4 ms·

If you think this is insane, look at Nikola, an electric car company that has never produced a single vehicle...is now worth more than Ford (as of yesterday.)

zaroth 6y ago
I would guess that the paper value market cap of Nikola is an artifact of extremely tight supply of their new stock.
tenpies 6y ago
And if you want to see even more insanity, look at market cap versus profit. Tesla - who has not even made $1 BB of profit in its 15 years despite billions of government money, tax credits, regulatory credits, and untold favours - is now valued at $185 BB. Musk's bonus this year is bigger than all the profit Tesla has ever made. It is absolute insanity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- xkjkls 6y ago
  You can add up every quarter they had a profit, and ignore the fact that they had losses every other quarter and it’s still not equal to his $750 million pay package
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Modern capitalism doesn't work with basic maths apparently; companies run off investor money for years, if not decades (AMD is one of those companies that has been running a net negative for a long time - not sure how they're doing of late though). Personally, based on a very superficial understanding of economy, I... don't actually mind - as long as their personnel, suppliers, and taxes are paid timely and adequately, they are doing their 'contribution' to the economy.
dhosek 6y ago
I'd never heard of them before. Here's wikipedia on them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Motor_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Motor_Company It appears that technically, your statement is incorrect in that they've produced some prototypes. And they have orders (not sure if that counts as sales), but they've not actually delivered a production vehicle yet. Which makes their market cap seem insane, but it seems like most publicly traded companies have had insane market caps since the 90s.
- nickik 6y ago
  The 'orders' are basically you can go to their webside and say 'I want 1000 trucks' no information, account or down-payment. Usually public companies go threw funding rounds, this company knew they couldn't convince any real funds. They claim to have battery technology that is way ahead of anybody else, and that just sounds like a nonsense claim. They basically do nothing inhouse, say about Tesla what you want but they have technical skills. Seems to me Nikola is basically a scam designed to be as Tesla like as possible but with a little twist to make it seem just different enough.
  - dhosek 6y ago
    The wikipedia article claims Anheuser-Busch ordered 800 trucks in 2018 with a 2020 delivery target, so barring outright misinformation, that's probably a legit order. Whether the order gets filled is a different question.
    - nickik 6y ago
      That order might be real, but of the 10 billion many are just clicks on their website. Probably Anheuser-Busch thought 'free preorder, why not' and they probably have a hand in a couple of future truck companies.
- hckr_news 6y ago
  Strange, first time I’m hearing of this company. They went public last week but it seems their products aren’t available to consumers yet.

zaroth 6y ago

I would guess that the paper value market cap of Nikola is an artifact of extremely tight supply of their new stock.

tenpies 6y ago

And if you want to see even more insanity, look at market cap versus profit. Tesla - who has not even made $1 BB of profit in its 15 years despite billions of government money, tax credits, regulatory credits, and untold favours - is now valued at $185 BB. Musk's bonus this year is bigger than all the profit Tesla has ever made. It is absolute insanity.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xkjkls 6y ago
You can add up every quarter they had a profit, and ignore the fact that they had losses every other quarter and it’s still not equal to his $750 million pay package
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Modern capitalism doesn't work with basic maths apparently; companies run off investor money for years, if not decades (AMD is one of those companies that has been running a net negative for a long time - not sure how they're doing of late though). Personally, based on a very superficial understanding of economy, I... don't actually mind - as long as their personnel, suppliers, and taxes are paid timely and adequately, they are doing their 'contribution' to the economy.

dhosek 6y ago

I'd never heard of them before. Here's wikipedia on them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Motor_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Motor_Company It appears that technically, your statement is incorrect in that they've produced some prototypes. And they have orders (not sure if that counts as sales), but they've not actually delivered a production vehicle yet. Which makes their market cap seem insane, but it seems like most publicly traded companies have had insane market caps since the 90s.

nickik 6y ago
The 'orders' are basically you can go to their webside and say 'I want 1000 trucks' no information, account or down-payment. Usually public companies go threw funding rounds, this company knew they couldn't convince any real funds. They claim to have battery technology that is way ahead of anybody else, and that just sounds like a nonsense claim. They basically do nothing inhouse, say about Tesla what you want but they have technical skills. Seems to me Nikola is basically a scam designed to be as Tesla like as possible but with a little twist to make it seem just different enough.
- dhosek 6y ago
  The wikipedia article claims Anheuser-Busch ordered 800 trucks in 2018 with a 2020 delivery target, so barring outright misinformation, that's probably a legit order. Whether the order gets filled is a different question.
  - nickik 6y ago
    That order might be real, but of the 10 billion many are just clicks on their website. Probably Anheuser-Busch thought 'free preorder, why not' and they probably have a hand in a couple of future truck companies.
hckr_news 6y ago
Strange, first time I’m hearing of this company. They went public last week but it seems their products aren’t available to consumers yet.