Electric vehicles: XPENG and Blink shares rise, Lordstown Motors' delays deliveries again
Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi and Emily McCormick detail how automakers XPENG and Blink are rising and Lordstown Motors is lagging.
Video Transcript
JULIE HYMAN: We were just talking about car tech, of course. And we want to continue that conversation actually, because we have a number of movers still to continue to watch on that front. Of course, one of them is Rivian. That has been the big story of the week, as we were just talking about with Austin as well, and that $12 billion IPO and the ensuing surge in the shares. Now they're trading--
BRIAN SOZZI: Wow.
JULIE HYMAN: --$129.45--
BRIAN SOZZI: Huge.
JULIE HYMAN: --As we get underway this morning. At the same time, the company is already talking about expanding, maybe looking at a stand-alone battery factory here in the United States. They're saying a second EV manufacturing facility in the US. According to some reports this morning, that would be the top priority, but also talking about potentially the stand-alone battery factory. I mean, why slow down, right, Soz?
BRIAN SOZZI: Might as well just keep speeding up. It was fascinating to hear Austin give a little advice to RJ Scaringe, the founder over Rivian. Also fascinating, apparently they may not have talked yet, which is interesting to me. But I'm just looking at the Yahoo Finance platform right now, the Rivian ticker page. I mean, this company is now approaching $130 billion market cap. And I tell you, Julie and Emily, there are people out there that are having visions this is the next Tesla stock here. Long way to go before Rivian is on par with the Tesla in terms of raw production, but I think that's what a lot of folks are seeing here.
JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, definitely. Also by the way with EV news, we've got Xpeng on the move this morning. The company teasing that it's going to be unveiling a new SUV next Friday and the shares are up 4.7%. I love this, Emily. They haven't actually introduced it yet, but just the fact they're going to is helping the stock.
EMILY MCCORMICK: Right, Julie. I mean, it does seem to be how electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle makers are trading nowadays. It's mostly based on that optimism for future production and for future models here. But some more details here around Xpeng's newest offering, the company saying that it will unveil a new smart electric SUV at the 19th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition. That's coming up next week on November 19.
This is going to be another SUV and likely a successor here to the current Xpeng SUV G3 and G3I. But some other good news has been mounting here for Xpeng as well, as well as for some of the other Chinese EV makers. But for Xpeng specifically, we just saw October deliveries reported earlier this month for this carmaker. The company saying that it delivered more than 10,000 vehicles for a back to back month here for this latest report. That was a 233% year on year increase.
Of course, that increase is coming off a relatively low base here from the same period last year. But goes to show that these companies are all really trying to scale production, scale their deliveries, and Wall Street seems to be rewarding the stocks for even these kinds of numbers at this point.
BRIAN SOZZI: And I'll just quickly add here too, guys, you're starting to think see some separation in these Chinese EV leaders. Xpeng, the past couple months, they've put up some better sales numbers than in Nio, the story around Xpeng seems to be better, they have teased a flying car or I would say certainly to me looks like a helicopter. But maybe perhaps more aggressive in rolling out new models. So I think you're starting to see some separation. Last year the big story was all these companies are the same, but now starting to get I think Xpeng taking a little bit of the lead here.
JULIE HYMAN: And one more thing I want to mention with Xpeng as we talk about all these buzzy car tech companies, Xpeng has not performed that well, at least not if you look at the year to date chart. The stock has really not done what we have seen from other electric carmakers. There you have, I mean, yeah, it's up 17%, but even so, that is dwarfed by some of the gains we've had elsewhere. I should mention though, that since it reached its low for the year in May, it's actually just about doubled. So if you look at that time period, it's a lot more impressive.
Another electric carmaker, or it doesn't quite make them yet, but it will maybe, Lordstown Motors. That company is in our spotlight as well. Those shares are down 10 and 1/2%. It came out with numbers. Losses it looks like, a little bit less broad than had been estimated, but still, this company delaying production. And that seems to be problematic for Lordstown, as you might guess here. There you have the actual versus the estimates. But with Lordstown, Emily, it's just all about when are they going to make the cars.
EMILY MCCORMICK: Right, Julie. And when they're going to be making the cars seems like it is going to be pushed off, as you mentioned, and as they mentioned in their latest quarterly report here. Production deliveries of the Endurance pickup now likely to begin in the third quarter of 2022. Earlier we heard from Foxconn some reports that that company was planning to start mass production of the Endurance in April here. So quite a bit of a pushback from April to now, the third quarter of next year for Lordstown Motors here.
And of course, the connection with Foxconn being that the company did agree to pursue a joint venture with Foxconn to create the vehicles for the commercial market in North America and internationally using Foxconn's electric vehicle platform. So definitely not some good news here for Lordstown. And even taking a look at that stock for the year to date, down about 65%, whereas we've seen a lot of other electric vehicle companies rallying so far this year.
BRIAN SOZZI: This isn't even a real company, Julie, it's not a real company. It doesn't even exist.
JULIE HYMAN: Not yet, but maybe it will, maybe it will grow into one. We'll see. And then finally, rounding out our car tech talk here this morning with click clack. And I don't know what Emily wants to be known as, we'll have to ask her in the break. Blink Charging, that company we are watching as well after its earnings report. Those shares are up by 20%. Revenue coming in ahead of estimates, $6.4 million. It's the maker of charging networks, charging stations.
Loss per share though wider than estimated, but investors don't seem to care this morning. Blink is one of these companies that has gotten caught up in the surge this week in the wake of the signing of the infrastructure bill, or the passage I should say, of the infrastructure bill, because there is that money that is allotted to expanding the charging network around the United States.
