Electric Last Mile Solutions Inc (ELMSQ)

[value1008]

I still don't understand what is holding back the full NHTSA certification / homologation. Poking around in my files, i found this Sept. 2021 comment from Croatoan Capital in the lengthy comment thread to his Dec. 2020 SeekingAlpha.com article about ELMS (the first article i ever read about ELMS before starting to invest):


Croatoan Capital
22 Sep. 2021, 8:41 PM
[...] The U.S.-engineered refinements to structural integrity and safety have brought the van to U.S. safety standards. The ELMS van has passed NHTSA safety testing.
Excerpt from https://ir.electriclastmile.com/news/news-details/2021/ELMS-Announces-Successful-Completion-of-Next-Critical-Milestone-for-Start-of-Production/default.aspx: “Incorporating our all new, ELMS-engineered, patented, front bumper energy absorption system along with a series of structural reinforcements allowed the Urban Delivery to meet federal safety testing standards,” added Praveen Cherian, ELMS Vice President of Engineering. “I am extremely pleased with the results of the confirmation test and proud of our global engineering development team at ELMS for their innovative thinking and methods that helped us deliver robust results in a very compressed timeline. This was certainly no ordinary achievement especially being the first Commercial Class 1 EV engineered for the US market.”

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So what more does ELMS have to do to achieve homologation? Or is this just waiting endlessly for a final bureaucratic step to occur at the NHTSA?

By the way, Croatoan Capital sadly notes in a much more recent reply to someone on Feb. 3, 2022 that he no longer holds his sizeable amount of shares after the stock crashed this past week.
And on the evening of Feb. 1 after the news first broke, he posted in that same comment thread:

"It is a surprise to put it mildly. I read through the filing. From what I can gather, the timing of the purchases in pre-SPAC stock and the extremely low valuation of that stock was the issue compared to the eventual $10 SPAC price. Had we heard of this investigation prior to today [e.g., in the fine print of an SEC filing]? How did it come about and why did it have to result in the departure of the founders of the company? Were it to rise to a level of behavior deemed criminal, I don't think they would still be employed as consultants and keep their shares. So my immediate impression is that this is messy, unfortunate and unclear why this had to happen. I don't think, given various legal minefields around the actions of these individuals, that we are going to get much more clarity. Maybe the investigation began with the independent accountant who reported it to the board. My guess is the board was not about to ignore it and then become complicit, no matter how inconsequential the infraction ended up being."

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My comment:

If the infractions by co-founders Taylor and Luo are indeed "inconsequential," then the severe negative downgrade reactions by the analysts (especially Volkmann at Jefferies and Ives at Wedbush) and massacre-selloff by the market is unwarranted.

But maybe those two analysts actually know more than they're telling?
That's what keeps me from re-buying shares right now.....