The electric vehicle industry appears to be a winner-take-all market. At least that’s what Wall Street seems to think. Just look at the performance of other auto stocks.
Shares of Elon Musk’s Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) have doubled this year. Tesla’s market capitalization is more than $800 billion, dwarfing the values of General Motors (NYSE:GM), Ford (NYSE:F), Toyota (NYSE:TM), Volkswagen (OTCMKTS:VWAGY) and other traditional car and truck rivals.
Then there’s the performance of the other pure-play EV makers. Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) is down about 1%, which makes it the “best” of the also-ran EV stocks. Lucid (NASDAQ:LCID) has plunged nearly 25%. Shares of Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA), the EV company that uses the first name of the famous inventor instead of his surname as Musk’s firm did, have plummeted more than 35%. And Sweden’s Polestar (NYSE:PSNY) has lost more than half its value in 2023.
So, is there any hope for the non-Tesla EV makers? It doesn’t look good.
Can Non-Tesla EV Stocks Survive?
Shares of Rivian recently plunged on the news that it was issuing $1.5 billion in convertible bonds. That can dilute the value of existing shares. It also didn’t help that Rivian announced a sales outlook that was below forecasts.
Research firm New Constructs has even dubbed Rivian a “zombie” stock that could eventually go to $0. Analysts at New Constructs said in a report that “increasing competition in the EV market” as well as “significant and continued cash burn” are big problems.
But this is an issue for all the smaller EV makers. Rivian, Lucid and Polestar are each losing money and profitability is way down the road. That’s because they continue to spend aggressively to manufacture new cars and try and eat into Tesla’s formidable market share lead. Lucid also recently cut prices on its flagship Air to try and drive demand, which has made investors even more nervous. Tesla has even cut EV prices.
“The price war has weighed on all these EV players globally. These stocks are pricing in Everest-like uphill battles,” said Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. He argues that it will be a “pivotal couple of months ahead” for the industry.
Keep in mind that many investors are also betting heavily against Tesla, despite its dominant position in the industry. Tesla is one of the most-shorted stocks in the market, as bearish investors balk at the company’s valuation following this year’s epic run-up.
And What About Tesla?
Tesla may be a stock to avoid since it is a bit too expensive for the risk-averse, trading at nearly 60 times earnings estimates for 2024. At that price, the company must live up to extraordinarily high expectations… which could be a problem. Tesla recently reported underwhelming delivery and production numbers for the third quarter, which could mean that sales will be weaker than expected.
Rivian and Lucid also continue to be favorite targets of the shorts… even though both stocks have underwhelmed as of late. Shares of Rivian and Lucid have each fallen about 20% in the past month. So has Polestar for that matter. Momentum is clearly not on the side of these stocks. It’s hard to imagine how they can turn things around as long as there’s a price war going on, which will make the possibility of profits even more elusive. The EV players could be stuck in reverse for the foreseeable future.
As of this writing, Paul R. La Monica did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.