Lordstown Motors stock fell after Ford unveiled its coming all-electric pickup truck.
Courtesy Lordstown Motors
Shares of several electric-vehicle start-ups had a rough day, even as Tesla stock recovered some recent losses in Thursday trading. Blame Ford Motor.
The traditional auto maker unveiled its all-electric F-150 pickup truck Wednesday evening. The truck is impressive, and it is causing investors to reconsider the future of some EV start-ups vying to compete in the pickup and commercial-vehicle space.
Lordstown Motors stock (ticker: RIDE) is having the toughest time. The stock dropped 15.3%, to $9.70, on Thursday. It didn’t help that brokerage firm Wolfe Research downgraded the stock to Sell from Hold and cut its target price to $1 a share from $27, according to Bloomberg.
It’s a dramatic decrease in target price, and it is essentially all due to Ford Motor (F). Lordstown is aiming to launch its Endurance light-duty pickup truck in late 2021. It starts at about $52,000. Ford said Wednesday that the 2022 all-electric F-150 will start at about $40,000 and will arrive in mid-2022. What’s more, the electric Ford truck has all the power, features, and styling that have made its combustion model a top-selling vehicle for decades.
Ford stock rose 3.1% on Thursday, to $12.49, in the wake of the F-150 EV news. The truck is a big reason for the rise, but Ford wasn’t done disrupting start-ups. Thursday morning, the company announced plans to build its own batteries in a new joint venture. The plant’s planned battery production could support millions of EV sales, demonstrating that Ford’s commitment to EVs is growing.
Shares of Canoo (GOEV) and Fisker (FSR), as a result, dropped 0.5%, to $7.73, and 1.4%, to $12.33, respectively. Canoo has electric trucks and commercial vehicles planned. Fisker’s first vehicle is an SUV. Those are all vehicle classes Ford is strong in. With more batteries planned, more Ford EVs will be rolling off assembly lines. That will make life harder for the start-ups—and sooner than EV investors might have expected.
The declines come on a day that has been pretty good for other EV stocks. Tesla (TSLA) shares rose 4.1%, to $586.78. NIO (NIO) stock gained 2.6% to $34.33. The S&P 500 gained 1.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6%.
Ford stock is having a great year, up more than 40%. The same can’t be said for most EV stocks. Shares of Tesla, Lordstown, Canoo, NIO, and Fisker are down about 30% year to date on average, as inflation fears have sapped some of the momentum from high-growth stocks. But new competition from old-school companies such as Ford has played a role in the declines, too.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
