Investing

One EV Truck Maker is Going to Zero, And It's Just The First Domino To fall (RIVN, LCID, NKLA)

Austin Smith

Published: February 5, 2025 2:59 pm

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

• With shares under $1, Nikola (NASDAQ: NKLA) is risking bankruptcy, underscoring the larger difficulties smaller EV firms like Lucid (NASDAQ: LCID) and Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN).
• While conventional manufacturers like Ford (NYSE: F), General Motors (NYSE: GM), and Hyundai-Kia are firmly establishing their positions with greater finances and established dealer networks, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) still controls about 50% of the U.S. EV market.
• Mass-market tactics are absolutely vital for long-term survival in the EV Industry
• Stop wasting time with EV stocks headed for the dustbin, instead look at The Next Nvidia stocks as the most exciting investments of 2025. Click here to learn more.

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Transcript:

[00:00:04] Doug McIntyre: Lee, you and I are always worried about these smaller EV companies. We mostly talk about Lucid and Rivian were always worried. They’re not going to make it. They’ve got, you know, too much competition. Now one of their peer, what I would call their peer companies, looks like they won’t make it. Can you tell us about that?

[00:00:23] Lee Jackson: Well, you know born out of the SPAC boom that was born out of the COVID meltdown was Nikola, which is a company that was going to have a real hot truck. They basically have said that the chances that they’re going to remain an ongoing concern could be doubtful. I mean, I think the stock’s under a dollar and it’s, it’s a donut.

[00:00:48] Lee Jackson: And the CEO, to the best of my knowledge, has been put in prison. for wire fraud and all sorts of nonsense like that. And I think they’re doomed. I mean, they’re going to be a donut. The question is for investors in EV, what happens to Lucid? It’s trading at two or three bucks. Now, Rivian bounced a little bit on the Volkswagen deal, but I don’t know.

[00:01:13] Lee Jackson: I think the future is still a wild card. And like we’ve talked about recently, BYD (BYDDF), BYD that Warren Buffet owns a big pile of, has a truck that apparently in Australia, Mexico, and any place they can sell it is selling like ba gangbusters. So, yeah, I think Nikola, if you have that, just write it off.

[00:01:34] Lee Jackson: That’s a loss. And the others be careful.

[00:01:37] Doug McIntyre: Well, yeah, to me this says that we’re at the start of a, of some dominoes going. Yeah. So you’ve got one, you’ve got two more that I understand that you got Volkswagen, which is a deep trouble itself. You’ve got, you know, some Saudi investors involved in these. But the point to me is basically Tesla has 50 percent of the EV market in the United States, right?

[00:02:02] Doug McIntyre: Ford GM and the Hyundai Kia, company each have about eight or 9%. Now those three companies have dealers. Right. They have deep pockets, which has been proven by the fact that they’ve set billions of dollars on fire, moving money into the business. But they, they are, they do have a big toehold in the US market now.

[00:02:31] Doug McIntyre: I think that they’re super heavy spending is behind them. They’re, they’re coming with new models into the market every year. And the thing I don’t like about Lucid and Rivian now is, is that. Used to be able to say, well, they really just compete against Tesla, but that isn’t true anymore. No, you now got some Significant players in the US market which makes their position even worse.

[00:02:59] Lee Jackson: Yeah Well again, Nikola is a donut the other ones I mean, lucid, lucid cars look cool and they really do look cool and the interiors are cool. But I mean, they’re very expensive. Same with Rivian. They’re very expensive. The BYD vehicles that are so popular aren’t 80, 000 and really, if you want to own EVs, either own Tesla or own Berkshire Hathaway because Warren Buffett has a big chunk of it in there.

[00:03:32] Doug McIntyre: Well, yeah. And the last thing I would say about, Lucid and Rivian is, is that if the EV industry has learned anything, it’s that people want to be able to buy an EV for 25, 000. You know, EVs are just too expensive. So if I’m in the EV business right now and I’m at the super high end of the market, I really don’t like it.

[00:03:52] Lee Jackson: No, because number one it was super high end cars period, their internal combustion a limited market. You kno afford 100, 000 car 80, 0 think the standard for mo to upper middle class is And yeah, think that, that unless one of those companies and you’ve got to believe that Musk is working on a lower end one that, that would be 25 or 30 and, and you’ve got to think he’s doing that and BYD will never be sold here.

[00:04:31] Lee Jackson: Never. Donald Trump will never allow that. So granted, I guess you could buy one in Mexico and drive it over here, but you can’t drive it over here from Australia.