[이코노믹리뷰=노성인 기자] Recently, the stock price of electric vehicle startups, led by Tesla, has been on the rise. This is because expectations for electric vehicles are growing as countries around the world are paying attention to carbon-free policies.
On the 16th (local time), electric vehicle company Lucid rose 23.71% from the previous day to reach $89.9 billion in market cap. With the increase on the same day, Lucid overtook Ford (US$79 billion), the 7th largest global automaker by market cap, and narrowed the gap with General Motors (US$0.99 billion) to just US$10 billion. Lucid’s stock price has risen more than 80% since it entered the Nasdaq through a merger with a business acquisition purpose company (SPAC) in July.
Rivian, which was listed on the 10th, also rose for five consecutive trading days until the same day, more than double the public offering price ($78) to record $172.01. Thanks to the soaring stock price, the market cap has grown to $146.7 billion. At once, it ranked third in the global automobile industry, behind Tesla (US$1 trillion) and Toyota (US$306 billion).
On the same day, the Financial Times (FT), an economic media outlet, diagnosed that the expectation that Rivian and Lucid will also grow is driving the stock price, just as Tesla, which started as a startup, has recorded a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion. In fact, the stock price of Tesla, which was only $100 at the time of 2020, rose rapidly, reaching $1,000 for the first time on October 25th.
Rivian is the first electric vehicle maker to produce and sell pickup trucks. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought a 20% stake in the company in 2019, and Ford joined as a major investor, attracting market attention. In particular, given that pickup trucks are considered the most preferred vehicle by Americans, some analysts say that the potential for growth in the United States is higher than that of Tesla.
Lucid, which has been called a ‘Tesla competitor’ since early days, is a company with Peter Rollinson, who oversaw the development of Tesla’s core model S, as the CEO. Lucid’s ‘Air’ was also selected as the ‘2022 Car of the Year’ by Motor Trend, an American automobile magazine. The Air is said to have an industry-leading range of 520 miles on a single charge. This is significantly higher than the 405 miles of the Tesla Model S long range.
Recently, Lucid announced that it received new reservations for 13,000 electric vehicles during the third quarter, and the total order volume exceeded 17,000 units. Lucid proposed 20,000 units as a production target for next year.
However, some observers point out that electric vehicle startups are showing an increase in stock prices that are too dependent on future values.
Lucid started mass production of ‘Air’ around September and started shipping it from the end of last month. The cumulative net loss for the first three quarters of this year is around $1.5 billion. Although there is a large amount of orders, it is unknown whether they will be able to deliver them to customers on time. Rivian also started shipping the R1T, an electric pickup truck, only in September of this year, and the number of electric vehicles currently sold is only 150 units. The cumulative operating loss in the first half of this year alone reached $2 billion.
According to TipRanks, an investment media, two out of three Wall Street analysts who have made an investment opinion on Lucid in the past three months recommended a ‘buy’. However, their highest target price is $60, which is only 8% higher than the current share price ($55.52), and their average target price is $43, which is 22.5% lower than the current price. Rivian has yet to give an analyst a target price.
The Financial Times was concerned, “Companies such as Tesla do not appear often, and Rivian and Lucid’s evaluations are questionable compared to existing automakers.” “It’s another sign that a bubble is entering the market again,” said Matthew Meili, chief market strategist at Wall Street asset manager Miller Tabak.
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