If you look at the HN discussion about Nikola four years ago, it's filled with people pointing to the copycat name as a redflag. So even without hindsight, this was obvious.

> They could have tried a little harder with the name. It makes me take them less seriously with a copycat name like they're not confident enough in their product and need to glom onto Tesla's success. What an awful decision. The truck looks neat, though.

Response to the above:

> I don't think that truck is ever seeing the light of day; the name and the rest of it all seems incredibly unlikely to materialize except as some money in someone's pockets."

You think it's because the ticker is similar to TSLA? They are trying to develop treatments related to COVID-19, I bet that's the real reason it spiked this year. I don't know anything about the company, just took a minute to look at their website.