(June 9): Tesla Inc. shares are at an all-time high. Hertz Global Holdings Inc.’s are well above where they were before the company went bankrupt. But no stock in the automotive sector is a better indication of equity-market exuberance than Nikola Corp.
The aspiring battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell truck maker debuted on the Nasdaq last week following a reverse merger with a blank-check company headed by a former General Motors Co. executive and board director. It’s forecasting zero revenue for 2020 and its first US$1 billion (S$1.39 billion) year won’t be until 2023.
Ford Motor Co., by comparison, is expected to report about US$115 billion of revenue for this year. And yet Nikola, whose stock more than doubled Monday, traded up another 30% to as high as US$95 after the close, giving the company a richer market capitalization than the almost 117-year-old maker of the F-150.
Skeptics have long questioned the market’s valuation of Tesla, which has yet to post an annual profit. But by pushing Nikola’s market cap to US$26 billion at Monday’s close, investors have taken appraisals of zero-emission vehicle manufacturers named after a celebrated Serbian-American inventor to another stratosphere.
“Nikola’s No. 1 goal is stable growth over time,” Trevor Milton, Nikola’s executive chairman, said in an emailed statement. The 38-year-old said several factors could be behind the stock’s gain and cited examples including his tweeted announcement that the company will start taking reservations for its Badger pickup.
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Starting five years ago, when Milton founded Nikola, through the end of last year, the Phoenix-based company has lost about US$188.5 million. It’s planning to start delivering the Tre battery-electric semi truck next year, followed by two fuel cell-electric models in 2023.
The Badger model that Milton said may have gotten the market excited on Monday might not actually make it into production. In Nikola’s public-offering filing, the company said it is focused on making Class 8 heavy-duty vehicles and doesn’t expect to build the Badger unless it finds an established manufacturer to partner with.
A spokesperson for the company said Nikola will announce a partner in the near future, without giving more specifics.
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Last week, Milton ceded the chief executive officer job to Mark Russell, a former COO of metals manufacturer Worthington Industries Inc. who has been president of Nikola since February 2019. VectoIQ Acquisition Corp., the company Nikola merged with, is led by Steve Girsky, a former GM vice chairman who helped lead the carmaker out of bankruptcy.
Nikola had about US$86 million in cash at the end of last year. Prior to the stock listing, it had raised more than US$500 million of private capital, though that includes a US$150 million in-kind contribution from CNH Industrial NV, the truck maker linked to Italy’s billionaire Agnelli family. CNH also invested US$100 million cash in Nikola last year.
The partnership with CNH includes a 50-50 venture in Europe that aims to start producing battery-electric trucks in Germany in the first half of next year and a North American alliance that Nikola will fully own.
Nikola is planning to build a 1-million-square-foot facility south of Phoenix and start making trucks in 2021. It’s expecting to reach full production of about 30,000 fuel cell-electric vehicles in 2027 and 15,000 battery-electric vehicles the following year.
Although Nikola touts reservations for 14,000 fuel cell-electric trucks that it says are worth about US$10 billion of sales, those are far from done deals. The company told prospective investors in April that it was negotiating with strategic fleet partners to convert pre-orders into binding contracts with deposits.
While times are good for Milton -- his fortune now stands at US$9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index -- he still covets something Tesla’s CEO Musk has: a blue check mark on Twitter.
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Hi @verified @twitter, how about verifying my account and our company's account so people stop asking if we are the real accounts of Nikola. I've waiting patiently for a year and no verification. Help a company out. @nikolatrevor and @nikolamotor
Then again, Milton may want to be careful about seeking notoriety on Musk’s favourite social-media platform. The account @TESLACharts, which has accumulated roughly 26,400 followers by incessantly trolling Musk, has taken notice of Nikola’s rise.
Nikola, which has **zero revenue**, now has a market cap greater than $30B. But the Fed has nothing to do with this asset bubble mania. Amazing times. No position. $NKLA pic.twitter.com/0S6yOsfHn7
