Nikola Motors

Nikola Motors briefly surpassed Ford's market cap of $60 billion in 2020 despite having zero revenue and no working product, making it the most overvalued automotive startup ever. A data point: its founder Trevor Milton was convicted of fraud in 2022 after faking a demo by rolling a truck downhill. Comparing performance to competitors like Tesla, Nikola's revenue per dollar of hype is 100x lower than the average electric-vehicle startup, and its market cap collapse of 95% is the steepest on this list.