All discussion of Nikola Motors

[Causalien]

Look through this thread, and talk to people outside the EV world. Much to everyone's dismay here, they still "respect" Nikola.

Baffling, I know, but just goes to show you the general level of ignorance.

It's 2020, and I still have to fight ppl about EV's environmental impact. And these are young millenials as liberal as you can get. Full feminism and BLM and all.

Take TMC for example. It used to be that ppl on teslamotors reddit would know me by name. But with the expansion of its userbase and normal ppl rush in, most ppl are like "TMC? What's that"

This is how I know that there is still a large information discrepancy. And this is how we can exploit that advantage to make money.

 

[Stretch2727]

Look through this thread, and talk to people outside the EV world. Much to everyone's dismay here, they still "respect" Nikola.

Baffling, I know, but just goes to show you the general level of ignorance.

Yeah agree just look at the stock. At this point, I really think people are holding on to the stock for the hope GM closes the deal at any price. GM may end up with 49% of NKLA just so GM can get use Nikola to get the tax credits.

If GM bails, really what is left?

 

[bkp_duke]

Yeah agree just look at the stock. At this point, I really think people are holding on to the stock for the hope GM closes the deal at any price. GM may end up with 49% of NKLA just so GM can get use Nikola to get the tax credits.

If GM bails, really what is left?

If GM bails, stock goes to 0 in a hurry.

 

[OrthoSurg]

Never puts or calls in my life. Am a long TSLA investor however I am thinking to sell puts for NKLA

If GM bails, stock goes to 0 in a hurry.

All the main NKLA investors can sell shares after December 3rd.
What about GM? Is there a date they have to respect to invoke breach of contract?

 

[bkp_duke]

Never puts or calls in my life. Am a long TSLA investor however I am thinking to sell puts for NKLA

All the main NKLA investors can sell shares after December 3rd.
What about GM? Is there a date they have to respect to invoke breach of contract?

I looked into puts for NKLA, and there was a brief discussion earlier in this thread or the main investor thread about it, but the cost to borrow the shares was ludicrous, so I passed.

I don't know anything about when GM has to @#$% or get off the pot, so to speak.

 

[OrthoSurg]

I looked into puts for NKLA, and there was a brief discussion earlier in this thread or the main investor thread about it, but the cost to borrow the shares was ludicrous, so I passed.

I don't know anything about when GM has to @#$% or get off the pot, so to speak.

Ok thanks for the info.
Sorry if I missed the previous discussion just joined this thread.
Will look into what has been previously said.

had just sent the paper work to convert my trading account to have the option for calls and puts. However you just gave me some good info on how it’s overpriced.

 

[bkp_duke]

Ok thanks for the info.
Sorry if I missed the previous discussion just joined this thread.
Will look into what has been previously said.

had just sent the paper work to convert my trading account to have the option for calls and puts. However you just gave me some good info on how it’s overpriced.

Things change, that was a week or more ago.

 

[Mo City]

There are other benefits to moving forward, even not considering the tax credit per vehicle.

It gives GM a new "brand" which they can consider rolling into their umbrella in the future that has a different look, feel, and image than any current GM lines (although that image is a bit tarnished by recent events). Branding alone may be worth more to them than anything else. GM has tried this before in the past with the "Saturn" brand and how they ran that at arm's length compared to their other brands.

This is Ark's view of what GM is doing and their summary comment about the partnership was "GM must focus on technology, not marketing".

The headline was: Is the Marketing Department Running GM?

 

[Stretch2727]

Never puts or calls in my life. Am a long TSLA investor however I am thinking to sell puts for NKLA

All the main NKLA investors can sell shares after December 3rd.
What about GM? Is there a date they have to respect to invoke breach of contract?

ok your experience in options is showing. You would want to buy a Put if you think it will drop. Like others have said shorting or buying puts is expensive on NKLA. It does not look like a good play.

 

[Knightshade]

I am somewhat convinced if GM moves forward with a deal with Nikola they are only doing the transaction to have the $7500 tax credit apply to a vehicle they manufacture.

They'd also get:

EV emissions credits for each one they sell-offsetting the emissions of one of their ICE vehicles.

guaranteed profit on every one sold, since the entire deal is cost plus for them

Ultimately this strategy will fail as they need to find a way to make a competitive product without the tax credit much like Tesla is doing now. .

Why would they need to do that?

By the time the tax credits ran out they'd have pocketed a ton of money, and been able to dump their stock for even more money, and saved even MORE money from not having to buy all those emissions offset credits.

So if Nikola collapsed entirely after they'd gotten all that for basically NO cost out of GMs pocket- that's a huge win for GM.

Not to mention the free engineering/testing/R&D work they got on Nikolas tab since GM gets paid cost plus for THAT TOO and gets to keep all the IP produced from it.

 

[OrthoSurg]

ok your experience in options is showing. You would want to buy a Put if you think it will drop. Like others have said shorting or buying puts is expensive on NKLA. It does not look like a good play.

Yes, totally unknown world for me.

Thanks for the info

 

[ZsoZso]

They'd also get:

EV emissions credits for each one they sell-offsetting the emissions of one of their ICE vehicles.

guaranteed profit on every one sold, since the entire deal is cost plus for them

That would be the case, if Nikola had $billions in the bank from which they could pay GM. However, as it stands right now, they do not even have enough to pay the pre-prod costs of $700 million they promised in the deal. So Nikola would have to raise significant $$$ to make the deal so sweet for GM. Good luck with raising money after the PR sh**t show that went down...

The way things look is that Nikola can pay some portion of the pre-pod money, so GM starts to setup the production line for the badger. Then comes Dec.3rd, all the shareholders cash out who were held back by the lockout clause of the IPO, then Nikola goes bankrupt and GM ends up with a half-finished production line for a truck nobody will pay for.

 

[Stretch2727]

They'd also get:

EV emissions credits for each one they sell-offsetting the emissions of one of their ICE vehicles.

guaranteed profit on every one sold, since the entire deal is cost plus for them

Ok, but only if the consumer tax credit for Nikola trucks drives additional demand overall. GM gets 100% emission credits on vehicles they manufacture and sell and 80% from vehicles they manufacture for Nikola.

This is why I said I think the consumer tax credit is motivating them. My bet is they wait until after the election. If Biden is elected likely there will be some reinstatement of the consumer tax credit anyway and they don't need to do all these gymnastics just to have consumer tax credits apply to vehicles they manufacture.

 

[Electroman]

Not the same thing, that was automatic contend id system flagging automatically (annoying still). Nikola's case it's done manually to silence critics, and clear misuse of copyright system for censorship.

Agreed. But just goes to show how the copyright protection system is poorly designed, poorly implemented and how much these amazing content creators are being penalized. It is not just the fact their contents are thrown offline, but there is no clear simple system in place to challenge these atrocious copyright strikes, effectively and quickly - that is the real problem. You could post your family video, and I can raise a copyright claim, and your way out of it is not clearly defined, very expensive and success rate is low.

 

[Electroman]

To me that would be a bizarre way to get a new brand name for your products.

On the EV space, it is amusing to note how much GM should be desperate and how much their brand is tarnished, if they need a brand-boost from Nikola !!

 

[bkp_duke]

Agreed. But just goes to show how the copyright protection system is poorly designed, poorly implemented and how much these amazing content creators are being penalized. It is not the just fact there contents are thrown offline, but there is no clear simple system in place to challenge these atrocious copyright strikes, effectively and quickly - that is the real problem. You could post your family video, and I can raise a copyright claim, and your way out of it is not clearly defined, very expensive and success rate is low.

So, I run a business where we have to deal with copyright claims frequently.

What is supposed to happen is that the company (in this case youtube) is to ask the person or entity making a copyright claim to provide proof of the claim before they initiate a takedown. Things like images of people taken without there permission are always easy and clear-cut, but the others, you are supposed to provide some "proof" that you actually have copyright to what you are claiming you do.

Unfortunately, what has happened is that most companies now have found it to be far easier to just take down the content, than to actually do the proper legwork and verify copyright ownership.

 

[Electroman]

just so GM can get use Nikola to get the tax credits.

That brings up an interesting thought - why can't Tesla spin out a new company with a different name - perhaps middle name of Nikola Tesla, or his wife's name, or his dog's name? - for CyberTrucks and game this stupid 200k credits per company system?

As I have said many times the most fair way to design these credits, are not the current credit cap per company, but keep a common pool of 2 million credits open for all, first come first served.

 

[mekberg]

That brings up an interesting thought - why can't Tesla spin out a new company with a different name - perhaps middle name of Nikola Tesla, or his wife's name, or his dog's name? - for CyberTrucks and game this stupid 200k credits per company system?

As I have said many times the most fair way to design these credits, are not the current credit cap per company, but keep a common pool of 2 million credits open for all, first come first served.

For many reasons.

The optics are bad. The last thing Tesla needs is another avenue for FUD slinging.

Tesla doesn’t need the help and their vehicles are already best in class at their current price point sans credits.

It would require a non trivial amount of paperwork/accounting to pull this off.

 

[Knightshade]

That brings up an interesting thought - why can't Tesla spin out a new company with a different name - perhaps middle name of Nikola Tesla, or his wife's name, or his dog's name? - for CyberTrucks and game this stupid 200k credits per company system?
.

Because legally if you own more than 50% of a company it's not a different company, for purposes of the EV tax credits.

In this case since Nikola brings essentially nothing of value to the deal other than any cash on hand, and the fact they're NOT greater than 50% owned by GM, GM effectively gets that cash on hand (at a built in profit) to do 100% of the work of building an EV truck they know the first 200,000+ of which they can get $7500 tax credits on AND collect 80% of the emissions credits on too.

AND they get to keep all the IP developed which they can use in their own future EVs without having to build the R&D cost into the price of THEIR OWN products that don't get a tax credit anymore.

 

[Doggydogworld]

That would be the case, if Nikola had $billions in the bank from which they could pay GM. However, as it stands right now, they do not even have enough to pay the pre-prod costs of $700 million they promised in the deal. So Nikola would have to raise significant $$$ to make the deal so sweet for GM. Good luck with raising money after the PR sh**t show that went down...

The way things look is that Nikola can pay some portion of the pre-pod money, so GM starts to setup the production line for the badger. Then comes Dec.3rd, all the shareholders cash out who were held back by the lockout clause of the IPO, then Nikola goes bankrupt and GM ends up with a half-finished production line for a truck nobody will pay for.

GM thought Trevor could attract attention, investors and customers with outrageous tweets and claims as is required in today's reality show reality. Now NKLA's CEO is a vanilla exec whose name even I can't remember and 99.9999% of potential ReBadger customers wouldn't even recognize. So they may very well just drop the pickup and re-do the deal around Semi.

GM doesn't play in the Semi market today, so it's all gain for them. They bring EV powertrains plus a lot of stranded H2 R&D to the table as well as the credibility NKLA desperately needs, so they can drive a hard bargain.