The Nikola startup should have left behind the Tesla itself: in just six years of existence, the company attracted investments from General Motors and other major corporations, its capitalization exceeded $ 20 billion. At the same time, Nikola did not even introduce a serial car, not to mention the shipments of transport to customers. Last September, the company and its founder were accused of deception, and the shares collapsed. Now investors sell their remaining securities, regulators conduct an investigation, and Nikola is trying to keep the face. Onliner studied the story of the "Tesla killer", which still looks not very dangerous for Ilona Mask.
Charismatic and punchy founder
Nikola's story should start with Milton's Trevor - Charismatic, as usual in startups, founder and head of the company. A person is of interest and sympathy among the public due to the classic biography in the Spirit "from nothing." The guy passed through personal problems (at an early age, his mother died), found the strength to launch a business - Upillar, something like a global marketer, like Amazon and eBay. In an interview with Forbes, Milton said that a month for Upillar came 80 million people. However, the company has ended with money, and it had to close it. According to the founder of the startup, he then lost absolutely all savings, including family accumulations.
Trevor Milton. Photo:
Then Milton returned to the case, interested in transport. This is how the dhybrid startup appeared on the conversion of diesel cars for work not only on diesel, but also on natural gas. The development segment was chosen corporate: contracts were concluded with transport companies. Total, according to Milton, Dhybrid signed documents for $ 100 million. But and here the businessman was not lucky: supposedly a major investor invested in Dhybrid and stole the intellectual property of the startup. As a result, this company had to close this company.
Experience with the transport sphere Milton decided to use in the new project. He realized that the freight industry remains rather back and needs to be modernized. So Milton opened the company Dhybrid Systems - she also worked with fuel, but the focus shifted to the storage systems of hydrogen and natural gas. Worthington Industries Corporating Dhyubrid Systems, which allowed Milton's Trevor to make a new project on hydrogen fuel trucks. The yard was 2014.
All the best from DVS and electric motors
The startup broke into the gaining freight by the industry on alternative fuel. Tesla saw the future in electricity, and the young Nikola Motor Company went even further. The company believes that the optimal solution is hydrogen with electrotherapy. Milton approached the recruitment setting non-standard: he was looking for engineers without experience in the design of cars. According to a businessman, only in this way it was possible to achieve a fresh look at the development of transport: "I needed people who believed that everything was possible. I needed just as naive people as I myself. "
First represented car company - Nikola One tractor
Nikola laid out the strengths and weaknesses of both diesel and electric trucks, while stating that the hydrogen tractors will be deprived of the deficiencies of both types of power plants, at the same time having received all their advantages. The ecology and imperfection are damaged to minuses of cars with DVS (peak torque is not available immediately), and with electric - high weight of batteries plus a long charge of charging. Hydrogen tractors on this background look like the solution of all problems: fuel refilling takes about 20 minutes, the level of contamination of the atmosphere is zero, the mass is comparable to a diesel truck, and the running distance is up to 1,200 kilometers.
If simplifier, Nikola trucks are in a sense of a hybrid, only not an electric motor with an electric motor, and the electric motor with fuel cells, which give energy the battery. Thus, it is not necessary to charge batteries with electricity, although recovery is also present. We refuel hydrogen, it generates energy for batteries in the chemical reaction with oxygen, and an electric motor is already running. As a result, we get a current and conventional water, which, as condensate from the air conditioner, flows onto the road.
The company introduced several prototypes. Now there are two freight models on the site: the three-axis flagship of Nikola TWO and Nikola Tre is a smaller version with two axes and characteristics more compromised. Also, the company announced a pickup, two buggies (civil and for the needs of the military), as well as an aqueous motorcycle.
Pickup Nikola Badger Fast stock growth
Investors believed in Nikola: Bosch, Hanwha (South Korean Corporation) and other companies were in the startup. General Motors announced plans to buy Nikola's shares for $ 2 billion. The Nikola Motor Company said that they received pre-orders for trucks with a total value of $ 10 billion, while not having a single seller. " The largest order of 800 trucks issued an American brewing company Anheuser-Busch.
Nikola Two.
Nikola Tre released with the calculation to attract European customers: this tractor is much more compact by Nikola TWO
Shares on the stock exchange: In March last year, they cost about $ 10, and in June exceeded $ 70, capitalization reached about $ 20 billion. By the end of the summer, the stock price managed to fall to about $ 45, but the figure is still an impressive for a young company, which has absorbed into the highest league. It seems that there is another automotive company whose shares are also very hot, - Tesla. But Ilona Mask has a very weighty difference from the Milton Trevor startup: a real product.
No matter how much Tesla has transferred the release date of new products, and evil tongues nor burned the company, it produces real cars in real plants, and to charge electrocars there is already quite developed (if we talk about Europe and the USA) network of charging stations. That is, Tesla has a money turn. Nikola also distinguished himself only with a pair of prototypes and a video in which the snow-white tractor moves along the road. It is this video and put Nikola into a very unpleasant position.
Charges
On September 10 last year, Hindenburg Research Research Company has published a statement with serious accusations against Nikola. It happened two days after General Motors announced plans to seriously invest in the startup. You can imagine how the mood of the bosses of a car giant read the investigation of Hindenburg Research, which begins with the words "fraud built on the lies". The authors of the investigation collapsed not only on Nikola, but also at the Trevor Milton - it is calling him guilty of false statements and promises.
It turned out that the truck in the roller rides not using the Nikola's branded power plant and did not even put the internal combustion engine to give the truck in motion for the finished prototype. Everything turned out to be so easy that it was hard to believe in it: the car was pulled on a gentle bias and then removed from the brakes. That is, the truck is simply rolling. In Nikola, they even confirmed this, and they took an amazingly naive position: they say, we did not hide anything, because in the video directly said: "In motion", and not "is in motion of a power plant". The original video is now unavailable, but the footage of it remained:
If the situation with the video one could lean, then the other charges of Hindenburg Research caused more serious concerns and questions. According to the investigation, Nikola has no own battery production technology, and Milton on the wave of electrocarpters simply powdered brains to investors. At the same time, a representative of PowerCell AB, a subsidiary of Volvo on research in the field of hydrogen applying for transport, called Nikola's statements about its power plants "Empty chatter". Also, Milton's statements about the production of hydrogen were also questioned, and 81% of the competitors are 81% - in fact, Nikola did not produce this fuel.
As a result, without having its own developments, Nikola planned to use General Motors projects. According to Hindenburg Research, in the partnership of these two companies, one gives everything, and the other is almost nothing. I got Milton and for the words that all the key components of Nikola produces itself. It turned out that the inverters seen on one of the video were created by Cascadia, and Nikola just stuck her logo. All this and even a huge number of inconsistencies between statements and the real state of affairs, which found Hindenburg Research, delivered Milton's Trevor and Nikola itself to the wall. Suspecting competitors in the "order" of Nikola is difficult: Hindenburg Research itself also owned the startup shares - and it seems that only she decided to seriously explore where she was lucky.
Shares collapsed by 30%. The scandal around Nikola reflected on the shares of General Motors: they fell by 4%. After a week and a half after the publication of the investigation, Milton declared voluntary care from Nikola - both from the post of Director General and from the Board of Directors. General Motors refused to buy Nikola shares. The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Ministry of Justice, according to the media, began an investigation into Nikola and was awarded to representatives of the company's agenda. At the beginning of this year, Worthington Industries sold all Nikola shares with a total cost of about $ 147 million.
About Trevor Milton News Recently is not. Information appeared that he was arrested, but it turned out to be Fake. The entrepreneur deleted his accounts in Twitter and Instagram, so you're not easy to learn about his life. However, Milton has the largest Nikola stock package, and the status of the businessman is estimated by Forbes about $ 1.9 billion.
Nikola retains optimism: by the end of this year she plans to complete the plant in Arizona. Put it in one row with theranos and juicero, the loudest failures of IT startups of the last years, so far that is wrong. Nikola is still holding down and, despite the fall in the value of the shares together with the undervalued reputation, the plans for the release of hydrogen tractors do not refuse. However, even if the company will really release its transport, return the confidence of customers will be very difficult.
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