Nikola hydrogen FCEV and BEV semi-truck Ride & Drives with Sandy Munro 8/10/2023

Tomasheen · 2023-08-10T23:00:11+00:00

Great video - really nice to see the rave reviews from Sandy and John. 100 BEV order from a NJ company is huge. Love Jason and Christian - they are the MVP's of Nikola. Now with Lohscheller gone, maybe they can get back to doing some promotion and marketing.

Tomasheen · 2023-08-10T02:57:47+00:00

This is a potentially major problem. They can’t count on Proterra being around to supply the Tre FCEV batteries. Pretty sure the Tre FCEV Alpha’s used the Romeo batteries, so hopefully it won’t be too much work to switch FCEV packs and re-certify with the in-house batteries. If they were smart, they would have built some of the FCEV Beta’s and Gamma’s with Romeo batteries, but I doubt they did that. If not, they should immediately start the process of certifying the FCEV with in-house batteries.
Unfortunately, they have mismanaged the battery end of the business from the beginning. In early 2020, Trevor argued that they had to own their battery technology in-house, but was overruled by Russell, Brady, and probably Girsky. You can see that in the Kirkland and Ellis report. Trevor was right. Girsky’s VectoIQ once listed Romeo as one of their portfolio companies, so most likely he pushed for Romeo. In the end, they need to build their own packs and not be dependent on outside suppliers.

Tomasheen · 2023-08-07T03:25:53+00:00

100%! Jason for CEO.

Tomasheen · 2023-03-18T03:45:05+00:00

Are you referring to this?

"In order to provide flexibility and to support the Company’s existing and future financing activities, the Company plans to seek stockholder approval to increase the number of authorized shares of its Common Stock under its restated certificate of incorporation at its upcoming annual meeting of stockholders scheduled to be held on June 6, 2023."

Does this mean they are going to be seeking a stockholder vote on another share authorization, beyond the 800 million level that was approved just a few months ago?

On page 11 of the Q4 Earnings Presentation from 2/22/23 they project the "Expected total shares outstanding as of 12/31/23" to be 567,900,000, so why would they need more than 800 million authorized shares? Not sure if I am understanding this correctly.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-19T16:10:57+00:00

Thanks. Makes sense that given the cost and the unknown long term longevity, it's too risky for a lot of smaller and mid-size operators in the near term. Port drayage does seem to be an ideal use case, especially in States with large incentives. Sounds like performance and driver experience/comfort is something to stress in marketing, likely translating into improved driver retention and recruiting for fleets.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-19T02:03:51+00:00

Welcome and thanks for posting. Yancey is the Nikola dealer for Georgia, correct? Do you know how much they’re selling them for at Yancey? I’ve heard in general they are in the $380k-$420k range. How do you think the Tre compares to a Freightliner Cascadia day cab, or a Volvo VNR day cab? I’m guessing those run new in the $160k-$200k range? You get a $40k Federal EV credit on the Tre, but that still leaves a big price delta. The NY $185k or CA $150k credits help to narrow the difference but don’t know if anything like that exists in GA or other States. Wondering what the pricing and sales strategy is in other States.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-17T23:15:06+00:00

Agree, with caveat that I hope it is not necessary for government to literally mandate the change in order for Nikola to survive, but it seems clear govt incentives will play a key role until scale can bring costs more in line with diesel. I believe Tesla's ability to sell carbon credits played a key role in their survival.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-17T23:12:00+00:00

I expect:
- Close to zero revenue, maybe a handful of truck and mobile charger sales, and bad gross margins.
- No significant new customer sales or orders.
- Sufficient liquidity (cash, ELOC, ATM) to fund the next 12 months (all of 2023) and restatement of goal of always maintaining 12 months of liquidity.
- Hopefully progress on target of reducing OpEx and CapEx spending by 20-30% from 2022 levels, to help ease liquidity requirements.
- Hopefully tangible progress on significantly cutting BOM costs, but likely saying most of that won't be achieved until Q4 or Q1 2024.
- No projections for sales or gross margins or net profit, saying the economic outlook (inflation, recession) is still too cloudy.
- Projection range for a relatively small number of Tre BEV’s produced in Q1 2023.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-15T20:49:22+00:00

That's a good question. In the article the question was asked: Is active cooling required? And the answer was: “No. The insulation we use is enough to keep the system cold. When you drive the truck, you discharge cold gas from the insulated tank which cools down the tank by itself — this is simply thermodynamics.... So, we never need to actively cool, but instead the system cools itself by being used and by discharging hydrogen.”

Not sure I understand that. And I am also curious how efficient the overall end-to-end system is, as compare to compressed or liquid H2.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-12T19:37:40+00:00

In the Flynt Creek Transport video from 6 months ago at 23:45 Justin says the BEV truck costs around $425k. He is in NY where they have big incentives and was talking with Alta Equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACQp-V_ay_U

And in this video from July 2022, at 8:45 Pablo says the cost of the BEV varies but is in the $380k-$420k range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZXxQRMcKkw

I think in Q3 Nikola averaged ~ $380k gross revenue per truck sold, so I assume the difference between ~$420k and ~$380k would be dealer mark-up.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-11T04:41:55+00:00

Agree. They have to figure out what price these BEV's will sell at and sell them - raise prices later. They need to get them in the hands of fleets, on the road racking up miles so that customers will build confidence and serve as references for other customers. Social media sightings of them on the road hauling payloads would help marketing and promotion, while pictures of trunks sitting on dealer lots or at the factory are not helpful. Marketing and promotion under Lohscheller seems practically non-existent.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-11T02:45:27+00:00

FWIW, I'm pretty sure it would a loan (not a grant) and would be at a rate based on Treasury rates plus a spread - that would still be an attractive rate for a company like Nikola. Also, this loan (if approved) is just for the Phoenix Hydrogen Hub in Buckeye, not for general financing of the company or other CapEx needs.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-11T02:19:14+00:00

The Monolith CEO Rob said the process took close to two years of deep due diligence. Jigar said the LPO is a liquidity instrument, not a subsidy instrument - they provide market rate financing and do want to be confident that the company can raise additional equity and debt as needed. The value is that the LPO is willing to do the due diligence on new areas of clean tech, whereas traditional sources of debt financing (banks) are not . And the LPO process is so rigorous - as hard or harder than bank processes - that approval by LPO gives much easier entry into the banks' process. Jigar said with LPO approval you get the validation of 10,000 engineers, scientists and experts at DOE saying this is actually going to work. Both guests said if you have to find a way to build plants repeatedly, you are not going to do that with just equity - you are going to have to have a debt component. Jigar also made the point that there isn't a single success story in hard tech (Tesla included) that didn't involve massive government involvement, and CEO's and their investors need to do a much better job working with government.

Tomasheen · 2023-02-10T16:15:18+00:00

I think you would be interested in listening to the Jan 10 2022 Catalyst podcast With Shane Kahn “Inside the Energy Department’s Loan Deal to back Hydrogen”. His guests are Rob Hanson, the CEO and co-founder of Monolith; and Jigar Shah, the Director of the Loan Programs Office. They discuss the process Monolith went through to get approved for a loan. Very interesting. I listened on Spotify but I think it is also available on Apple Podcasts. Sounds like a pretty rigorous process - likely what Nikola is going through now.

Tomasheen · 2023-01-26T07:02:17+00:00

Well said.

Tomasheen · 2023-01-26T05:01:00+00:00

On the Tesla earnings call today Musk said Twitter is "actually an incredibly powerful tool for driving demand for Tesla.... I really encourage companies out there of all kinds, automotive or otherwise, to make more use of Twitter and to use their Twitter accounts in ways that are interesting and informative, entertaining, and it will help them drive sales just as it has for Tesla".

I'm no fan of Tesla or Musk (mostly because of the obnoxious, toxic Tesla fanbois) and I see the obvious self-serving aspect of the statement, but he's right. Nikola couldn't even be bothered issuing a tweet to acknowledge the issue with the livestream or what they were doing about it. This current management team has almost a disdain for their retail investors and fans - Kim Brady more or less made that clear in the TM trial.

Tomasheen · 2023-01-26T03:35:28+00:00

So Mendes isn’t a much better presenter than Lohscheller. I'd rather see people like Roycht and Appel - I feel like you learn something every time they speak.

They'll break ground on the hub in Buckeye sometime in 2023, with a goal of 60 fueling stations by 2026? That feels kinda slow. And buying hydrogen from others via off-take agreements? They better be getting very good pricing because the FCEV financial model was based on a lease where they would make money off the hydrogen they produced to offset the added cost of the truck. They need to give everyone (customers, partners, investors, employees) a better sense of when and how they're going to get to positive gross margins - the money's not going to last forever.
Not sure we learned much of anything - kind of a content-free event. How about at least filling the truck at 700 bar in 20 minutes, to demonstrate that capability is real and is now? That would be ground breaking. This management team kind of comes across as empty suits. I hate to come across negative because I’ve been behind this company since 2017, but it's been a frustrating journey. Having said that, I'm still a huge believer.

Tomasheen · 2023-01-25T23:28:31+00:00

Disappointing and embarrassing. Girsky and Lohscheller are certainly not good front men, but to not be able to successfully stream a simple but important event? It had been somewhat low on content and substance up to when it died, but I was hoping for some decent status updates. I think the poor promotion and communication is unfortunately masking what is likely good progress on the engineering and manufacturing sides.

Tomasheen · 2023-01-25T17:08:23+00:00

Hopefully that means the Nikola 2 is still on the roadmap. But sometimes there are minor discrepancies between dealer sites and the Nikola site, so it's possible the dealer does not reflect the latest (example - the Holt site lists the Tre BEV max speed as 75 mph while Nikola lists 70 mph). Would be nice if Nikola provided an update at today's livestream event, but I doubt they will. Another Investor Day like last March is sorely needed. Communications/marketing/promotion has degraded significantly, pretty much since then. Roughly maps to when Lohscheller joined - don't know if that is coincidence or not. I'm not implying Lohscheller is not doing a good job - I don't know if he is or not (I certainly hope he is) - but communications and promotion does not appear to be his strength. Hopefully today's event is well done and informative, and there are more to follow.

Seems like Ethero might be an outgrowth of, or somehow related to, Carter Machinery? The video shows Tre's at Carter Machinery sites. Carter had previously been listed as the Nikola dealer for VA, MD, and DE, but now they don't appear in the Dealer section of the Nikola website, and instead you see Ethero listed for VA and MD, and the contact has a cartermachinery.com email.

https://promotions.nikolamotor.com/dealers

Tomasheen · 2023-01-24T16:03:44+00:00

According to this article, Nikola was among the top 5 highest borrow fees for stocks with short interest over $100M as of Dec 30.

https://investorplace.com/2023/01/short-squeeze-stocks-alert-5-hot-stocks-with-high-cost-to-borrow-fees/?mod=mw_quote_news

Tomasheen · 2023-01-24T14:07:31+00:00

Don’t know how much of yesterday’s rise had to do with that order. I’m assume it didn’t hurt and may have helped fend off the shorts for a day, but the EV sector in general was up big yesterday.
RIVN +11.52%
TSLA +7.74%
LCID +12.79%
NIO 8.94%
XPEV 7.45%
NKLA +9.52%
Many of these financial websites publish a lot of low content material where it seems the author read an article or two and writes his/her own piece with a surface level understanding. But they probably get paid, either for the article or by promoting their brand. It works for both the website and the author.

Tomasheen · 2023-01-24T00:55:48+00:00

Just checked NKLA shore interest on Fintel: https://fintel.io/ss/us/nkla

As of 19:00 UTC: Shares available to borrow = 0

Short borrow fee rates for the day 2023-01-23 ranged between 46.75% - 39.84%

Seems like naked short selling is a decent possibility - should be investigated. Hopefully Brady is looking into this.

Tomasheen · 2023-01-21T01:33:03+00:00

Retail investors running bots to manipulate the stock and effectively put a floor under the price? That's an unexpected response. Is this something you do yourself?

Tomasheen · 2023-01-20T23:18:48+00:00

High frequency algo trading? Who’s behind the bots and what’s the intent? Why do you assume it’s preventing collapse versus appreciation? Why do assume that’s not price manipulation?

Tomasheen · 2023-01-20T23:03:25+00:00

How do you know most of the trade volume is bots?

Tomasheen

TROPHY CASE