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.

I totally agree. But it feels like, at least over the past 20ish years or so, that the increased "gambling-ification" of the stock market has made it so these events take longer to resolve (i.e it takes longer for the stock price to go to 0) even if all participants eventually think it will go to 0.

That is, even though the stock will (and, in this case, did) eventually go to 0 with very little statistical probably of an alternative, there is enough volatility in the interim that stock market participants are just playing that volatility in the short term (i.e. trying to time the market, trying to not be "bag holders" in WSB parlance) even if everyone knows in the long term it's going to 0.

SMCI lost 60% after its auditor failed to audit and resigned

after that, it roses 300%

SMCI is also a target of hindenburg

https://hindenburgresearch.com/smci/

before this, I didn't even know that a company that couldn't be audited could still be listed.

It's almost like stock value and real value have been entirely decoupled

People also bought Fisker cars again, even knowing that the company produced defective cars before going bankrupt last time (which they did again this time).

I watched a Demuro video where he visited Nikola's factory. Yes, the founder defrauded investors, but it's clear the engineers were building real things. They just were nowhere near where the founder claimed. So there is probably some value there, as it's not complete vaporware. But clearly they couldn't turn it around.

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.

> 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.

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 GM's defense, the deal with Nikola didn't really cost them anything. It only damaged their reputation. Some other clueless investors then assumed that GM had done due diligence before signing the agreement, which was never the case.

> Figured they were selling enough to keep going but guess not.

They were buying their vehicles from Iveco in Europe. Putting their name on them and selling them at a loss here in the US. Making money by selling vehicles was never the goal with this company. Defrauding foolish investors was the primary money maker.

There's also a small Canadian company called Edison Motors that's doing some very interesting work in developing hybrid diesel-electric logging and back-country hauling trucks. They've taken a far saner approach to growth (Ie. not the typical SV hyperscalling model) and are actually building trucks that solve real world problems and I am personally a huge fan of them. They might not have the glitz or funding of your typical "Startup" but they are actually building a sustainable business that has a very good chance thriving for decades to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6e2Lh9u58

They filed a Sale Motion for all the assets.

Why is that? Light duty trucks and SUVs outsell cars in the US. They are comfortable to ride in, have better leg room and head room, and have a heavier duty frame that enables them to haul and tow more as needed. You can fit a plow on many trucks as well in snowy regions.

Electrifying them has only upsides with the exception of road weight and range, but I'm repeatedly told that's not a problem for cars anymore.

Granted, the F150 lightning hasn't done well compared to Ford's expectations, which might say a lot about the reality of range concerns (especially when towing).

They pivoted from pure BEV to bet their future on Hydrogen FCEV trucks. They were a flop and that's what sunk them IMO.

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 product is software?

Financial momentum.

You have a bunch of people who consider themselves "the smart money" who have been had, and if they pull out, that's an acknowledgment that perhaps they're not that smart.

They decidedly did not deliver what they promised. Their hydrogen truck did not work, which is why their promo video had to tow a truck up a hill and film it rolling down.

What did they deliver that they promised?

> At least Nikola delivered what they promised.

Ah yes. The Nikola Gravity Drive™ has been a roaring success and is now powering millions of trucks worldwide. This bankruptcy is merely a blip in their continuing success.

Imagine if Tesla copied another automaker's name then created a demo of their car rolling down a hill.

Trevor, is that you?

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.

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.

> How do you even make an electric car that can't drive?

The "pusher" truck was not supposed to be EV. It was supposed to be a Hydrogen truck. In reality it was neither.

> 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?

> 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 alternatives: biofuels, which carry serious ethical implications given world hunger and soil depletion, and synthfuels made from hydrogen and sequestered CO2 as base chemicals. The problem is, synthfuels are absurdly expensive because there is no hydrogen market yet so there isn't much happening in scaling up from lab-scale.

I agree with most of what you’ve said, but there are some niche uses.

https://www.liebreich.com/hydrogen-ladder-version-5-0/

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 gas distribution network. With battery EVs, it's just a matter of building chargers that connect to the existing power grid, with many (possibly most) EV owners charging at home.

As far as I'm concerned, anybody pushing for hydrogen fueled vehicles is simply falling for marketing bullshit. Producing a hydrogen-powered car would likely become cheaper than a BEV, but they'll never be better for the environment in the long run, and will never be cheaper to operate. It's always going to be cheaper to just put electricity directly into a battery rather than use it to create hydrogen, distribute it, and then pump it.

>> Hydrogen has its place in our energy economy

> It certainly does not! (At least, not in any meaningful sense).

I was speaking to the use of hydrogen for ammonia production. When we experience grid imbalances from when there's too much solar or wind energy for the grid to absorb it would be nice to put it to use in that regard rather than dumping it.

I understand and do not contest the problems that working with hydrogen creates, it makes a lousy option for a battery.

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?

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

So much so that the CEO was convicted of fraud over it. It's insane that it still had value after the Hindenburg report.