View: It’s darkest before the dawn in the EV revolution
electric vehicle industry that’s not struggling right now.
The carmakers who’ve promised multi-billion-dollar plans to pivot to battery vehicles are being savaged by equity investors, with shares in General Motors Co. down 30% since the start of August and even perennial market darling Tesla Inc. falling 16%.
An automotive chief executive officer can’t stand on a stage these days without downgrading some aspect of their EV rollout plans. While sales are still growing at double-digit rates, expectations of a rapid switch away from conventional drivetrains have taken a hit.
The consensus explanation is that, in the words of one analyst quoted by the Financial Times recently, “the early adopters have adopted.” The mainstream consumers that auto companies are depending on next are still being held back by a toxic combination of doubts about price, range, and charging infrastructure.
Those fears have spread from the top to the bottom of the electric vehicle supply chain. Have a look at the five big manufacturers of EV batteries (excluding BYD Co., which makes cars as well) and you see a remarkably similar pattern.
Shares are all down by roughly a third from the end of July:
Even the materials those battery makers turn into electric cells are suffering. Lithium hydroxide is worth barely more than half of what it cost a few months earlier, and nickel (a crucial component of EV battery cathodes) has lost more than 20% of its value. Miners such as SQM SA and Albemarle Corp.
