Nikola Motor Company

n97 mini

Yeah, unoriginal name, I know.

I was following these guys around a year ago and was convinced they weren't going to last, but looking at their twitter etc now they seem to have secured a heap of funding (to the point where they refunded all vehicle deposits to prove they weren't using them for day to day cash) and some pretty large orders, including one for up to 800 trucks from Budweiser (not buying outright, but leasing at 90c per mile).

They are building trucks only (their concept was shown a good bit before the Tesla semi), powered by batteries of up to 1000kWh(!) for short runs (400 miles) and hydrogen fuel cells for trucks that need more range. They're building out 700 hydrogen filling stations, powered only by renewables, across the US, and have partnered with a Scandinavian company in Europe. Their Nikola Tre model is Europe specific.

They've also said on twitter that competitors can use their filling stations, and hydrogen will cost $6 per kg. (Toyota Mirai has a 5kg tank and a 500km range for comparison)

scooby77

Nikola seem to have made advances in battery technology aside from their hydrogen efforts. Not planning to make passenger vehicle themselves, but will share tech.
Story from USA Today:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/4247030002

unkel

Hydrogen is a mistake. From the link:

"Large, fully loaded electric trucks powered by Nikola's prototype battery could drive 800 miles between charges, while trucks powered by its new hydrogen-electric fuel cells could travel 1,000 miles between stops and can be refueled with hydrogen in 15 minutes."

Why on earth would you want to do more than 800 miles, what's the max any driver can do in a day before having to have a night rest? Even at a constant speed of 100km/h, never slowing down, that would mean 13 hours driving straight with no breaks. The 1000kWh battery could easily be fully charged when the driver sleeps overnight

Unless of course it's a 24/7 truck driven by multiple drivers. But that's hardly the norm.

n97 mini

Is that 800 wltp or nedc?

Trucks in the US can drive at the general speed limit which is 80mph in some states, 75 in others. 11 hours of driving is the max per driver per day. So 800 should cover 99.9% of use cases in theory. Throw in some mountains or head winds and that might change

ted1

unkel wrote: »

Why on earth would you want to do more than 800 miles, what's the max any driver can do in a day before having to have a night.

I guess is the goal is to have self driving trucks. They could go on and on..

n97 mini

Anyone get in on NKLA (or VTIQ) stock? Closed at €67 today. Happy to say I'm multiples up (so far).

Black_Knight

n97 mini wrote: »

Anyone get in on NKLA (or VTIQ) stock? Closed at €67 today. Happy to say I'm multiples up (so far).

Likely overvalued at the moment. Grand if you got in before the rise earlier this month though. When they start producing something it might earn it's valuation

unkel

n97 mini wrote: »

Anyone get in on NKLA (or VTIQ) stock? Closed at €67 today. Happy to say I'm multiples up (so far).

Nice one, fair play!

If I were in your positition I'd be tempted to sell and take the profit. Concensus is they are overhyped at the moment. Don't hold it against me though if you do that and they go further up

I bought Tesla at a very desperate point early last year and sold 5 months or so later for a near 50% profit. But we all know what happened to the share after Even during this (stock market) crisis, TSLA has just gone over a thousand dollars and stayed there.

n97 mini

Tesla's market cap today is $186 billion, Nikola is at $24 billion. I'd say there's room for NKLA to go higher, but I don't think that will happen till trucks start hitting the road. Although, Badger pre-orders start on June 29, and the share price will likely move up or down, depending on how well it goes.