According to Hindenburg Research, a financial research company, Nikola has created ‘an ocean of lies’ to get fundings for the company. For an example, they say the electric truck you see driving in Youtube movies was pushed down a mountain for the video. According to Hindenburg Research, the truck was towed up the hill.
Nikola has a joined venture with Iveco, which is building a prototype in Ulm. This was previously announced during a spectacular press presentation where an Iveco S-Way was shown with blue lights in the grille and a Nikola badge, but without a driveline. Iveco has a joint venture with Nikola. CNH Industrial, the mother of Iveco, invested as much as 250 Million Euros in collaboration with Nikola. The Nikola company is a truck builder who has never built a driving truck accourding to Hindenburg Research.
Nikola now also wants to build an electric pickup, the so-called ‘Badger’. For that, the company managed to attract the interest of General Motors. That company invested at least two billion dollars in Nikola. Right now, the accusations of Hindenburg Research are coming out and that is quite detrimental to Nikola’s share price. There is self-interest in that for Hindenburg Research, because according to Nikola boss Trevor Milton, who names Hindenburg Research a ‘short selling company’ they have interest to push the price of the Nikola shares in order to make a profit.
Nikola’s owner Trevor Milton was initially not allowed to react on the storm of criticism surrounding his business, but he now shared these photos on Twitter, in a vicious tweet, containing the F- word he published these photo’s as proof. The pictures show an Iveco S-Way truck in the Ulm factory with an electric drive line, batteries and a set of Nikola stickers. According to Milton, this is proof that an electric Nikola truck is being built. However, we could also call it an electric Iveco.
The industry has been skeptical about newcomer Nikola from the start, and well known trade journalists have called the company “one big fraud”. The report of Hindenburg Research with all the accusations can be found here! In fact the only thing Mr. Milton has to do is to show a real working truck to the press to convince the world.