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If a company like Mercedes sees a market for electric semi trucks, then there’s a market. Elon Musk of Tesla is a believer too, as Tesla is working on their own electric semi. Startups trying to get their foot in the door of the electric vehicle industry are popping up across the globe, attracting every type of person, from bright-eyed young engineers with fresh ideas to hopeful investors… and snake oil salesmen. In Hungary, one such con artist is trying to collect money that he claims will be used to build electric semi trucks, but under scrutiny, the entire business reveals itself as too good to be true.
The company’s YouTube channel uploaded a single video in May, portraying what they claim is an electrically powered semi truck. Never mind the comically unprofessional presentation, which resembles a Geocities website for a tattoo shop, the video itself plays looped sound effects, and depicts a truck that looks suspiciously similar to the Mercedes Actros truck wrapped in discarded curtains. It is never depicted towing any loads, either.
Even if we give this eTruck company the benefit of the doubt regarding their supposed miracle vehicle, their financial backing is equally questionable. Daily News Hungary reports that eTruck’s finances are being handled by an entity named “König Bank,” which will claims it will take investments from private groups and the UN. König Bank, however, was cited for unlicensed activities in 2016. Furthermore, the actual acquisition of land on which to build the ten billion Euro factory has been halted, according to Auto Motor, as Gábor Benke, eTruck’s spokesman, alleges that legal disputes with foreign investors are all that stand between eTruck and full-scale production of 300 trucks daily.
We reached out to the email address listed in the video, and have not yet received any reply from eTruck. We suspect that may have something to do with the fact that there’s nobody but the snake oil salesman himself to respond.
