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As a result, many of the ev entrants lack unique selling features. The cars made by Rivian and Lucid are technologically unremarkable. Their good looks alone do not justify the hefty price tag. Rivian’s cheapest electric pickup costs around $70,000, half as much again as Ford’s f-150 Lightning without offering one-and-a-half as much car. In Europe the Lucid Air, a luxury saloon, is significantly pricier than comparable electric bmws or Mercedes. Fisker’s mass-market evs are also well designed but still cost more than Chinese rivals with similar features, partly because its asset-light outsourcing strategy does not work well for cheaper cars. Why anyone would buy a VinFast remains a mystery; reviews of its vf8 suv were damning, to put it charitably.
With demand for their products tepid many of the companies need more capital to keep going. On March 25th Lucid said it had managed to wangle another $1bn from its biggest investor, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund. Many rivals are not so lucky. Rivian had $9.4bn in net cash at the end of 2023 but will need billions more to build its cheaper models. Gone are the days when moneymen would throw treasure at any firm with a plausible PowerPoint presentation and an artist’s impression of a sleek electric car. Having put up billions of dollars in the years leading up to 2021, only to see billions torched, they look askance at missed deadlines, disappointing new models and ever receding prospects of profits. Their second thoughts have not been dispelled by the recent slowdown in growth of ev sales in many countries. Incumbent carmakers have no interest in rescuing the insurgents. Mr Hummel of ubs thinks that most of the startups will simply disappear.
The likeliest to survive are the Chinese. One reason is that they appear to be the most innovative of the bunch. Nio’s upmarket evs come with the option of battery swapping and, in China at least, a vast network of stations to do it. Drivers can be on their way in minutes without getting out of the car. Bernstein, a broker, considers Xpeng one of the leaders in autonomous-driving technology.
