The Strange Hype Around Nikola Motor

A boisterous CEO who brags of “out-Eloning” Elon Musk; a reverse merger that makes a little-known fuel-cell trucking company as valuable as Ford; and no actual cars or trucks in production.

On this week’s edition of The Interchange, we try to make sense of Nikola Motor.

Nikola Motor went public last week through a reverse merger, achieving a ~$13 billion valuation. As the markets closed on Wednesday, the company’s market cap was at $23 billion. But with a non-traditional IPO, an enigmatic CEO, and zero revenue or vehicles, it’s become one of the more befuddling stories in cleantech in recent memory.

We’ll dig into Nikola’s claims and business model. Is this just another over-hyped penny stock? Is there any substance to the company’s hydrogen plans?

Resources:

LA Times: Electric Truck Maker Nikola Looks Like Tesla 2.0 — Except Even Riskier
CNBC: Meet Nikola, the Speculative Electric Vehicle Stock
Barron’s: Truck-Building Tesla Competitor Nikola Draws the Attention of a Short Seller

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