Almost all electric vehicle stocks that listed in the past five years are now trading lower
Bloomberg News
Gone are the days of starry stock market debuts that sent valuations of electric-vehicle makers soaring. Now, floating an EV stock is only for the brave.
A torrent of bad news for the sector this week confirms how far it has fallen in just a few years. First Renault SA scrapped an initial public offering of its EV and software arm Ampere citing valuation concerns. Then, Bloomberg reported Volkswagen AG has put efforts to seek outside investors for its PowerCo battery unit on the back burner.
Itâs a sharp turnaround from the heady days of the pandemic when investors were clamoring for exposure to the growing sector. Up-and-coming firms such as Rivian Automotive Inc. and Vietnamâs VinFast Auto Ltd. once surpassed more established rivals like General Motors Co. by valuation. Now, analysts are slashing their earnings forecasts for the EV sector as sales growth slows.
EV shares have now tumbled from their peaks, with Lucid Group Inc. and XPeng Inc. losing more than 80 per cent. The Ampere offering was expected to be one of the biggest this year in Europe, with Renault chief executive Luca de Meo seeking a valuation of as much as 10 billion euros (US$10.8 billion) for the business â almost on par with Renaultâs market value.
âWhen they first quoted the US$10-billion valuation for Ampere, the EV bubble was in peak mode with VinFast trading as the second-largest automaker on the planet,â Mark Taylor, a director at broker Panmure Gordon (UK) Ltd., said. âTimes have changed rapidly.â
Almost all EV stocks that got listed via IPOs or merging with special purpose acquisition companies in the past five years are now trading lower than the price they were initially valued at.
Historic selloff
Rivian, Lucid and Xpeng have all fallen nearly 90 per cent from their peak. Following their listings, the combined total valuation of the three firms was bigger than all of the traditional carmakers. Rivian alone beat VW at one point.
Higher borrowing costs, a sluggish economy in parts of Europe as well as the end of EV incentives in countries such as Germany have been hitting growth for the sector.
The Bloomberg EV stocks index shows companies are trading at a high premium to traditional carmakers even after falling hard in the past few years. That typically suggests the sector can correct further.
Notably, the earnings forecasts for the index have been slashed 37 per cent in the past year. BYD Co. Ltd.âs shares slumped on Jan. 30 after steep year-end discounting to meet its 2023 sales goals hurt the Hong Kong-listed companyâs earnings. Though EV adoption in China is relatively advanced, the government ceased handing out national subsidies last year, which contributed to the outbreak of a price war in the worldâs largest auto market.
Shares of Tesla Inc. still trade at 58 times forward earnings, almost three times the S&P 500 index, despite a slump earlier this month after the worldâs largest EV maker by market value warned about slowing demand. The company has been slashing prices of its cars and last week warned of ânotably lowerâ growth this year.
Enterprise value-to-sales ratios have fallen back, but EV makers are still trading at more than a 100 per cent premium to the broader global autos index. Bloomberg Intelligence is predicting overall car sales growth in Europe to slow this year to five per cent, from 14 per cent in 2023, in part due to growing pessimism around EVs.
While sentiment is bearish, âwe see shoes left to drop in a Darwinian struggle for EV viability,â Adam Jones, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, said. âLook for a potential array of announcements from JVs with China EV partners, impairments, delayed capacity expansion, carve-outs and horse-trading with regulatory bodies to possibly reset âunrealisticâ EV targets.â
â With assistance from Albertina Torsoli and Alexandra Muller.
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