> Or showing the solar panels on the company’s roof?

Looks like they were installing ~200kWpp [0] in May 2020 over some of the parking lots [1]. Enough to charge a couple of Teslas.

[0] Looking at [1] I estimate a total of 560 (2x 150+130) solar panels, each 2x1m, which might be rated between 370 or 385 Wpp, delivering 207-216kWpp.

[1] https://zoom.earth/#view=33.406358,-111.992328,19z

OK, but the claim 13 months earlier was:

> We have 3.5 megawatts of solar up on the roof producing about 18 megawatts of energy a day in our headquarters...

That they've installed 5% of that capacity a year later is not a defense to the fraudulent nature of that claim.

Did they indicate that that truck was a proper real thing, and their future trucks will be at least that capable? Or it was just a concept car, like what automakers used to do for decades?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAToxJ9CGb8 has the headline "Nikola One Electric Semi Truck in Motion", and shows with camera angles implying it goes uphill.

Lots of frauds are done this way - trying to pull the "well, we didn't exactly say what you think we did". It remains fraud.

It is more interesting to me there are no newer videos than this 2018 showing towing but they do have a video of one with look through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSrvRMgIqw

so I guess it comes down to this, if they want to dispel issues then let one of their planned early adopters take one for a spin.

They claim it's 1000HP, which would be simple to measure on a pad. Also I guess they could say that the engine is ready and can deliver all that power, but the power cells were not at the time.

(Anyway, I'm not saying they are so honest, transparent, open as fuck, but this is like a trailer for a movie or game, it's a PR piece. It's less shady than the Tesla/SolarCity roof tile demo that Elon did. And I'm looking forward to the court case, because I have no time nor much context really for unwinding this, but I'm interested in what really constitutes fraud in these days when everything looks amazing, everything has a super emotional soundtrack, and of course everything is super over-hyped.)

>Or it was just a concept car, like what automakers used to do for decades?

Can you really not differentiate the claims made by Nikola vs a manufacturer building a one-off concept car and parking it at a car show?

I'm so out of context for both of these things, that I really can't.

For me the Nikola video looks like a trailer, or like any typical over-hyped product launche for phones/laptops/gadgets. That it's a vehicle is almost irrelevant.

Also they claim in the youtube video's description that it's a 1000HP semi. And that seems like a very explicit claim. (So if it can't accelerate by itself, then where are those horsepowers. But as I tried to point out in a sibling comment, it's possible they can claim the engine is 1000HP but the fuel cells were not ready. On top of all that I'm very much interested in seeing this get to the courts and hear what they say about what constitutes fraud and what's just run of the mill hype.)

That particular video may have been an implicit lie, but the Hindenburg report reveals explicit lies from Nikola too. Particularly the adamant and explicit insistence that their fake truck was 'not a pusher', claiming it was a functional prototype.