EV Week In Review: Musk Tapers Stake Sale, Apple Car Chatter Resurfaces, XPeng Unveils New SUV, Rivian, Lucid Caught Up In Irrational Exuberance And More

EV stocks turned in mixed performances for the week ending Nov. 19. EV makers swayed to stock-specific news, while charging stocks pulled back amid profit taking following a strong week of gains.

Here are the key events that happened in the EV space during the week:

Tesla Stock Stalls Slide, Wedbush's Bullish Price Target And More: In keeping up with his promise that he will abide by the suggestion of his Twitter followers regarding selling 10% of his stake in Tesla, Inc. TSLA, CEO Elon Musk continued to offload shares.

Tuesday, Musk exercised options and sold about 934,000 shares worth about $973 million, thus culminating seven straight days of sales.
Cumulatively, Musk has now sold about 8.16 million shares valued at $8.8 billion, taking him almost to the half-way mark of the initially planned 10% liquidation.

Meanwhile, Tesla bull Daniel Ives of Wedbush raised his price target for shares to $1,400, matching Jefferies' Street-high price target.

"We believe there is $5 trillion of auto/software driven market dollars up for grabs with Tesla likely to own $2.5 trillion of this pie, leaving ~50% of the EV market to 100+ OEMs attacking this opportunity, Ives said in the note.

Apple Creates Stir In EV Stocks: The rumors of an Apple, Inc. AAPL Car resurfaced Thursday, with Bloomberg reporting that the tech giant is looking to launch a self-driving car by 2025. The company is reportedly planning to go with full-self driving capabilities.

Given Apple's disruptive potential in the sectors, it's no wonder the news sent stocks of most EV makers lower. Incidentally, Apple shares launched into a rally and hit a fresh all-time high.

Related Link: Did Elon Musk Think Tesla Would Succeed At The Time Of Its Inception?

Lucid, Rivian Defy Gravity: Rivian Automotive, Inc. RIVN, which debuted on Wall Street Nov. 10 following its high-profile initial public offering, started the week stronger. The stock climbed to an all-time high of $179.47 Tuesday amid frenzied buying, which pushed the company's valuation past that of German auto giant Volkswagen AG VWAGY.

Rivian, however, pulled back during the next two sessions before recovering on Friday.

Lucid Group, Inc. LCID also followed a similar trajectory, advancing strongly on Tuesday in reaction to its quarterly results and management commentary regarding its order book. The stock pulled back on Wednesday and Thursday before coming back up stronger in the final trading session of the week.

Lucid is now more valuable than Ford Motor Company F.

XPeng Unveils G9 SUV: Chinese EV startup XPeng, Inc. XPEV, which has been aggressively revamping its product pipeline, launched its fourth mass-produced vehicle model – the G9 SUV – at the Guangzhou Auto Show on Friday. The vehicle would target the international market.

The newest vehicle will compete against Tesla's Model Y vehicle and domestic rival Nio, Inc.'s NIO ES6.

Fisker Shows Off Ocean SUV: At the Los Angeles Auto Show, Fisker, Inc. FSR unveiled the production version of its first EV – the Ocean SUV. The vehicle was similar to the prototype demoed at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show.

Among the key features is a SolarSky roof and a 17.1-inch Revolve rotating screen. The vehicle comes at a starting price point of $37,499 before state tax credits and incentives. Higher-end versions of the vehicle have price points of $49,999 and $68,999.

Canoo Accelerates Production Timeline: Canoo Inc. GOEV, which reported a narrower-than-expected loss for the third quarter, said production will now start at the Oklahoma plant before the fourth quarter of 2022, as opposed to the earlier timeline of 2023. The company also announced this week it is shifting its headquarters from California to Bentonville, Arkansas.

EV Stock Performances for The Week:

Related Link: Why This Luxury Sports Carmaker Is Morgan Stanley's Favorite EV Stock