; I landed in the pool. Of course I did a massive cannonball upon entry, for kicks.
no idea whether NKLA is an out & out fraud as Hindenburg claims, but one thing is for sure, Trevor sure ain’t no Elon.
ELON’S WAY BETTER AT BEING A FRUAD. THIS GUY IS 2ND RATE AT BEST
Interesting.
Here is a link to an article from Friday in a very reputable online blog dedicated to EV vehicles. I agree with barbee above. If true, what does this say about GM. GM has an excellent history with their EVs in terms of quality and have agreements in place to supply the new Ultium batteries for Honda and others. But they may have screwed up here.
Kind of reminds me of a Canadian gold miner (Bre-X) that committed a 6 billion dollar fraud. The stock went from pennies to the $200+ range until their engineer committed suicide by jumping out of a helicopter.
https://electrek.co/2020/09/11/nikolas-nkla-house-of-card-crumbles-gm-nothing/
i bought a battery powered lawn mower. Lightweight, worked fine. Could mow the lawn at 7 am and not bother anyone all while saving the world. Then, after about 3 mowing seasons, the battery wouldn’t hold a charge all that well. I’d mow a bit, go do something else while re-charging battery, then finish the lawn. Finally, it only worked for about 5 minues. Easy solution – just buy a new battery. Wrong, the cost was prohibitive (about the same as a new mower). My question is, how long do these EV batteries last? Do you get 400 miles a charge, then after a few years only 300…250…212….finally nothing and have to replace? At what cost? Can I find these answers on the Tesla website? I’ll go look.
I’ll tell you what I know as I bought a 2020 Chevy Bolt back in January. It has an official rated 259 miles on a full charge but I get can get closer to 320 miles when weather is ideal and about 220 miles on a full charge when I am driving doing 70-75 mph with the AC on. Heat is the enemy of all batteries. However, the Bolt as is the Tesla has a liquid cooling of the batteries as it reaches a certain temp. Not all EVs have liquid cooling and rely on the AC flow or some like the Nissan Leaf has nothing.
The Bolt battery tech and Tesla have been around for a long time and the evidence is in that they can last for 300-500 miles with only about a 10-20% degradation (much better than a gas engine).
Plus, they have what is known as one pedal driving and the car will slow down to a stop just by taking the foot off the accelerator. As it does the battery mileage is actually added as the energy is put back into the system. I have gone 20 miles in stop and go traffic and the battery mileage has actually stayed the same or gone up.
The bottom line is there will never be a need to replace an EV battery if it is properly liquid cooled.
I ment to say the batteries are known to last 300,000 to 500,000 miles with only about a 10-20% degradation. Much depends on how often it is fast charged, weather, etc.
Interesting- thanks. I chatted with Jeff on the Tesla website who informed me that even if there was degradation, changing a few “cells” may fix the problem (not an entire battery replacement). How do these EV’s do in cold northeastern winters? I know you can get AWD but do the interiors heat up quickly? Does the windshield defrost quickly? One car garage here and the wife gets it…….
I am positive the Model 3 has thermal battery management.
I live in Florida so it wouldn’t matter to me as much as the cooling aspect. My son bought a Model 3 and he lives in Oregon where it has some cold nights but it is garaged. Plus you will want to get a Level 2 type charger at home. I am not sure where you live geographically.
Your car will never need “cells” changed as you will be replacing the car well before then.
I suggest you go on the reddit forum and ask your questions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModel3/