Business
RagingBull.com, LLC’s Founder and CEO, Jeff Bishop interviewed Nikola Corporation’s (NASDAQ:NKLA) Founder and Executive Chairman, Trevor Milton. In the interview Bishop and Milton discussed Nikola’s new Badger pickup truck, Nikola’s estimated production run, its battery technology compared to Tesla’s, and Nikola’s (NKLA) IPO. The meeting was hosted by RagingBull’s Elite Chatroom Host, Hitha Herzog, and attended in the chatroom by over 1,400 RagingBull subscribers.Registration for the Nikola Badger pickup truck opens today, June 29. Milton began, “The interest has been way above what we thought was going to happen. If we’re in the 10s of thousands, we’ve hit it out of the park. If we’re above that – which is what I’m seeing right now – we’re going to blow it out of the water. And if that happens, in my opinion we’ve got an incredibly good five year growth story for our investors. We’re going to announce what the reservation numbers are shortly. The excitement so far is way above what I ever thought it would be.”Hitha Herzog asked Milton, “Looking at the Badger truck, you’re certainly trying to take away market share from existing F-150 and Silverado truck owners. Are you also trying to target people like me who maybe have never owned a truck before?”Milton replied, “Diehard truck followers love their trucks. One article recently said they would give up beer, they would give up sex, they would give up everything before they gave up their truck! And truck fanatics love great trucks because it touches every aspect of their life. And these truck owners are willing to leave their brands that they’ve been loyal to like Chevy and Ford for the Nikola Badger. But we also have this whole new market segment of people that never thought about owning a luxury truck.“The Nikola Badger pickup truck is over 906 horsepower, and has 980 foot pounds of torque. It’s a monster in performance, but it’s also beautiful. It’s clean, it’s quiet, and it’s enjoyable to drive. And you have the option of an electric battery, and you can add a fuel cell, too. We’re the only ones with a hydrogen fuel cell option where you can go 600-700 miles on a single charge, and you can pull a camping trailer at the same time, too.” added Milton.RagingBull’s CEO, Jeff Bishop, a 23-year veteran trader, asked what Nikola’s financial prospects look like and how are they able to turn this buzz into business and how is Nikola able to scale production as demand increases. “What do you think you could build in the first year? And how many could you deliver?”“The first year in 2022, we’re going to have limited production, and we will probably do thousands. And then in 2023, our hope is that we can get into the 10s of thousands, and by 2024, possibly hundreds of thousands. That’s our goal. Because that takes a lot of money and expertise we’re partnering with an OEM (original equipment manufacturer), because they already know how to build 100,000 trucks or 500,000 trucks. We don’t have or need the ability to do that. And so that’s one reason that sets us apart from our competition.“But we are going to build big factories for our batteries and fuel cells. Luckily, we’re not trying to hit 200,000 builds in the first year. We’re scaling by doing thousands and then 10s of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands. And those are all quite achievable, and the automation tech partners we have already figured out how to accomplish that with other businesses. The automation partners help us and they’ve already experienced all these problems, and they can get us up and running real fast,” added Milton.Jeff Bishop then asked Milton to discuss how Nikola’s batteries and technology compared to Tesla’s.“Our battery technology is badass. It will beat Tesla’s technology and we’re going to show why at our launch event. We are the only company with a fully submerged, thermally cooled battery. That means that we can cool and heat our batteries way faster than our competition can. It’s safer and has a much lower chance for fires because dielectric battery fluid contains no oxygen, hence little chance for fires to start. We can cool and heat our batteries better, therefore performance is much better,” added Milton.Nikola went public (NASDAQ:NKLA) by using a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) rather than through a more traditional IPO route. Jeff Bishop commented that, “This approach is smart. By taking the SPAC approach Nikola threw shade on the typical Wall Street IPO process where investment bankers take so much money just to take a company public. It also reduced the length of time it took for Nikola to go public. I believe that the success of NKLA so far shows that you don’t need the merchant bankers to run the show and take all their exorbitant fees!”In closing the interview Jeff Bishop, said, “I cannot wait to see where things go for Nikola in the next few years. We’re excited to see the registration for the Badger pickup truck on June 29, and also how things go from there, both for Nikola Badger truck owners and for Nikola investors and traders.”