from Hacker News

Troubled electric truck maker Nikola files for bankruptcy

by moose44 on 2/19/25, 3:46 PM with 96 comments

• by perihelions on 2/19/25, 4:13 PM

  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.ycombinator.com/item?id=27996321 ("Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud (cnbc.com)" (2021), 509 comments)

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38685607 ("Nikola founder to be sentenced for federal fraud charges (cnbc.com)" (2023), 186 comments)

  https://hn.algolia.com/?query=nikola&sort=byPopularity

• by bayesianbot on 2/19/25, 4:01 PM

  I always wondered how it kept some value for a long time after the Hindenburg Research report[1]. To me, the report (and the CEO's empty response to it) made it clear there was pretty much no value in it, but the stock only lost 50% in the following week.

  [1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/

• by fullshark on 2/19/25, 3:52 PM

  Briefly more valuable than the ford motor company. SPACs were borderline criminal enterprises, though this one was outright criminal.

• by andix on 2/19/25, 4:33 PM

  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

• by fohara on 2/19/25, 4:04 PM

  Apparently some of the software in Nikola vehicles was written in Crystal [1]. [1] https://manas.tech/blog/2020/02/11/nikola-motor-company/

• by exabrial on 2/19/25, 5:05 PM

  The entire purpose of Nikola was to create proliferation route for taxpayer dollars into private bank accounts. To this end, they were moderately successful.

  A few other ding dongs, like GM, didn't do their due diligence and also fell for it.

• by dawnerd on 2/19/25, 5:07 PM

  There’s quite a few driving around SoCal, mostly by WattEV for testing. Figured they were selling enough to keep going but guess not.

• by tim333 on 2/19/25, 8:29 PM

  In contrast to the failed Nikola approach there's a small Aussie company that seems to be doing quite well with electric truck conversions. Rather than build in batteries like in cars they swap packs using a forklift -

  vid https://youtu.be/9eYLtPSf7PY?t=145

  Seems quite a good idea to me - it's a different market to cars where no one wants to muck around with forklifts, whereas with trucks they use forklifts to load stuff anyway and people don't especially want to have to plug it in for hours to recharge.

  Also you can charge the batteries while not installed using things like solar, whereas with built in batteries like on the Tesla semi you need a lot of grid power to supercharge.

• by bryanlarsen on 2/19/25, 5:25 PM

  This is chapter 11, not 7. So they think there is still a viable business here after restructuring.

• by idontwantthis on 2/19/25, 3:58 PM

  Remember when they rolled a car down hill because it couldn’t even drive?

• by pstuart on 2/19/25, 3:54 PM

  Hydrogen has its place in our energy economy but its got too many issues to be used to power vehicles. Batteries have won, and synthesized hydrocarbons will be the alternative for where batteries won't work (i.e., most commercial air travel).

  That said, it's a pity to see this failure.

• by rlewkov on 2/19/25, 5:54 PM

  Electric truck ... nuff said