Nikola: How to Parlay an Ocean of Lies into a Partnership with GM - <AUTHOR> https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/ <comment><USER2> It does sound pretty bad, doesn't it? The guy certainly seems to have a problem with telling the truth. I think it's crazy to compare him to Musk, since Musk is actually extremely smart and knowledgeable about multiple areas of engineering. This other guy is just parotting the same lines, like "we are an advanced energy company that just happens to sell cars!". It's like the cargo-cult version of Tesla without any interesting technology or innovation. All that being said, I hope the author of this write-up has a good lawyer!

<comment><USER3> Musk has also had some interesting/uneasy relationship history with the truth. This guy does seem to be taking it quite a bit farther and leaving a lot more daylight visible between his statements and the truth.

<comment><USER4> Musk has actually delivered ground breaking tech in multiple fields though. He talks big but he usually (eventually) backs it up. No other company has managed to send rockets to space and then land them again. No other company has managed to sell fully electric cars en-masse like Tesla has done.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, he certainly invests in innovative high-tech industries and I like that a lot. But he also overpromises a lot, e.g. coast-to-coast tesla autopilot (probably not happening anytime soon) or something actually useful with the neurochip (also years ahead). some of his remarks on AI also tells me that he has a feeling that he knows everything about everything but that might not be exactly the case. he is a smart guy and he got rich basically by having a really good electronic payment system. but that does not make him a universal engineer/scientist/philosopher.

<comment><USER6> "Shoot for the stars but if you happen to miss shoot for the moon instead."

There's something to be said about the value of setting wildly unachievable goals. It takes you further than you might have thought possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone else getting Theranos vibes? As others have stated here, Hindenburgresearch is a known short-seller and so has an self interest to drive down the stock price of Nikola.

Also it was only yesterday that GM announced taking an 11% in the company for $2B. Surely GM has done their due diligence before throwing a couple of billions in? [https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/08/business/nikola-gm-badger- ele...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/08/business/nikola-gm-badger-electric- vehicles/index.html)

That all said, everyone also thought Theranos was legitimate until they were exposed to be not.

<comment><USER8> I think you read the $2B upside down. Nikola paid GM $2B worth of stocks (11% of the company) to have GM manufacture its vehicles, not the other way around

<comment><USER7> You're right I misread it - Nikola is paying GM. Sounds like a no-brainer for GM to accept.

<comment><USER9> Worst case, and let's be honest, modal case, Nikola goes under and GM has tech and parts that they can just use on their own anyway in their electric vehicles.

<comment> dawg- Even better for GM, they just acquire the whole thing and now they have a new brand to make their EV's under. GM could make a Chevy Volt 2x better than any Tesla, but Tesla will still sell better because of the brand identity. If you look at it like a branding/marketing deal then it makes a lot more sense from GM's perspective.

<comment><USER10> >GM could make a Chevy Volt 2x better than any Tesla

As someone who worked in automotive tech in Detroit. This isn't even close to true.

<comment> dawg- Sorry for the vague wording. I meant "could" not as a statement of their actual ability, but as a hypothetical. If they did make such a car, Tesla would still sell better because of the brand. The current public narrative says that Tesla is cutting edge and futuristic, and Chevy is old school. Tesla's brand evokes images of cars as smart as their drivers, and Chevy evokes muscle cars and old pickup trucks. EV sales will reflect that regardless of how their cars actually compare to one another.

<comment><USER10> If Chevy made something better than a Tesla for a similar price or cheaper then people would buy it. But they can't.

<comment><USER11> and unfortunately they don't really want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And the thread of the sweater gets pulled...

While not shocking given the previous track record of Trevor's previous enterprises - the most likely outcome here is that it will get very, very ugly. He also already 'cashed out' millions of dollars to buy a 32.5 million dollar ranch - one of the largest residential properties in Utah's history. [1]

Tesla's run up and general optimism around EVs seems to have triggered a gold rush of sorts, effecting other EV pureplays' stock prices (ex. NIO) regardless of progress and actual state of the technology.

While in theory I am in strong support of new financing models to bring new technologies to market(ex. these Special Purpose Acquisition Companies - SPACs) I am very concerned that if even a portion of the alleged is true, this could poison this financing route for legitimate businesses and the sector overall. A camp in the investment industry even think Tesla is a fraud, and this would only harm the narrative and long term mission of Tesla.

It would have been great if they actually took the money, utilized it with a plan and executed on the plan to help with electrification - the premise for which I think many retail investors have become involved.

Even if there was no fraud, I was always skeptical of their plan (smelled like vaporware to me) and their adamance about hydrogen as an energy storage medium without sufficient discussion on electrolyzer technology or how those unit economics work always struck me as big red flags. Seems like Nikola's plan was to combine a bunch of off the shelf parts existing from other sources into a product, in that case - where is the technology? So much of it with just the bit of digging and what I hear about it has made me skeptical.

Probably best to stay as far away as possible and see where the chips fall. I do wish them the best though, assuming there was no fraud.

[1] [https://www.latimes.com/business/real- estate/story/2019-11-1...](https://www.latimes.com/business/real- estate/story/2019-11-14/nikola-motor-head-trevor-milton-2000-acre-utah-ranch)

<comment><USER13> >A camp in the investment industry even think Tesla is a fraud,

At this point in Tesla's history, how is it a fraud? It is manufacturing and selling cars. It is building batteries. I can see where some may think it is not living up to the hype/promise of returns, but they are actually making and selling product. Yet people are still claiming fraud?

<comment><USER14> I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what short sellers do (which is where most of the "fraud" accusation comes from). Some short sellers DO claim fraudulent behavior, e.g. Enron was famously predicted to be fraudulent by Jim Chanos.

However short selling at its core just involves the belief that a company is overvalued. In the case of extreme fraud, the "correct value" is $0. In most cases, the short seller just believes it's some amount less than the current share price (but above $0).

Tesla falls into the latter category. I'm sure some do claim fraudulent behavior, but Tesla is an interesting case because Tesla's PE is ~200 IIRC, compared to the 20 average for the automotive industry. For comparison, Amazon's PE is 120.

So if you think Tesla is ultimately a car company, or even just a "regular" tech company, it's not insane to think that it's incredibly overvalued. That doesn't mean you think it's a _fraud_ , of course, but the subtlety obviously gets lost by many (and short sellers often make grandiose edicts that don't help their case).

<comment><USER15> > Tesla's PE is ~200 IIRC

TSLAs PE is 896 as of market close today (371.74/.4140) and had a PE of ~1213 at its ATH price of 502.49/share

<comment><USER16> thank you for putting up this correction

There is literally no company on the planet that can justify a 896 PE

Let's see how long Tesla can keep things going with 1,000 PEs

They are projected (based on stock valuation) to take over all or most of

cars energy solar power

Which is quite an absurd assumption

<comment><USER17> Plenty of companies have justified negative P/E, which is worse than 896, and still worse than even 10,000. In fact, their share price kept going up all the way until their P/E was strongly positive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This interview from April 2019 was the thing that convinced me he was a fraud. [https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the- grille-...](https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of- the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck)

This gem right here:

> "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. > "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so > using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every > component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. > It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to > communicate."

This guy does not know what HTML is. What he has described is not what HTML would be used for.

And I'm supposed to believe he's some sort of mastermind behind some new age hydrogen/electric truck?

<comment><USER19> The bigger issue here is that this man was able to convince "industry veterans" to give him massive amounts of money. You can see through him in a heart beat because you're technically savvy. Clearly the people running these automakers are not.

<comment><USER20> Seriously just watch any of the guys rants on YouTube, you don't have to be technically savvy to see through his bullshit. Watch any of his interviews on YouTube. I like this one with Jim Cramer trying to nail him down on his pre- sales number on the Badger and laughing at him later

[https://youtu.be/OPhN8saJkAI?t=377](https://youtu.be/OPhN8saJkAI?t=377)

<comment><USER21> Amazingly tall pile of crap that guy is spewing. In the video he's touting their lack of product / development focus as a virtue and claiming that they can work on four or five projects (vehicles) more efficiently than one, despite having no viable vehicles. Maybe we should consider his premise: Nikola can fail to build four or five vehicles as well as they can fail to build one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I find the audacity of the fraud hilarious.

They pulled a truck up a hill and let it roll down unpowered, using it in a video demonstrating their new EV technology when nothing worked. Who does that.

<comment><USER23> Startups do this. All the time. But they're typically software not hardware demos so much easier to fake.

<comment><USER24> this sounds equivalent to recording your demo of your website to play during a conference because you aren't sure it's gonna work on stage. done that plenty of times

<comment><USER25> There is a pretty big gap between "it might crash so I have a backup" and "it has never worked so let's fake it".

<comment><USER24> not from a customers perspective

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Am I the only one who reads these stories of high level fraud (this one and Theranos) and think: "why not me?" I'd like to say I have higher ethical standards, but these conmen have cashed out a loooot of money doing this, and I think my ethics would also get flexible as dollar amounts get into the 8 or 9-figures. But then I realize, this type of a person has been doing this their whole life. This guy bilked his partner out of $50k in selling a $300k business. I just wouldn't think it's worth the hassle to lie through my teeth to everyone around me for $50k. That's the difference between us and them, I guess, it's the small-time fraud you have to slog through to make it to the big-leagues of scams.

<comment><USER27> You'll risk jail. And never having an honest job again. And having to hang out with the sort of people who enjoy the company of con artists. And lying through your teeth all day. And actively spending your creative energies making the world worse. And deliberately stealing money from people who might have used it for something useful. And gaining the lifetime hatred of these people. Who will want to punish you personally, financially or even commit acts of violence against you.

If you've really thought through it and still figure it's a good idea, I'd honestly like to stay as far away from you as possible. Because I'm pretty sure that would represent a judgement that's at best very unsound, and in the more likely case indicates a personality that's dangerous to their surroundings.

<comment><USER26> Fully agreed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Hindenburg Research" is already an excellent name for a short seller, but in this case, they are short selling a company creating cars powered by _hydrogen fuel cells_. 2020 continues to be an incredibly on-the-nose year.

</comment><comment><USER29> > Initial Disclosure: After extensive research, we have taken a short position > in shares of Nikola Corp.

This is a great example of why shorts are socially valuable. Without that incentive who would go to the trouble of doing all this research to uncover (possible) fraud? This topic that comes up a lot on Money Stuff, where its easier for private companies to hide misbehavior because you can only short the public ones.

<comment><USER30> Short sellers, especially public ones, have a critical role in our equity markets. They remind me of defense attorneys. It's a sometimes thankless job and nobody likes you for being too good at it, but it is absolutely vital to keep the system healthy. Kudos to these guys for doing the fucking work.

<comment><USER31> I liked the bit where someone rented a car out in the middle of the desert and rolled it down a low grade hill for several miles to prove the truck demo was unpowered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have been watching Nikola for years wondering why anyone believes its BS, I didn't realize the deception was this blatant and deep, I guess like many I didn't do real due diligence, but I didn't invest millions in the company either.

Very sad and disheartening to see it continue and get further investment, just make me think that telling the truth does't pay, selling lies does, fake it till you make it taken to the extreme, similar to Tharanos.

The over promise under deliver approach Musk uses annoy's me but there is something real there, real results, Nikloa is literally riding on a play of a name of another company. At least Musk recognizes the issues with Hydrogen and he obviously has a grasp of the technical issues:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT- DCBVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs)

<comment><USER33> It took me years and years to get a story that made sense about Corbin Motors and why they flamed out making the Sparrow and trying to bring out the Merlin.

It will probably surprise nobody here that the Pareto Principle applies to large scale manufacturing. Hand building a vehicle is 10% of the work, and the other 90% is a very different kind of work and skillset that is easy to drown in. A bunch of things you just figured out how to do well, you need to stop doing entirely because a machine or a vendor should be doing them for you. Along with all the people and equipment you acquired to do it.

You have to stomach writing off a bunch of equipment, swallowing your pride and taking advice from people who have no sweat equity in your company. And as a cherry on top, you probably get to be the asshole that has to fire John Henry, who has been here since before the machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> From the link:

 _Nikola's Director of Hydrogen Production /Infrastructure Is Trevor Milton's Little Brother, Who Worked Paving Driveways in Hawaii Prior To Joining at Nikola_

 _Nikola's Chief Engineer: A Background Largely in Software Development and Pinball Machine Repair_

<comment><USER35> The younger brother actually delivered value to customers by pouring concrete and paving driveways, in contrast to Nikola's record to date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was wondering, how on earth this company even came to be listed on NASDAQ, since they have no products and no revenue.

So I looked it up and basically it looks like they acquired a company which was ALREADY listed on NASDAQ then renamed it.

> In March 2020, Nikola announced its plans to merge with VectoIQ[10] > Acquisition Corporation[11] (ticker VTIQ), a publicly traded special purpose > acquisition company run by former General Motors Co. executive Steve Girsky. > This resulted in the combined company being listed on the NASDAQ exchange > with the NKLA ticker symbol.[12] Nikola's stock began trading on June 4, > 2020, a day after the merger was completed

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Corporation)

<comment><USER9> >So I looked it up and basically it looks like they acquired a company which was ALREADY listed on NASDAQ then renamed it

Not just any company, a Spac. Special purpose acquisition company. That's their purpose, they're not actually companies, but blank check investment vehicles.

It's a way to go public without an IPO. And unlike reverse mergers with actual companies spacs are clean since they're shell companies.

They're neither shady nor unusual, though.

<comment><USER37> Reverse Takeovers (RTOs) are super-common in Australia. A lot of broken mining companies whose exploration came up blank wind up sitting around still with a symbol on the ASX. This is used as an easy way to list - although the prognosis is not normally good (i.e. anyone evading the scrutiny of a listing starts a bit behind the 8-ball). Given how expensive and complex listing is, it's not the worst thing in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> this is interesting. i worked for someone like this who was CEO of a YC backed startup. everything was "in progress" but really hadn't started. the stuff that was "finished" was ongoing or never happened. it got to the point where every line in a meeting about plans i had to question to find the real story. you can get very far bullshitting your way

</comment><comment><USER38> I think it's a bit funny how some discussion in this thread has veered into denigrating Musk — who is at times one of the ten richest people in the entire world, and who ships products that millions of people have bought or aspire to purchasing, and who is predominately responsible for ushering in this entire era of the electronic car.

Don't forget that "Hindenburg Research" (seriously?!) stands to make many tens or hundreds of millions of dollars based on whether they can convince a significant number of shareholders that what they are claiming is true. And also that if they are successful in doing so that it also becomes a self- fulfilling prophecy.

I have no reason to believe or disbelieve any claims being made in TFA, so the only thing I can say for sure is that that this "report" is in no way altruistic.

One of the very precarious notions around short selling is the financial incentive it provides to ruinously slander a company, and the very meager legal protections a company has against defamatory claims that short sellers make — in the name of "analysis" — against a company that they stand to make a fortune from if it fails.

Without knowing anything one way or another about Nikola, the only thing I can say for certain is that if Nikola misstates a material fact to investors they can go to jail, whereas if "Hindenburg" gets their facts entirely wrong they face no repercussions. They have no duty to the shareholders of Nikola stock, and the legal peril of being even willfully wrong in their analysis is minuscule compared to what Nikola officers could face from the SEC.

That's just the grain of salt I would carefully consider before reading anything that Hindenburg puts out.

<comment><USER39> Are you long on Nikola?

The group releasing the report stands to lose their position if their claims are false or even if the market ignores them. I'd argue it's a lot harder to convince a bunch of people with long positions making the market that they pumped the wrong company than it is for the makers to ignore the ruse long enough to diversify the inevitable failure and pass it into your retirement fund.

You don't just short companies for fun with no ramifications. I think you're painting an exaggerated picture of the nature of taking down a company. You only attempt to do so if you are extremely sure of your convictions and have overwhelming evidence to support your case. You make enemies and you risk losing your connection to other market makers.

I came across Nikola last month and didn't need a report like this to smell something fishy. But this one is especially damning. I see no reason to not believe the evidence in the report.

<comment><USER38> Not long on Nikola, and like I said, I am not making any judgement on the facts or evidence presented whatsoever.

But I was long Tesla during a similar period in their own existence, while short sellers tried to make a similar case that Tesla was a fraud and certain to go bankrupt any day.

There is always a strong reason to question a report when the authors have an extremely vested interest in people believing it, and in fact when the objective truth of whether they are right is less important than how many people they can make believe that they are right.

<comment><USER27> You're making an underappreciated point: Activist short sellers can be capable of torpedoing a company that would have been successful in their absence, if the company's development depends on financing and goodwill.

It does present a bit of an ethical conundrum. Is it ethically correct to not point out something you believe to be fraudulent?

It's certainly unethical to deliberately slander something you believe to be viable, purposes of profit or not, but it can be hard to tell the difference when judging any such initiative.

I could see the case for banning advocating a short position, reasoning in terms of market manipuiation, but I don't think it's clear-cut. Was also a very close observer to the Tesla shennanigans two years ago, and there were some shameful tactics being used at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The fraud is not interesting.

The fact that big companies and Big CEO's are stupid and incompetent is the interesting thing.

Everyone who worked on this deal at GM should be fired along with the CEO.

I once worked at a 'Big Company' that thought about buying n Mp3 player. Everyone loved their CEO, their pitch, the box, product looked slick.

We were going to buy it. I took it home and tried it and it was garbage.

Literally our M&A team, execs, due diligence and _nobody bothered to f_ __ing try the dam product* and use a little bit of common sense to ascertain whether it was 'quality' or not.

This was not fraud, and of a much smaller scale, but it's just incredible how big the 'blind spot' so many executives have.

Edit: I said executives were 'stupid' they generally are not. They just have gaping holes in their abilities, that enough ego doesn't allow them to even see themselves. It's understandable they don't want to look weak, but insane that they don't do background/deep checks.

If I were a CEO I would include 'product & IP validation' right up front as part of due diligence - not just by 'accredited people' (because you can't get a 'CA' in tech) but by people you trust.

Edit 2:

"Trevor has appointed his brother, Travis, as "Director of Hydrogen Production/Infrastructure" to oversee this critical part of the business. Travis's prior experience looks to have largely consisted of pouring concrete driveways and doing subcontractor work on home renovations in Hawaii."

Oh please make this into a Tiger King Netflix special ...

<comment><USER41> Maybe we'll get a Good Will Hunting version. Concrete pourer solves what billions of dollars and academics could not for years. I would watch it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Totally reminds me of Theranos. "Charismatic" (I put that in quotes because they're only charismatic to a certain group of people, I think the more "mechanical" thinkers like myself view them about as charismatic as a used-car salesman) founder who the industry touts as "the next Jobs/Musk" excels at sounding like a ton of bullshit but is able to convince well-heeled investors to pony up a lot of money due to FOMO.

<comment><USER43> "Huckster" is the word you're groping for, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Does anyone have a contrary spurce of positive evidence that Nikola honestly does have valuable working technology? I have not made any effort to dig, but what little I had seen of Nikola so far seemed more hype than substance so the accusations here seem pretty believable.

<comment><USER45> The most charitable thing I've seen is some of the videos that came from when Trevor invited several popular Tesla oriented YouTube and Twitter personalities to Nikola HQ for a day long tour and Q&A. Sean Mitchell in particular has a pretty even handed take.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6R5PuEl028](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6R5PuEl028)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9arSTJLsa_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9arSTJLsa_8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm not big on trading individual stocks, but I own a bunch of long puts on Nikola. I don't know any other company that seems as likely to go to zero (other than companies like Hertz, where everyone knows so the options are priced appropriately).

<comment><USER47> Be careful with those puts. It's entirely possible to be right and still not be able to close out your position because the underlying is halted/delisted.

<comment><USER48> The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent

I think the flood of retail investors with disposable income and government benefits is leading to absurdities in market pricing. See: Hertz skyrocketing after announcing bankruptcies.

After all, the stock has dropped 90%, how much lower can it go right?

Well, to the new investors, all the way to 0.

<comment><USER49> This is not even that. The parent is talking about the case where the stock does indeed go to zero and get de-listed from the exchange, in other words the market becomes rational. At that point, you're holding put options that are ridiculously in-the-money, but you can't execute or sell them to take your profit because the underlying stock is gone. So, your highly valuable stash of Nikola puts becomes worthless ...

<comment><USER50> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. If it gets delisted, you would buy the pinks to get the shares. The stock doesn't just disappear when it's delisted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The sad part for me is that this reads like a profile of a "successful, new age, startup entrepreneur" relying on the 'fake it till you make it' mantra betting other people's money on the outside chance they can figure out how to do what they claim they already do before everyone else catches on.

I would have expected that GM's due diligence team would uncover this sort of stuff prior to taking an 11% position in the company.

Which proves to me, once again, that the way to get rich is to defraud people with a lot of money, and not a lot of insight.

<comment><USER52> In fairness, GM got $2 billion worth of Nikolai stock for future vague work.

The work they are supposed to be doing for Nikolai is the same work they'll be doing for their own EV trucks (that they'll have to have at some point) so you can look at it as GM being paid by Nikolai for R&D.

I would still not do this deal if I was GM.

The probability of Nikolai bursting in the flames of disgrace and litigation before they'll pay GM for anything is 99%.

GM can only sell 30% of stock after a 1 year (and additional 30% each year after) so by the time they can cash in, it'll likely be worthless.

And Mary Barra will have to explain how she got taken by an obvious fraud. It might end up costing her a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Hindenburg Research is a well known short seller.

<comment><USER54> That's an awfully tasteless choice of a name then. They are looking for companies that are going to catch on fire, crash and burn?

<comment><USER55> As is sometimes noted, the Hindenburg is known as a gigantic disaster, but only a little over a third of the people on it died, which is probably better than you usually get from an airplane that explodes in a fireball at 600 feet.

So maybe they are looking for companies that are going to have extreme PR disasters, regardless of actual consequences.

<comment><USER56> The Hindenburg wasn't even the deadliest airship disaster. 36 died in the Hindenberg fire while 52 died on the Dixmude, 48 on R101, and 73 on the USS Akron (three survivors.)

I think the Hindenburg is the best known because it was captured on film and broadcast radio, and was also the last.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Why do I cringe when I see "at a high rate of speed" where "at high speed" should be?

<comment><USER58> Same reason I cringe when people use "as per" where a single "as" or "per" will do (per means as), "thusly" instead of "thus", and, my personal anti- favorite, "individual" to mean "person".

It's a special kind of pretentious language that people use to make them seem more authoritative or accurate/deliberate. It's manipulative.

<comment><USER3> For me "leverage" instead of "use" is like nails on a chalkboard.

<comment><USER59> \- usage instead of "use" (they _are_ different words)

\- quantify/fication instead of "measure/ment"

\- problematic instead of "a problem"

\- such that instead of "that" (the correct usage is as a phrase that comes from math proofs, "pick an x such that y")

<comment><USER58> > _problematic instead of "a problem"_

I think this one comes out of a fear of or desire to avoid confrontational language in general in the US. Something can be called problematic without declaring "a problem exists".

What, you got a problem?! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Reminds me of Magic Leap but even their bullshit wasn't this thick. At least they shipped something I guess.

</comment><comment><USER61> >On the morning of September 8, 2020, Nikola announced a strategic manufacturing partnership with General Motors, sending shares of both companies sharply higher.

Interesting that GM seems to be making a lot of moves at once.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/03/gm-and-honda-to-estabish- str...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/03/gm-and-honda-to-estabish-strategic- alliance-in-north-america.html)

</comment><comment><USER62> I know Hyundai Motor started shipping production model of fuel-cell truck in July 2020. They are planning to ship 1,600 hydrogen-powered Xcient trucks to customers by 2025.

[https://www.autoblog.com/2020/07/08/hyundai-xcient-fuel- cell...](https://www.autoblog.com/2020/07/08/hyundai-xcient-fuel-cell-semi- truck-hydrogen-electric-europe/)

And then I ran into this article. [https://www.autoblog.com/2020/08/13/nikola- hyundai-hydrogen-...](https://www.autoblog.com/2020/08/13/nikola-hyundai- hydrogen-partnership/)

Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola Corp, said he would like to cooperate with Hyundai. He said he had twice made proposals to Hyundai that were rejected.

</comment><comment><USER63> They said that they would release a report on a well known company but this is a little disappointing. I think everyone knew that Nikola was pretty shady to begin with. After all, it's not everyday when the company sells merch that revolves around their trading symbol

</comment><comment><USER64> So it seems GM didn't really give any money to Nikola ? The article mentions they get 2 billion equivalent in stocks for non-cash contributions and 700 million in reimbursements from Nikola.

</comment><comment><USER65> Nikola seems to be little more than an idea but this report won't sink their ship. The reality is that the world is looking for the replacement for our carbon based energy system. Even if he just comes close to making a dent he and the people around him will be well rewarded. Everything starts with a dream, he seems to be a bit farther along than that. I won't invest but the car companies should at least help him make his dream come true. It will benefit all of us.

</comment><comment><USER33> I searched my heart for sympathy, and all I found was this bucket of crocodile tears.

Someone sold GM on a fraudulent electric vehicle future? Let's ask some former EV1 owners how that feels.

</comment><comment><USER66> For those who have read "Bad Blood", which details the fraud and unethical practices behind Theranos, this deeply comprehensive account of Nikola feels like deja Vu. I wonder if the same power dynamics are in play here as well, making the truth hard to recover from those close to it while an incompetent news industry continues primarily writing positive headlines that enable the fraud.

</comment><comment><USER67> Check this one: " elaborate ruse—Nikola had the truck towed to the top of a hill on a remote stretch of road and simply filmed it rolling down the hill."

</comment><comment><USER68> nikola stock only down 11% today, market cap 14bn. is this report credible at all? why is the market not taking this more seriously?

<comment><USER69> Because Nikola has been excellent at selling their story to a broad set of people using social media and youtube. And many of these don't follow reports like this, plus the anti-short backlash from the hardcore fans and investors is strong with reports like this.

They are 'the next Tesla' but 'better' because they use 'hydrogen'. And every 'blogboy' knows that hydrogen is the real technology of the future. So when a untypical CEO from a Tesla like company makes big claims and has amazing presentation and videos to back it up, many buy it.

Nikola did clever things like suing Tesla over their truck design, to get massive exposure threw the Tesla hype machine with the moto bad publicity is publicity. They consistently try to get into all the Tesla and EV influences and made it a point of trying to get them onboard. Trever Milon often competing on Tesla, comparing themselves to Tesla and so on.

He literally says things like 'There are few people who can out-Elon Elon but I'm one of them'. That sort of talk sells well.

Nikola for 4 years consistently trying to insert itself into the conversation and that has really payed of for them. They have never done anything but get mentioned right along companies established car makers. In reality Nikola is far less of a company then Rivian, but much better known.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> > Trevor has appointed his brother, Travis, as "Director of Hydrogen > Production/Infrastructure" to oversee this critical part of the business. > Travis's prior experience looks to have largely consisted of pouring > concrete driveways and doing subcontractor work on home renovations in > Hawaii.

This might be one of the best parts.

</comment><comment><USER71> What of this article at cnet, where they show a working truck used by Budweiser in 2019?

[https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/budweiser-beer-nikola- hyd...](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/budweiser-beer-nikola-hydrogen- electric-semi-truck/)

</comment><comment><USER69> I totally agree here. Following this space for a long time, Nikola has always been by far the shadiest of all these companies.

They were one of the very few companies that claimed revolutionary battery technology. This is an instant red flag and a huge one. New revolutionary batteries don't just just happen.

Sila Nanotechnology, is only replacing anode materials, and they have been at it since 2012 and don't expect to be in cars until 2025. Quantum Scape, who want to make Solid State Li Anode batteries is not gone be in cars until 2025.

There were a number of other companies who also did this 'we have revolutionary batteries'. Some actually believed they did. Dyson is a good example, they wanted to create a car, and to achieve their targets, they invested lots of money including in batteries. However since they are a honest company they eventually admired that they couldn't hit their engineering targets and abandoned the project.

A Nikola competitor in the arena of bullshit spinning is Henry Fisker. His first company made lots of nonsense claims, including about batteries, but unlike Nikola they actually went threw the trouble and made some investment in future battery tech, just not credibly commercial ones. They went bankrupt. His new company is right back to the old bullshit spinning way but they have lower their ambitions and just open say they want to buy the VM MEB platform, now they are gone be the most 'sustainable' among other claims.

As a comparison, Tesla 'revolutionary' technology at battery day will likely not be a silicon anode or a lithium anode, those are simply not ready for commercial use. Revolutionary battery technology would be 10-20% energy density improvment and 30-50% longer lifetime maybe 2x faster production speed, and Tesla has been working on this for 5-10 years and have spent many 100s of millions acquiring a set of companies and having research agreement with multiple universities that all work in collaboration. In total I would guess to really bring a new cell to market at scale, you are talking 5-15 years and 5 billion $, and that is still with basically conventional cell chemistry.

Much of the same can be said about Fuel Cells. Toyota, Honda and also the Koreans have been banging their head against the fuel cell wall for 30 years, with heaps of government money to back them up. They know they can't make it work, even with their massive resources. In personal vehicles they are not competitive against EVs in the slights (while also not being an improvement in CO2 compared to Gas) while in trucks they are not competitive with Disel or Natural Gas, and soon electric trucks are gone take the majority of routes over as nobody can compete with their price on these short and mid distant routes.

But Nikola are gone make it, and not for a geographically small place like Japan, but for the gigantic US without much government support either.

Another topic is that of product announcements. If you follow Nikola for many years, or you go back to 2016 and look at their announcements there is a funny effect that happens. People can say about Elon Time what they like, but mostly the products actually do come out and often are improved over the original announcement in a number of ways. Nikola shows the exact opposite pattern. It goes something like this, announce revolutionary new product but its 3-5 years out. Then progressively lower the specs over time, while pushing the time to market out further.

The hype for anything EV related has been insane. Quantum Scape is a fine company for example, but they have valuation that is insane for a company that is not gone make real money for many years and not gone make profits for many more after that. They essentially have a technology that requires a totally new manufacturing system, while competitors like Sila can put their materials in existing facilities claim the same level of improvements. I wouldn't expose myself to a unique technology with so much competition

There are tons of EV startups and they differ widely from Lucid, Rivian being serious companies step by step putting in place a solid car company. Dynamic companies like NIO coming out of China. And there are the bottom feeders like Nikola, Fisker and others that surf on the hype.

This is gone be a massive market shakeout with Tesla being the leader hunted by everybody. Slow moving giants like VW, Toyota and so on finally realizing whats happening and taking methodical step after step. And a massive wave of startups from around the world, especially China trying to be next next big thing. Its gone be interesting to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER72> It's my opinion that GM felt forced to enter into this partnership with Nikola because Ford was able to get into bed with Rivian when GM pulled out of that deal. For GM's sake, I hope that these guys are completely wrong.

<comment><USER9> GM will be fine if they go under. Nikola is paying for them to develop and manufacture parts of their "car" with 2 billion in stock.

If Nikola goes under... GM hasn't lost anything. They can take all the work they did and just use it for their EVs.

<comment><USER72> It's more of a reputation hit than anything. If this turns out to be as bad as these short sellers are saying, then anybody who really associated with Nikola is going to look really bad in the eyes of consumers.

<comment><USER73> I don't think the top level honchos at GM are smart enough to have thought even this far through as you have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bigger shocker here. I hope Rivian doesn't follow the same path, but I can't seem to find any real videos of their truck doing what they've been saying it's capable of either.

<comment><USER60> Hmm... didn't take all that much effort: [https://electrek.co/2020/06/25/rivian-r1t-electric-pickup- st...](https://electrek.co/2020/06/25/rivian-r1t-electric-pickup-stress- tested-desert-video/)

<comment><USER10> Where in that video does the truck go from 0-60 in 3 seconds, travel 400+ miles on a charge, charge in a reasonable time frame, etc...?

This is a marketing video. For all we know that truck could have an engine. I'm talking about a real actual video of the truck doing what it's been proclaimed to do. It's been a few years, it shouldn't be so hard to have a single video of a truck getting close to these targets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Now GM has the unenviable task of picking up this turd by the clean end.....

<comment><USER9> Why? Their deal involves 2 billion in equity from Nikola for non-cash manufacturing work and development from GM.

<comment><USER74> GM was snookered. I doubt that Nikola has IP worth that much work

<comment><USER9> Not really. From a financial pov GM wins hard no matter what happens. Nikola somehow becomes a real company:

GM gets 2 billion in stock + 700 million in cash reimbursements and a strategic partnership. Nikola implodes, then GM still gets whatever of the 700M they could file and all the work they did is directly useful and necessary for their own EV projects. They're basically getting paid to do their own R&D

The hit is to their reputation.

Nikola basically paid GM to "partner" with them in a lopsided deal so they could have more credibility.

<comment><USER74> Yes, I can see that is a valid POV, Nicola does indeed need validation like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> How do we tell that this research has 'teeth'? Sounds super juicy if true! Would there be a 'ticket number' of some kind for an SEC complaint that Hindenburg filed?

</comment><comment><USER76> This thread went to the second page of hacker news in 4 hours, while the amount of upvotes beats anything on the front page. Looks like throttling.

</comment><comment><USER77> Holy shit. I'd be staging my fake death already.

</comment><comment><USER78> Why were tweets deleted all the way back to June?

</comment><comment><USER79> Now we understand how GM paid a billion dollars for Cruise when all they had was a road-follower, something GM already had.

</comment><comment><USER80> One look at their site tells you it's a fraud. They have nothing. Simply riding on the current fad.

</comment><comment><USER81> I really look forward to reading the book about the inevitable meltdown.

</comment><comment><USER82> Tesla is 17 years old; Nikola is far less advanced.

Elon Musk fanboys are jealous that Trevor Milton is doing it better, faster.

</comment><comment><USER76> So theranos!

</comment><comment><USER83> would a black dude been able to pull of a straight eye | face fraud like this ?

<comment><USER84> Are you saying that some races are less honest than other?

Also direct answer to your question: [https://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/markets/ponzi- scheme/index....](https://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/markets/ponzi- scheme/index.htm)

[https://restofworld.org/2020/how-a-forbes-cover-star- stole-m...](https://restofworld.org/2020/how-a-forbes-cover-star-stole- millions/)

[https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south- africa/2020-09-07-for...](https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south- africa/2020-09-07-for-the-love-of-fraud-now-us-is-also-to-indict-conman- pastor-jali/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Worse GM may be a zombie company.

Your taxes will always be supporting their business.

</comment><comment><USER86> Reminds me of the GE hit piece appearing on gefraud.com that tanked the stock and is now nowhere to be seen. Nor is the guy that authored it. I'm sure they made out like a bandit on their options.

</comment><comment><USER87> There seems to be such negativity surrounding electric vehicles in the media. I wonder if there's a vested interest deliberately trying to create this narrative. Electric vehicles are definitely the future.

<comment><USER88> EVs are the future.

Hydrogen powered ones? Most likely not, unless the fossil fuel industry manages to convince everyone they are still needed.

<comment><USER89> FCEVs are the future. BEVs are a temporary stopgap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Well this is a first, top of HN with no comments.

I'll say it, I have no idea of validity of any of these statements, need to go read. But do remember getting weird stock pump and dump emails about this company a long time ago and it always put a bad taste in my mouth.</comment>


B2fJ – A Java Virtual Machine to run on the 8-bit home computers of the 80s - <AUTHOR> https://mzattera.github.io/b2fJ/ <comment><USER2> "Preemptive threads with synchronization."

From working in 6502 asm in the 80s on a c64 I must say:

Most astonishing.

<comment><USER3> In an interpreter, appearing to do threads is easy. Just interpret some instructions from one "thread", then some from next, etc

<comment><USER4> That's pretty much what Python does, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Java on Sega Genesis/MegaDrive: [https://www.mikekohn.net/micro/sega_genesis_java.php](https://www.mikekohn.net/micro/sega_genesis_java.php)

<comment><USER6> "I keep getting asked why I'm programming for a Sega Genesis system in Java, the reason is I'm hoping someone from Sega or Sun Microsystems finds this page and offers me a job."

"Posted: November 17, 2015"

Oh man... I think he's been trapped in a hole coding for a very long time... Should I tell him or should you?

<comment><USER7> I was hoping he was being sarcastic. Oh boy. Impressive technical achievement though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> See also this, which is (as far as I can tell) the JVM for the Apple II: [http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2224&p=20418](http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2224&p=20418)

</comment><comment><USER9> Java fell into a disrespect among much of the younger crowd to a considerable degree - in contrast to the almost universal excitement about it some 20 years ago.

But I still find it an amazing, very well-engineered, extremely versatile platform that works on large machines and tiny microcontrollers alike and is easy to extend to new devices!

<comment><USER10> You find Java well engineered or you find the JVM well engineered? Java may go down in history for the most destructively designed programming language ever created. The entire standard library and methodology is to create every little piece of data on the heap, then use extremely deep inheritance as a substitute for the ability to write generic software pieces.

Not only is the "Object Oriented" way of doing things arguably a blight on software design, both allocation and chasing of virtual pointers are devastating to modern performance. Then to combat this, the JVM is an engineering marvel that has matured over 20 years.

<comment><USER11> > Not only is the "Object Oriented" way of doing things arguably a blight on > software design, both allocation and chasing of virtual pointers are > devastating to modern performance.

Um, this is not unique to Java, you know. Even C++ does this.

<comment><USER10> It is easily avoided in C++ by putting most values on the stack. Also with templates, inheritance isn't needed for generic data structures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Modern JVM, for modern 8bits AVRs: [http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=12.%20uJ%20-%2...](http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=12.%20uJ%20-%20a%20micro%20JVM)

<comment><USER3> That can be build for c64 easily and thus give you support of garbage collection, threads, arrays, and well, all of java

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really cool! Wish floating point was working though... software float can be useful!

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone know of a Java VM that works on Arduino?

<comment><USER14> [http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=12.%20uJ%20-%2...](http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=12.%20uJ%20-%20a%20micro%20JVM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In the mean time, I'm struggling to open Atom on an i7 processor with 16GB of memory.

<comment><USER16> You'll probably get downvoted, but I can't help having the same thoughts when reading a headline like this

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> But can it run Doom?

<comment><USER18> Kinda sorta depending on what you think of as a C64 and what you think of as Doom.

Proper Doom on extended C64: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZzivzuDOls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZzivzuDOls) \- even then the framerate is horrible.

Doom with heavily simplified graphics and stuff (M.O.O.D. Doom) on a proper C64: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQcK527rYJI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQcK527rYJI)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why don't enterprise software vendors show prices or screenshots? - <AUTHOR>

I can (kind of) understand a tactical advantage in not putting pricing information on the site in order to try and squeeze as much as possible out of each possible customer. But why don't any of them show screenshots/videos/trials of the actual software?
Is it just as simple as "we don't have to because the person buying it doesn't care"? Or is there some tactical reason not to do so that I'm missing?
Or to put it this way, if I were to be trying to enter and disrupt some enterprise software market, am I losing anything by trying to show more of what the actual product does and how it works? <comment><USER2> 1) No prices because the price is negotiated between the sales guy and the buyer. Usually over a 3 cocktail lunch at an expensive steakhouse. Also, licensing is usually a site license and there is often a lot of customization needed before the customer can accept the product.

2) No Screenshots because no one gives a shit what it looks like. Enterprise software is SERIOUSLY NOT about usability or pleasure. It is all about being compliant and covering ass. The people who actually use the software aren't making the decision to buy it anyway. From the point of view of [many] execs, the users are being paid so what difference does it make to them, after all its just "point-and-click" interfaces now anyway.

3) If you want to break into enterprise, I think that one of the most important things to them is that your product and support for it will still exist years from now, long after founders have lost all passion for the product.

see also Zed Shaw's hilarious story about an enterprise software project: <http://vimeo.com/2723800>

</comment><comment><USER3> I think its two big reasons. One, the thing you're selling is often negotiated. So company A might buy X, Y, and Z from you, and company B might buy X and M from you. They can and do ask software vendors to customize software to the point of it no longer being an apples to apples comparison. They also negotiate service times, contract length, contract language, legal penalties, all sorts of things that make big companies different than consumers.

The other big reason is that some enterprise vendors still price things in an "old school," pre-internet way. That's my term for giving different companies the exact same thing at a different price. For example, you might sell your software to BigFruitComputer Company at $100 per user and to the small consulting company at $10 per user. In fact, you charge your users whatever your salespeople can negotiate, which is why they're still around and making money. The company getting charged more doesn't complain because companies don't generally disclose what they're paying for all their different things to each other and so they don't know. This would be practically heresy in the consumer world and frowned upon sometimes as dirty. You shouldn't charge a little old lady more because you can convince her she needs features "just in case." But it seems acceptable to charge a company more because your salesperson can convince them they need something, even if they don't.

If you're looking to disrupt the enterprise market, I suggest keeping in mind a few things. One, small businesses are like consumers. They know they don't have much power to negotiate and don't often expect so. So have a consumer- like pricing plan that appeals to what they want, prices it in a way that gets it for them cheaper than they're currently getting, and lets them do it in a no-hassle manner. Two, big businesses have budgets and levels. The person browsing your website might not be the person buying your software. That sounds weird right? But true. So the tech guy who says "wow, your software will save me so much time" doesn't know how much the company currently pays for such software, because he didn't negotiate the contract and isn't privy to that sort of thing. The executive who did negotiate isn't probably browsing your website. You now have a sales problem, which is why salespeople are still around.

The best way to disrupt such a market, if you're interested in doing it, is to find out what big companies pay for what you're giving them, and make it a lot cheaper. Whether its cheaper in price, or cheaper to the company because your software works better and saves them time or for some other reason, doesn't matter. THEN, market from the top down and the bottom up. Give talking points to the tech guys or whoever is on the bottom. "This will save you time," or "it will be easier," it will do X, Y, and Z and solve problems O and P. Show them how this saves the company money and give them ammunition to use in the next meeting. THEN ALSO target the executives, but without technical talking points. "Does your company pay more than $200 per user for X services? We can offer it for $100! Cut costs 50%!" and so on. Make it all about the bottom line, the executive will look better, you get a sale.

So, that was a long-winded way to answer you question "if I were to be trying to enter and disrupt some enterprise software market, am I losing anything by trying to show more of what the actual product does and how it works?

The answer is no, not really, but you're not gaining much for the effort either. Sales in the enterprise market aren't made on screenshots. They're made by being a salesperson and appealing to all the stakeholders. Screenshots are a tiny afterthought and won't disrupt anything. You still need people to buy your products and the person on your website looking at the screenshot isn't that person.

</comment><comment><USER4> You wouldn't lose anything, but enterprise and B2B software is an entirely different world than consumer software with some very different expectations.

Often times the reason screenshots aren't shown is because the application is so complex that its functionality couldn't possibly be shown with a few screenshots (enterprise software is often really ugly too). Same goes for pricing; pricing is going to vary based on the size of the purchase, what the company can afford, what discounts you give, etc. It's too complex to just throw onto the site.

</comment><comment><USER5> {suggestion] "Disrupt" is not a word looked upon favorably when it comes to enterprise operations.

</comment><comment><USER6> Your screens are also your proprietary work. No reason to give your competitors any ideas.</comment>


Is this web service illegal? - <AUTHOR> http://crosswa.lk/ This web service asks me to login with my iTunes account, and after loging in, they detected all of my past purchased iPhone applications. I also received an email from Apple few days later, to change my iTunes account password for safety.<p>Are they using illegal or near illegal method to detect its users purchase history? Or Are they using official API provided by Apple to do so? <comment><USER2> Why would it be?

<comment><AUTHOR> This web service asks me to login using my iTunes account to access to my purchase history of my purchased apps. After logging in using my iTunes account, I have received an e-mail from Apple that my account maybe used by third-party user/apps. I believe Apple does not allow other service to use iTunes account for login credential. Is this service using illegal or near illegal method to access to my purchase history of my apps? Or does Apple provide an official API to access to its users purchase history? I checked, but Apple doesn't seem to provide purchase history API.

<comment><USER2> Oh, the password anti-pattern. I have no opinion of the legality, but if you go around giving out your password you deserve what you get.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dear wmf,

First of all, thank you very much for your kind reply :)!

It would be great if I can get a more detail about how "password anti-pattern" works!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Comixify: Transform video into a comics - <AUTHOR> https://comixify.ii.pw.edu.pl <comment><USER2> Site is slow right now, but got results after some waiting.

From this video[1] (one of their given demos), it generated this result[2]. From this other video[3] (another of their demos), it generated this result[4]. All used the default settings.

Was frankly disappointed. They mention "neural style transfer" and whatnot, but the results looks only slightly better than what you'd get by applying default photoshop filters from a decade ago, probably longer. ImageMagick can also achieve something similar[5].

The extracted frames, including their sizes and positioning, don't look like anything special. The final layout was the same for both tries, meaning they're probably not doing anything to detect/convey a better sense of the story. In that sense, the result is as much a comic as any other random sequence of photographs (comics don't need to be drawings) divided into squares.

It's a neat demo, but I'm failing to understand why it is part of a larger academic paper. Seems like the whole effect could have been achieved over a decade ago with a bash script glueing ffmpeg and imagemagick.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/CvvAftMZYKM](https://youtu.be/CvvAftMZYKM)

[2]: [https://imgur.com/a/rbrQBbx](https://imgur.com/a/rbrQBbx)

[3]: [https://youtu.be/pvAhRcUofDk](https://youtu.be/pvAhRcUofDk)

[4]: [https://imgur.com/a/kZm2M5w](https://imgur.com/a/kZm2M5w)

[5]: [http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/cartoon/index.php](http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/cartoon/index.php)

<comment><USER3> Hi, I am one of co-authors of the paper.

Thank you for your interest in our demo.

Regarding the points you raise in your comment:

1\. Layout

You are right that we use static layout for all comics we generate. Changing that has a high priority on our todo list, we are currently working on more dynamic layout generation that takes into account what we know about the story and which frames are more important than others.

2\. Style transfer

The method we use gives the most pleasant results of all obtained with various style transfer methods applied to comics - see our previous work on comparison between them here: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.01726](https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.01726).

3\. Story sense

(>probably not doing anything to detect/convey a better sense of the story<) We use Video Summarization model in our pipeline, however as mentioned above, we use static layouts and therefore this is not always apparent.

Overall, this demo is only a starting point. We are working on adding automatic speech recognition and text generation to introduce dialogs into our comics. And we have many other improvements planned. Stay tuned and if you have any other comments feel free to send us an email to any of the addresses from the paper: firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com, email@example.com, email@example.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The site seems to be suffering from the HN hug of death, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER5> Something similar we did for an internal Microsoft hackathon in 2017. [https://utkarshsinha.com/blog/microsoft-oneweek- hackathon-20...](https://utkarshsinha.com/blog/microsoft-oneweek- hackathon-2018/)

</comment><comment><USER6> This reminded me of this:

BBC iPlayer for Kindle

[http://www.frisnit.com/iplayer-for-kindle/](http://www.frisnit.com/iplayer- for-kindle/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> link to their paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.03473](https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.03473)

<comment><USER7> doesn't have much more than a link back to the site.

google cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c8dVMl...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c8dVMlkJspYJ:https://comixify.ii.pw.edu.pl/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au)

edit: my mistake, it has the full PDF there

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> no subtitles or audio integration yet</comment>


Psychedelic psilocybin therapy for depression granted Breakthrough status by FDA - <AUTHOR> https://newatlas.com/psilocybin-magic-mushrooms-depression-fda-breakthrough-therapy/56928/ <comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has any questions on this (in a broad sense), feel free AMA in reply to this comment as I may be able to answer some of them.</comment>


Tesla to triple supercharger network by the end of June - <AUTHOR> http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-dramatically-expands-supercharger-network-delivering-convenient-free-long <comment><USER2> If I were in the hospitality industry, I'd be buying adjacent shops next to every Tesla charging station. Having a captive, wealthy audience for ~30 minutes seems like a ripe opportunity, whether it is restaurants, masseuses, or cafes. I'd also offer free valet+ services so patrons would stay in my establishment longer: I'll look over your car, start the charging process (in case there is a queue), and make sure to move it when it is done charging.

<comment><USER3> I misread that as "hospital" instead of "hospitality" on my first read, which actually brings up an interesting tangent.

If the Tesla stations make use of and store solar power, would they be a viable backup power source for hospitals? Or are the power requirements for a hospital on backup energy way too large for that sort of thing?

<comment><USER4> The amount of solar panels you'd need to charge a Tesla at supercharger rates would be ridiculous.

They may have solar panels, but that is just something cute that might make a small dent in the installation's grid power consumption.

However, you are on to something [1], though it's more for cars that are parked for long periods during the day. The point of a supercharging station is contrary to donating your vehicle's power to the grid.

1: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to- sell...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-sell-power- from-electric-cars-back-to-the-grid)

<comment><USER5> Are you sure?

"plans are to install on-site grid storage to make them self-reliant with their own energy supply"

<comment><USER6> Well... let's do the math!

Incident solar radiation is about 1 kW per meter squared. Assume 10% end to end efficiency (including solar -> electric, storage, and actual charging efficiency... this is optimistic, but doable... certainly not the cheapest though). You now need 10 square meters of panel to supply 1 kW. Assume sun is out for 12 hours a day, and for the full 12 hours you get all 1 kW/m^2 incident radiation (this is very very generous). The car has a 60kWh battery. So if we want to find out how much panel it takes for one station to charge one car a day...

60kWh to charge, but 12 hours to charge it up, so you basically need 5kW, which is 50 m^2 of panel. Which honestly isn't -THAT- big. Its a 7 meter square. Now... from my random snooping around, and my own impressions, I would say that a 'large' gas station typically covers something like... 500-600 meters squares (thats 5300 to 6500 square feet). That would be enough to super optimistically charge 10-12 cars a day.

I saw optimistic, because incident solar radiation is not that kind. Can take a looksey here: [http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/1961-1990/redbook...](http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/1961-1990/redbook/atlas/)

If you pick average, annual, and single axis east-west tracking (which I believe is the best bang for the buck), you see on the solar map, the BEST places in the US gets 5-6 kWh/m^2/day, compared to our assumption of 12 kWh/m^2/day.

The feasibility of superchargers being even 90% off the grid is of course completely dependent on the ratio of size of supercharger panel array and rate of cars charging. But given the above, I'm inclined to believe that it is highly impractical for the majority of super charger stations to become actually self reliant, especially in high traffic areas.

<comment><USER7> A supercharger network is going to have a lot of stations on lonely stretches of highway. Given how few Teslas there are being taken on those trips, you're going to want charging stations in places where there will be very, very little usage.

I can easily see a random station on I-10 near the CA/AZ border being entirely self-reliant...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit I think this is brilliant on the part of Tesla. If they can get their charging network big enough & fast enough, new comers to the electric vehicle market would be wise to just use (license?) some of the tech needed to also charge their cars on these stations. Depending on how this is structured, Tesla _could_ come out of this getting a piece of every electric vehicle that gets sold using their chargers. Unless the tech here is nothing special.

<comment><USER8> Elon was asked about that in the call. Tesla is open to working with other manufacturers, but the superchargers are pretty finely tuned to the battery that Tesla is using. Other manufacturers would have to make their batteries to Tesla's specs for it to work.

<comment><USER9> I understand the manner in which the battery is put together is a company secret.

<comment><USER10> I've read that as well, but it's hard to imagine that it can really be that much of a secret. If a competitor wanted to find out how it's put together, all they'd have to do is buy one and take it apart, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another interesting bit at the end is the improved supercharging tech: "The new technology, which is in beta test mode now and will be fully rolled out to customers this summer, will allow Model S to be charged at 120 kW, replenishing three hours of driving in just over 20 minutes."

<comment><USER11> BTW: 120kW = 160 horsepower, so it's providing the power of your Honda Civic at full throttle for 20 minutes.

That's nuts!

<comment><USER12> That sure is a big power boost. Welcome to the future.

<comment><USER13> No, no. The future is 1.21 jigawatts, IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> simba-hiiipower > _In addition to the expansion of the Tesla Supercharger network itself, > Tesla is improving the technology behind the Tesla Supercharger to > dramatically decrease the amount of time it takes to charge Model S, cutting > charging time in half relative to early trials of the system. The new > technology, which is in beta test mode now and will be fully rolled out to > customers this summer, will allow Model S to be charged at 120 kW, > replenishing three hours of driving in just over 20 minutes._

i find this the most interesting part of the release. it sounds like existing model s' currently on the road will be able to take advantage of these upgraded superchargers.. i always assumed advances in charging tech would require upgrades to both the chargers and the cars themselves. anyone know how this is supposed to work?

..i know its wishful thinking, but this gives me hope that my lowly focus electric may someday see its charging capabilities upgraded as well.

<comment><USER14> when musk unveiled the super chargers he said they were designed for 120kW but that they were testing them out at 90kW first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Without spending a cent!"

At some point states are going to start taxing for electricity going into electric vehicles to make up for lost revenue for their road and highway funds. I wonder if Tesla will pay for that or start charging?

On another note, I do hope we don't end up with every manufacture building their own recharging network.

<comment><USER16> _At some point states are going to start taxing for electricity going into electric vehicles to make up for lost revenue for their road and highway funds._

Or they'll increase gas taxes to make up for the lost difference until everyone is driving electric cars. Mission accomplished!

<comment><USER17> That'll get the votes for sure!

<comment><USER16> There is some logic to it. In my State (Washington) the legislature is currently looking at raising the gas tax rate to adjust for the fact that average fuel economy has gone up a whole bunch in the years since we set the tax rate.

[http://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/post/backers-washington-gas- tax...](http://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/post/backers-washington-gas-tax-package- rally-capitol)

As we _literally_ have parts of the interstate freeway falling into rivers at the moment, I think I'm OK with some more infrastructure spending.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Today I read an article that said Honda is now offering the fully EV Fit for $259 per month as a lease over 36 months. That is unlimited mileage, includes car insurance and a home charger (!) Tesla's whole model was to eventually create a mass mileage car for $25,000 to $30,000. I'm now convinced that by the time they get there the market will be hyper competitive and they'll be squeezed out or marginalized. They may become the Apple of the car market - high margin, great brand, small marketshare %'s - which is nothing to sneeze at. But I'm worried now they've missed their opportunity to really make it as a stand alone brand. Perhaps they'll become a service supplier to the overall industry with charger stations and batteries etc.

<comment> jack-r-abbit Just like with gas cars, not everyone wants the same thing from an electric car. I wouldn't buy a gas Fit, what makes you think I'd buy an EV one?

<comment><USER18> It's not really much of a rebuttal to my point though is it?

<comment> jack-r-abbit I think it is. For any product you are going have a range of prices. $15k cars exist... but people still buy $150k cars. So just because Honda gets an EV Fit onto market doesn't mean Tesla missed any mark. If they become the Apple of the EV market, then there is no missed mark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's more than a bit of hype in this press release. Tripling the number of superchargers only gets them to 27 with almost half of the stations in California.

</comment><comment><USER19> Can someone smarter than me comment on the danger of having one of these next door to an apartment or office building? I assume that we're talking about lots of volts and amps here. Are these stations any more or less dangerous than a gas station?

<comment><USER20> I'm going to guess that they are orders of magnitude safer than gas stations.

Firstly: no ground pollution. Gas stations are terrible for the land they are built on as they leak lots of organic compounds into the soil.

Secondarily: no large reservoirs of combustible materials. I don't know the details of the supercharging stations, but I'd guess that they are at least as safe as the electric transformers we see on telephone poles everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Without spending a cent! I know there was speculation about using solar to power the superchargers eventually, but until then, are they hoping to forever give free fuel to Tesla owners with the hope of recouping supercharger energy costs by selling access to other brands of cars? Any idea how much it will cost Tesla on every free Tesla fill-up?

<comment><USER10> Typical US electricity rates are around $0.10/kWh, and a baseline Model S having a 60kWh battery, so if I totally guess at a charging efficiency of 50% then a full charge should cost somewhere in the vicinity of $12. On the 60kWh model, it costs $2000 to enable the supercharger hardware, so I can't imagine they'd lose too much money off these.

Keep in mind that these aren't really intended for frequent use: they generally have been placing them on highways in between large cities, with the intent to enable the occasional long-distance road trip that would otherwise be outside the car's battery range. Even if Tesla loses a bit of money per car on average, it's probably worth it just for the value it adds to the cars in peoples' minds.

<comment><USER22> Except they are feeding the electricity back into the grid, so I don't think it will cost them more than the installation and maintenance of the charger itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there ever going to come a point where rather than hooking my Tesla up and charging it I just drive up to the station and swap out the battery for a new charged one? This seems to help mitigate one of the biggest problems which is how long charging takes and could, I imagine, be made to be a pretty speedy process if need be.

<comment><USER24> Probably not anytime soon. You can charge 240 miles of honest, comfortable, real-world, freeway-speed range while you sleep at night, and the same while you're at the office. Cross-country road trips are just about the only time the vast majority of people will ever need to charge at a location other than the origin or destination. Waiting for a supercharge doesn't add much time to the trip unless you normally tend to drive 10 hours straight without answering the call of nature. The superchargers are intended to be at locations and intervals where you would ordinarily stop anyway (to eat, use the facilities, stretch your legs, etc.). There are, of course, cases where a battery swap would be handy, but that's on the wrong side of the 80/20 problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The charging stations should be able to accommodate a lot more cars than a gas station. You don't have to have a lot of machinery to pump fluids around as electrons get around on their own. The physical size and expense of equipment per charging station should also be a lot smaller when compared with a gas station.

<comment><USER26> But keep in mind that I will occupy some space at the supercharger 4-5 times longer than with a regular gas station.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yesterday I was driving from Waterloo to Toronto and saw two Tesla S models within 30 min from each other. What a nice car! Does anyone know if there are charging stations along 401? Maybe that's why I can't find anything online ...

<comment><USER28> See map here:

<http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger>

They're located between major cities so you can make a road trip, not in them because the idea is when you're home you just plug them into your wall at night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if they are using all the data they collect from drivers to help them with planning how the distribute they stations?

<comment><USER30> I hope not. Supercharger stations don't exist everywhere, so people don't drive their Teslas freely right now. Choosing where to put them based on where drivers drive their Teslas right now would make the supercharger network have good coverage of where Teslas are today, not where they want Teslas to reach in the future!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Devil's advocate here: You can't charge up your car when your power goes out for a few days. Wheras gas stations have generators and gas rolls in on time, supercharger networks and home power drink from the same power grid.

There's a word for all this: stranded and on-the-grid more than ever before.

When power goes out, the city of electric cars also grinds to a halt. And heaven forbid all the people have their cars plugged in ready to charge when the grid comes back on.

Does this mean I need to have a hefty 2 stroke generator with 8 gallons of gas ready to go to charge up the car when the power is out for a few days? You'd probably need a $1000 generator to provide the watts and amps.

<comment><USER32> What's stopping you from keeping your own generator?

I suppose you'd be effectively limited to the max range of your vehicle from the generator, but if there's no power for 200-300 miles then there's probably bigger problems.

<comment><USER14> or better yet... lots of people are getting solar panels from elon's other company Solar City.</comment></comment></comment>


Five warning signs a tech start-up is in trouble - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/09/24/five-warning-signs-tech-start-trouble

<comment><USER2> The article, abridged:

 _1) Key people start to leave.

2) The company loses focus.

3) The technology is great, but no one is using it.

4) There are public disagreements between the founders and the VCs.

5) There are competitors that have more buzz (and an audience)._

<comment><USER3> 0) The company has no customers.

0.5) The growth rate of customers is linear.

Of course, if you're in the "hype" phase rather than trying to make any money, those issues may not be that high a priority.</comment></comment>


Miro vs. Joost - Head to Head Comparison - <AUTHOR> http://www.getmiro.com/articles/miro_vs_joost.php <comment><USER2> I can vouch for Miro (formerly Democracy Player) - the content it starts you out with isn't that good and I had never previously bothered with it, but there's a decent amount of good stuff in the channel guide. Eg Nova, Frontline, several others. These aren't the full shows, but shorter segments. Because the seasons are fixed-length you get a bonanza at the beginning which runs out, but you can still use Miro as a podcast player (and queue up those Google.edus you've been meaning to watch), which is nice. Unfortunately Miro doesn't accept audio-only channels into their guide, but you can set up your own just fine.</comment>


Chinese Yuan's Ascent to Global Reserve Status: A Timeline - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/the-chinese-yuan-s-march-to-global-reserve-status-a-timeline <comment><USER2> This is pretty much a non-event. China's more likely to suffer hyperinflation first, than become a currency that other countries use/store.

1.) Yuan is being printed massively (it hit a credit-to-gdp ratio of 30 to 1 [http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37403363](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37403363))

2.) it is a non-fully-convertible currency

3.) there are severe restrictions for yuan to move out of the country due to capital controls. max $50/year. also, $15k/year withdraw restrictions ([http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/china-overseas-atm- cash...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/china-overseas-atm-cash- limits/))

4.) no one is required to use yuan for trade.

5.) nobody wants yuan outside China. people in China are desperate to exchange yuan for other things inside China. All the conditions are there for hyperinflation to occur. Might happen early next year when europe and China both likely reject China's market economy status, and starts imposing tariff on Chinese imports heavily.

<comment><USER3> This is basically a copy and paste of your previous post [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ting_bu_dung](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ting_bu_dung) without even bothering to correct the most glaring error pointed out by others. I say this is pretty disrespectful to users who are interested in real discussions.

<comment><USER2> my last comment didn't get any good response; one wanted a clarification which was easily googleable. the other one about hyperinflation being supply driven made no sense (incorrect definition of hyperinflation), so I didn't bother responding.

how about you? do you have any response about the content, or is it more meta- critique?

<comment><USER3> "europe and China both likely reject China's market economy status"

Did you even read what you posted? The above does not make any sense and you repeated it here without any correction anyway.

Googling or not you don't seem to realize that China is not currently recognized as a market economy by both Europe and US per China's WTO accession agreement. That particular clause is going to sunset this year. After the sunset if Europe and US follow the WTO rules they will no longer be able to use "substitute country" in determining fair prices in anti-dumping investigations. This is a positive for China. Even if Europe and US refuse to change it is still just status quo, or in your words, "non-event".

The other commenter's critique on your hyperinflation claim is entirely valid. Calling him incorrect without giving your "correct" definition does not make it so.

Also self-plagiarism is a thing. Sure this is only an internet forum but unless you are hell bent on propaganda please refrain from copying yourself verbatim without at least making a reference to your previous posts so people don't waste time repeatedly refuting your identical claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My impression up until recently is that actually holding onto Yuan outside of China is near-impossible, is this no longer the case?

<comment><USER5> Not yet, but eventually that is supposed to be the goal.

<comment><USER6> the goal is supposed to be holding yuan outside china is impossible? or possible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> More from the Working Group on USD Yuan trading:

[https://www.rmbusawg.com/](https://www.rmbusawg.com/)

Bit of a Catch-22. Can't invest directly in Chinese markets until the Yuan is convertible. And closed markets affect the Yuan's stability. But foreign demand, it's in the trillions:

China's debt markets start to stir foreign appetite

[https://www.ft.com/content/7c6708f6-8627-11e6-8897-2359a58ac...](https://www.ft.com/content/7c6708f6-8627-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5)

</comment><comment><USER8> Ok, this is really interesting, the Yuan (CNY) has officially become one of the 5 mayor reserve currencies (USD, EUR, CNY, JPY & GBP), since the IMF added it to the SDR basket today.

The following month will be the American elections and I expect the Brexit effect to repeat with the US Dollar after the result gets announced, since the average Joe will certainly vote for the candidate who proposed the less global-friendly economic policies.

Will the Yuan have a chance to benefit from the post-election speculative chaos?

<comment><USER9> Both the Brexit effect and the speculative chaos you propose are very short term. The fluctuations do not correspond in any way to the performance of the state and economy backing these currencies. Therefore, I think that if it benefits CNY, then only for a short timespan. However, if the US really tightens the screws on international trade, it will suffer longterm and so will its currency.

(And yes, I find the prospect of closed markets, increased tariffs and the like dreadful. There is no reason for the US to do that. This is different from Brexit though, since the EU conditions free movement of people and huge bodies of law on the trade agreements. A post-Brexit Britain may have more free trade than ever before since it can do its own agreements with any country - like any sovereign nation should.)

<comment><USER10> I don't see British trade expanding post brexit, we will almost certainly loose a substantial portion of our financial services and over time car manufacturing, the only trade likely to increase is tourism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And the Chinese know better and are buying real estate in Canada.

<comment><USER12> The Chinese are also buying a ton of real estate in China. It just happens that a lot of Chinese have immigrated to Canada, especially Vancouver, and so tell their relatives about the place, and many of them have fairly wealthy relatives who are all too eager to snatch up the rapidly rising real estate.

<comment><USER5> Its also just recycling their trade deficit back in. It is infact Canadian funds being used to buy those homes, the savings which came from the excess of imports to Canada to exports to China. A solution to the structural issue is to export more to China so there aren't so many savings stored in real estate.

<comment><USER13> Whenever Canadians complain about Chinese speculation in real estate, I wonder why they don't try to create more inventory. It is probably naive to think this way but AFAIK Canada has a lot of land and a housing boom can help extend and modernize urban infrastructure.

<comment><USER14> > I wonder why they don't try to create more inventory.

They can't exactly conjure up more undeveloped land in the middle of Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal.

> AFAIK Canada has a lot of land

Yeah, where almost no one wants to live. 90% of the Canadian population lives within 100km of the US-Canada border.

If you ask people abroad about major Canadian cities, everyone knows of Vancouver and Toronto. Some people also mention Montreal and Ottawa, but after that very few people can name other cities (e.g. Calgary, Quebec City, Winnipeg)

> and a housing boom

Many people are now warning that Canada has a housing bubble. Given the country's history of policies, I wouldn't trust them to handle it well. The mortgage and banking industry are not as powerful as they are in America, but they have influence.

I grew up in Canada but am currently living abroad, so I get to talk to a lot of foreigners on their opinion/knowledge of Canada.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>