5 Comments to “AAH #513 – Nikola’s Crusade For Fuel Cell Semis”

1. Patrick O Says:
   June 13th, 2020 at 4:20 pm

   Cheers to John and Gary for keeping a straight face throughout this interview. Did this guy actually say he’s taking orders for a truck that he doesn’t even have an OEM to manufacture lol?

2. Mark Garnett Says:
   June 17th, 2020 at 6:30 pm

   I probably fall into the “Tesla fanboy obsessive” camp but I think most of us are open minded and in favour/welcoming of any technology that can help the world get to zero emissions.

   The reason we often come accrues as dismissive of hydrogen fuel cells is that even if you over come all the hurdles (like fuelling stations that cost way more than petrol stations), it’s hard to see how rolling out one route at a time will suit many operators. Sure done but it’s not a general purpose solution. And unlike EVs that can be refilled slowly at night in the depot, HFC are 100% reliant on HFC public stations. I get the truck EV weight argument, but still easier to just have removable/exchangeable battery packs (remember this is for predictable repeatable routes so easy to plan for, and a lot easier/cheaper to slow Chargé the pack just removed ready for next time).
   He acknowledged EVs use the energy more efficiently (3 or 4 times more miles per kWh), so economics will mean EVs are always going to be commercially more attractive prospect.

   Don’t get me wrong, there is market capacity for all zero emission solutions and I wish them success but I’ll eat my hat if they sell a tenth of Tesla’s semi sales. And we all agree these industrial purchases are finance driven (Total real world cost of ownership), not brand Loyality.

3. David Fields Says:
   June 19th, 2020 at 3:40 pm

   I believe Nikola’s patent on the appearance of the truck are invalid due to prior art. He may have a patent as of 2016 but the Airflow Truck Company–the same company that partnered with Shell Oil for their Starship–has a near-identical design for MAN from 2012, at least four years before Nikola’s patents.
   https://lynceans.org/tag/airflow-truck-company/

4. David Fields Says:
   June 19th, 2020 at 4:06 pm

   Note an error on my previous post: The MAN design is proprietary to MAN, albeit linked as another aero concept farther down the page I linked. Note also that other brands have also generated similar designs, up to and including the overall shape, the mid-entry door and other components that Nikola claims patents on–all dating as much as five years before Nikola announced their model.

5. Mark Laurence Says:
   June 21st, 2020 at 1:07 pm

   I really appreciate Autoline After Hours, I enjoy especially your guests that are engineers and management people.

   This guest, Trevor Milton, is another in a long line of scam artists that snooker the gullible. His company is 99%
   vaporware at this point. Those people mentioned from Bosch and other companies on his board are part of the scam or have been duped by this slick conn man.

   It will be interesting to see all those that bought stock cry rivers when Nikola blows up. Where are the Fed’s ? Oh yeah, they are harassing Elon Musk, and still focused on how they let the Bernie Madoff scam exist.

   A couple of young guys on YouTube did a good job of research where they show this crook contradicting himself a million times. You three interviewers should have done a bit more digging and asked some tough questions. Since you did not, you are just another group of journalists that have helped perpetuate this conn.

   Not sure why your BS meters were not pinging at the end of the scale. It is really mind boggling how he has been able to get rich off this large bag of nothingness. All he has is a business plan for heavens sake!!! Where are his factories, where are his prototypes, where are his employees? That expression “there is a sucker born every minute” has to be modified to “there is a sucker with money born every minute”