American PPT car manufacturing: There is no next Musk, but there are many Jia Yueting

Only the world where retail investors were injured were completed.

Wen ｜ Xiong Yuxiang

Edit ｜ Luo Songsong

Visual Design ｜ Shu Rui

Editor in charge ｜ Zhou Zhehao

Research Support ｜ Luo Songsong

Source ｜ Yuanchuan Research Institute (ID: Caijingyanjiu)

Cover Source ｜ Vision China

During the development of electric vehicles, although the empty institution will be late, it will never be absent.

Before Tesla's continuous profit, Tesla had been short -term short years in a consecutive years by well -known short "Xiangxiang", which caused an epic "multi -short war" on Wall Street. In the case of, it was determined that its stock price was serious. In June of this year, the short -ngfending agency "Grizzlies" again shot again, saying that Weilai exaggerated income and net profit margins through the battery rental business, which led to the fluctuation of Weilai stock prices.

As a short -term institution, it is like a "elder brother", staring at every movement of each listed company, and is ready to give a heavy blow at any time. Essence

In the past two years, Nikola and LordStown, who were born in the United States, have been shortly taught by the short -term institutions, which has also allowed the world to appreciate how much the American version of PPT car building is wild.

"Next Tesla"

In 2014, Tesla just set off a wave in Silicon Valley. Trevor Milton used the other half of the name of the famous electrical scientist Nicholas Tesla to establish a truck company Nikola In the world of the car, Tesla and I are in the world.

Prior to this, Milton was an less successful continuous entrepreneur. In the mouth of the employees, he was full of energy and tongue like a spring. "You can sell snow to the Eskimos without snow." But the road that Nikola is going is not exactly the same as Tesla.

Nikola founder Milton

In 2016, the hydrogen fuel semi -hanging truck Nikola ONE released. In this commercial debut, Milton fully showed its eloquence and ambition. In the public plan, Nikola will not only create hydrogen energy and electric truck ONE, TWO, TRE, but also responsible for the operation and maintenance of hydrogen energy trucks. At the same time, it also sells hydrogen fuels. ].

This full -chain ecological reverse gameplay is only a year later than LeTV. However, the US capital market preferred to call Nikola: Tesla in the truck field.

When Milton touched Musk crossing the river, Steve Burns, the electric truck company, couldn't support it. In 2018, it lost 36.5 million US dollars. US dollars, which made him decide to start another stove [3].

In October 2019, GM's Lotte Factory in Ohio was about to close due to losses in succession, and thousands of car workers were facing unemployment. At a critical moment, Bernus came to the white knight and announced the acquisition of the factory and set up LordStown, the same name, to transform it into an electric vehicle production base with an annual capacity of 500,000 vehicles. Here

Bernus didn't know at the time, he picked a perfect point in time.

A few days later, Tesla released the electric pickup Cybertruck, which received 200,000 orders in three days. In the turn of the year, Nikola also released a hydrogen fuel pickup Badger. In the United States, pickups sell more than 2 million units each year, and new energy pickups will be a hundred billion market for soldiers.

Nikola and LordStown, which were originally competing with Tesla's misalignment, entered the same track as Tesla. In June 2020, Tesla's stock price skyrocketed three times year -on -year, and investors who failed to take the Rockets were anxious to find the next Tesla. Under the help of capital and media, Nikola and LordStown were pushed to the center of the stage.

In the same month, Nikola was listed on Nasdaq. The market value of Nikola, which was not produced by a car, reached US $ 30 billion, surpassing the second largest car company in the United States, and the latter's annual sales were 2 million. LordStown's listing is also on the string. Due to the number of billions of dollars in orders, the secondary market is also hungry.

If everything goes well, the highlights of Nikola and LordStown will come in September 2020.

In the month, GM announced that it would exchange for Nikola 11%of Nikola's 11%stake in assets and technologies, and escorted the latter's Badger pickup -guaranteed, and the two sides formed an alliance against Tesla. LordStown also received a GM $ 75 million investment and was at the moment of the upcoming listing. As an important political achievement for Trump to save the manufacturing industry, he appeared in the White House and brought the goods by the president himself.

Trump's electric pickup platform for LordStown in the White House

This seems to be a fruitful autumn: Nikola and LordStown harvest capital support, and senior executives realize financial freedom; GM recruit two younger brothers who help them electrize transformation; investors have found the next Tesla; Damaguki, where the manufacturing returns -everyone has a bright future.

Until someone stood up and asked: Why are everyone running blindfolded?

Bubble rupture

The shorting institution "Hindenburg Research" was established in 2017. The company's "Xingdenburg", which was killed by 36 people, was named, which intended to point out that many artificial disasters were avoided.

In the first three years, Xingdengbao was named unknown. Until 2020, they wanted to understand one thing -the name was anti -hydrogen and reversed, and it was destined to be short -selling new energy vehicles.

On September 10, 2020, two days after GM announced the plan to invest in Nikola, Xingdenburg threw a short 20,000 -word short report, accusing Nikola's story a complex scam for a large number of lies [4]. And this report also reveals a reason: to build a magnificent glory scam, often only a simple fake method.

For example, Nikola ONE claims to be complete when released, but it is actually just a car shell. Even the lights on the stage are provided by the plug under the stage.

For another example, Nikola claims to develop all key parts, but the key inverters are essentially purchased by suppliers, but Nikola uses electrical tape to cover up supplier trademarks and successfully mastered its self -developed ability.

Also, Nikola has released a "real shot" video driving on the road, but in fact, there is no power device on the truck. The truck looks dynamic ...

Nikola later acknowledged that the car in the video was actually gliding

These simple methods, the other side of the ocean always watched the Evergrande Motors, which is "three months old", and they have to do it in the inside.

Faced with the short report of the old base, Nikola scolded the short trial to manipulate the market. Universal, which was afraid of the damage to the reputation, came forward, saying that it had conducted a proper due diligence on Nikola, and the transaction was beneficial to both parties [5]. However, under the 53s of the logic of Xingdengbao's strict logic and full sense of oppression, the expression of these avoidances seemed pale and weak.

Investment people suddenly woke up, and the hydrogen version of Musk thought they were actually Jia Yueting, North America.

Two weeks after the short report was released, Milton was bombarded by the angry board of directors, but this did not save Nikola's reputation at all. Generally, he announced the cancellation of the investment plan and only maintains the procurement relationship with Nikola [6]. Nikola's stock price dived, and the market value fell 80%. A group of executives found that the general trend had gone and resigned one after another.

When Nikola fell into the altar, LordStown happened to reach the summit. After the founder Berns and Trump talked about laughter at the White House, LordStown led LordStown to successfully list in October 2020, raising 500 million US dollars, but the overwhelming that they had unfortunately became Xingdeng Dengdeng. The next goal.

Just half a year later, Xingdenburg published a short report on LordStown, pointing out that the company was just Jin Yuqi, and the core technology in his hands was actually the same as that of many net red milk tea shops -hiring queuing and increasing orders.

Xingdengbao found that LordStown publicly declared that there were 100,000 orders, but the company not only did not collect deposits from customers, but would entrust some intermediary agencies to "empty orders" at $ 50/piece, which exaggerated the number of orders and created a hot custody. The illusion. The largest customer with a pickup of 14,000 pickups (worth 730 million US dollars) to LordStown is actually just a two -person studio.

In terms of real technology, LordStown can get a few shots, and even try to copy the open source patent (unsuccessful) of the core battery technology. In the first road test, LordStown's test car was built on the road 10 minutes after going on the road [7]. Various signs show that LordStown is far more than half a year after mass production.

Faced with the reputation of Xingdengbao, after the symbolic struggle of LordStown, LordStown quickly walked the process of replacing the CEO-stock price plunge-production in trouble. Finally The work came against the sky.

However, the story of Nikola and LordStown is even the tip of the iceberg of the American PPT car.

Since 2020, Tesla's demonstration effect has superimposed the flood of liquidity brought about by large dollars of water release, which has set off a new round of new energy vehicle capital boom in the United States. Get a market value of billions to tens of billions of dollars.

However, Tesla built thousands of Roadster before listing, and the total number of mass -produced cars delivered before listing before listing is -0.

Two years later, they still failed to start delivery. The tragic statue of stock prices plummeted everywhere in the industry -CANOO said that the funds in their hands were not enough to build a car. The fastest legend.

The stock price of new American car construction forces is like a roller coaster

Then the question is, in the US securities market that was fined 20 million US dollars and lost the chairman's seat in a privately -owned cattle X. Why can these companies go on the market when a car cannot be created, and it is great Founded mines?

Capital

Behind each spectacular capital chaos, there is an excessive financial innovation. In 2020, the raging new crown epidemic and plunge in US stocks made it difficult for many companies to plan for IPOs. When a large number of companies were waiting to be fed, SPAC was pushed to the stage.

SPAC is a company that has been listed but does not have actual business, similar to A shares shell companies. Their existence provides a channel for startups to find money to find money: to complete financing by acquiring SPAC backdoor listing. Compared with the traditional IPO of the US stocks, the SPAC listing is faster and the restricted conditions are less, and the supervision is particularly loose.

In the past, SPAC was not mainstream financing channels, but in the depression period of US stocks in 2020, Goldman Sachs, Bank of China, Citi, and other investment banks vigorously opened up the SPAC listing business. Under the endorsement of the top investment bank, the SPAC market was rapidly prosperous. In that year, it raised $ 83 billion, a year -on -year increase of 500%[8].

In this capital feast, the most popular industry is electric vehicles, and the main participants are retail investors.

The result of this is that these companies do not need to go through strict layers of screening. Through Spac, they can even save only one car shell, and they start to sell another "accelerate world to sustainable energy transition" to ordinary investors. dream.

How much guarantee for ordinary investors can obtain in these dream -seeking journey, mainly depends on the responsibility of SPAC and sponsors. But the hot money is too turbulent, and the conscience is difficult to inherit its weight.

In the spring of 2020, LordStown ran through traditional financing channels but after the particles were not harvested. Goldman Sachs introduced it to the SPAC company founded by Goldman Sachs: Diamondpeak. The founder of the company Hamamoto had previously invested in real estate and knew it for the manufacturing of the car, but this did not prevent him from dropping more than 150 companies (including a number of real estate companies) with LordStown.

The New York Times broke the news in a report that when the former Gaosheng partner inspected LordStown, he focused on the hot "money scene" of electric vehicles, not the reliability of the LordStown team. Because it has a low equity cost of LordStown, even if the stock price crashes, it will not suffer losses [10].

However, the founders and executives of the new forces of car manufacturing will not watch the stock price collapse and indifferent. Due to the loose restrictions of Spac, they can cash more quickly and do not need to have the fate of the company with the company's breathing during the long equity lock period. Essence

During the short window period before LordStown was listed in October 2020 to March 2021, a number of senior executives operated accurately and cumulative more than $ 10 million.

Before Nikola went public in June 2020, the founder Milton couldn't wait to use the right to purchase the company's stock when purchasing a private farm. When the company was in trouble and the stock price plummeted due to suspected fraud, he still reduced its holdings twice and cash out a $ 284 million stock.

At the same time, Nikola had a fined US $ 125 million for Milton's lies to make a fine of $ 125 million in the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission), which worsened cash that was not rich in cash.

Because Spac's sickle is too profitable, in 2022, SEC announced that it would urgently strengthen supervision of it. In order to avoid responsibilities, the investment bank changed its enthusiasm and even reduced or even canceled this business, but the PPT car -made car urged by SPAC was already a piece of chicken feathers.

American lawyer Lacroix statistics that in 2021, 10 electric vehicle companies involved in SPAC -related lawsuits, most of which were still undergoing [11].

Nevertheless, no one has been punished so far. In this hurrying capital feast, a new power of vehicle construction, Spac, and Wall Street have been rich in a good time.

But there are always people who want to carry them for them.

In 2021, investors initiated a collective lawsuit against LordStown, and 70 -year -old retail investor George Troicky came forward as the chief representative of the plaintiff. In his investment in LordStown, he lost $ 860,000 -this is equivalent to a 10 -year income of an ordinary American family.

Reference

[1] Nikola Founder Trevor Milton is Facing Criminal Fraud Charges. Insiders say a history of lies brought down the bit contact the new elon musk. Business Insider.

[2] Nicholas: "Tesla" sample of hydrogen energy card, CITIC

[3] GM Sells LordStown Factory to the Offshoot of a Struggling Ev Startup, The Verge, The Verge

[6] GM Cancels Deal to Build Nikola (NKLA) Electric-Hydrogen Pickup Truck After Many ControVersies, Electric

[7] The lordStown Motors Mirage: FAKE Orders, UNDISCLOSED PRODUCTION HURDLES, and A Prototype Inferno, Hindenberg Research

[8] spacs party like it's 2020, Ruth Saldanha

[9] Electric Vehicle Makers Find A Back Door to Wall Street, New York Times

[10] Behind The LordStown Debal, The Hand of a Wall Street DealMaker, the New York Times

[11] And Again: Another Post-SPAC Merger EV Company Hit with Securities Sui, Kevin M. Lacroix

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