Electric vehicle stocks drop as fears of a pricing war reverberate
Spencer Platt
There was some jittery trading in the automobile sector on Wednesday after Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) dropped prices in the U.S. on some models and variants for the sixth time this year. The electric vehicle company has also been lowering prices in China this year in order to compete aggressively with more supply on the market. Within the last week, certain Tesla models also saw price drops in Europe and Singapore.
Detroit automakers were notable decliners in early trading with Ford Motor Company (F) falling 3.93% and General Motors (GM) shedding 2.23%. EV upstarts Rivian Automotive (RIVN) -5.40%, Lucid Group (LCID) -4.21%, Lordstown Motors (RIDE) -4.48%, and Fisker (FSR) -2.87% all showed drops. Chinese electric vehicle stocks Nio (NIO) -6.86%, XPeng (XPEV) -11.35%, and Li Auto (LI) -3.75% were also sharply lower.
The big swing lower across the sector came right ahead of Tesla's (TSLA) earnings report due out after the closing bell. In particular, the read from Elon Musk and gang on pricing for Q2 and beyond could be critical to share prices across the EV sector. For its part, Tesla (TSLA) pared a bigger premarket drop to show a 1.70% decline at 10:50 a.m.
Read all the recent breakdowns on Tesla from Seeking Alpha analysts and Investing Group Leaders here.
Also of high relevance for market share jostling, check out the list of the only electric vehicles that will qualify for the full U.S. tax credit.