If the Super Bowl ads are any indication, we are all driving electric now — six out of the seven car ads shown during the football playoffs featured an electric car model, according to research from online car marketplace Cars.com.
For decades, the playoff game watched by what averages out to around 90 million people each year offered some of the most expensive and coveted advertising time slots — a 30-second ad sells for roughly $6.5 million.
And this year, those slots were purchased by car companies like BMW (BMW) , General Motors (GM), Polestar, Kia, and Nissan (NSANF) . Each of these carmakers chose to feature their new electric vehicle models to the one in four American households who tuned in on Sunday.
The preponderance of electric vehicles during the Super Bowl caught the attention of everyone from your bar neighbor to President Joe Biden, who wrote on Twitter (TWTR) that “the ads during last night’s Super Bowl were clear” in that “the future of the auto industry is electric.”
Even prior to Biden’s tweet, many waxed poetic over how the floodgates had finally opened and electric vehicles had moved from the niche to the mainstream — Cars.com reported that searches for the Kia EV6 surged by 921% after its ad aired during the Super Bowl.
EV king Tesla's (TSLA) stock jumped on Super Bowl hype even though the company didn't run a Super Bowl commercial. After losing about one-fifth of their market value in the first few weeks of 2022, shares climbed on Monday.
If heavy investments in advertising campaigns can be used as a barometer of what’s to come next, then get ready for the age of electric vehicles as automakers seem to be betting big on the EV revolution.
The EV maker that possibly caught the attention of most people on Super Bowl day was Volvo’s Polestar. Its slick “no blah blah blah” campaign for the Polestar 2 took a swipe at rivals Tesla (“no conquering Mars”), Volkswagen (“no dieselgate”) and others.
Tesla Won't Become Apple
Tesla and (AAPL), who are unofficially vying for the title of 'most innovative company,' do not like each other and the electric vehicle manufacturer does not hesitate to let it be known. The latest round of criticism of the iPhone maker comes from where it hurts: Tesla's chief designer.
It should be remembered that Apple is often famous for the elegant designs of its products, from the iPhone to the Apple Watch, the company places particular emphasis on the look of its products.
The remarks of the designer of the Tesla Model S, Model X, Model 3 and the highly anticipated Cybertruck have provoked bitter exchanges between fans of the two groups on social media.
A user, who claims to have been one of the shareholders of Apple at the time of its IPO, does not hesitate to compare Apple to Microsoft and IBM, judging that Tesla was superior in any case in terms of innovation. He says he thus invested in Tesla.
"As an AAPL IPO investor, I could not agree more emphatically. Apple is now much more like IBM and Microsoft than it is Tesla. Cook<<Jobs. That's why I sold all my Apple shares and moved into Tesla in 2020," he commented.
DeLorean Wants to go Back to the Future as an Electric Sports Car
Marty McFly, your ride is almost here. The iconic sports car with the gull-wing doors that propelled the hero of the 1980s classic "Back to the Future" trilogy through time is looking to make its presence felt in the present.
The DeLorean Motor Co. gave the world a sneak peek of its new model in a video that was shown during the Super Bowl pregame.
The video opened with a vehicle shrouded in darkness followed by a brief view of gull-wing doors and a silver outer body. The tagline "The future was never promised" appears on the screen.
The Texas-based company has been tight-lipped about what to expect, saying in an email that "at the moment, we are not releasing any details when it comes to our upcoming Delorean vehicle launch."
Here are more of the top electric vehicle stocks to watch this week:
Tesla
Tesla has moved its headquarters from Fremont, Calif., to Austin. But Elon Musk's group is not done with California, where it still produces and sells a large number of cars. California has just filed a complaint against the owner of the Model 3, which it accuses of tolerating discrimination against Black workers at its assembly plant in Fremont. Tesla refutes the allegations in a blog post published the day before the formalization of the complaint by the authorities.
Musk, the charismatic chief executive of Tesla, who pushed the automotive sector to make a dizzying transformation toward electric vehicles, admitted that he made a mistake. An "idiotic" one. The mistake: Tesla shouldn't have temporarily halted production of the Model X as it introduced a new version of the SUV in December 2020, Musk said. Musk made his mea culpa in a post to his more than 73 million Twitter followers following a critical post. It's both an apology and a humblebrag, but both are something new for the EV titan.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Tesla as a Hold with a rating score of C+.
Ford
It's a spectacular twist -- but hardly surprising in today's hypercompetitive automotive world: Ford Motor (F) is expected to return to India less than six months after saying it would stop producing cars in the country. The Indian government has just approved the Dearborn, Mich., company's request for its proposal under the production-linked incentive scheme for the automobile sector.
The PLI offers considerable advantages of various kinds, including tax rebates, to companies investing in advanced technologies in the auto sector. Following this green light, Ford immediately let it be known that it intended to produce electric vehicles in India, but for export. In particular, it plans to sell these electric vehicles in the U.S., its first market. But the group does not rule out selling these same cars in India.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Ford as a Buy with a rating score of B.
General Motors
General Motors (GM) knows that in the electric-car wars, it must use every weapon in its arsenal. Its main rivals, Tesla and Ford, have redoubled their efforts to dominate the market. Musk's group in the coming months should see its production notably jump as car manufacturing starts in its new factories in Austin and Berlin. And Ford has started delivering the first electric Transit vans and in the spring is due to begin production of the long-awaited F-150 Lightning.
While production of the GMC Hummer is underway and deliveries of the Lyriq will begin in less than 60 days, according to Chief Executive Mary Barra, GM has just added back a string to its bow. The Detroit auto group on April 4 will resume production of the Chevy Bolt and the Bolt EUV, ending a seven-month hiatus that has significantly hurt its production of electric vehicles on American soil. The Bolt is GM's mass-market electric car aimed to compete with and kill the Tesla Model 3.
Dan Flores, a spokesman, said in an emailed statement that GM is planning to resume shipments very soon as well: "We remain committed to Bolt EV and EUV, and this decision will allow us to simultaneously replace battery modules and resume retail sales soon, which were strong before the recall.”
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates General Motors as a Buy with a rating score of B.
Rivian
Iconic investor George Soros’ investment company Soros Fund Management snapped up almost 20 million shares of electric vehicle company Rivian Automotive (RIVN) last quarter. The stake was worth $2 billion when Soros Fund Management bought it, but it’s now worth about $1.2 billion. The firm disclosed the stake in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Rivian shares have cratered 40% so far this year. The company announced last month that it made 1,015 vehicles in 2021, falling short of its target of 1,200. And Chief Operating Officer Rod Copes left Rivian in December. There also were reports that talks between Rivian and Samsung for a joint venture on battery production collapsed. Rivian went public in November.
TheStreet Quant Ratings does not have a rating for Rivian.
Nio
Nio (NIO) struggles in a way that all but one electric vehicle companies do. It's not Tesla and that means that it has a long way to go to meet expectations even if it has a high market cap (about $42.26 billion as Feb. 16). Tesla has set a high bar. But, Nio delivered 9,652 vehicles this past month, marking a 33.6% year-over-year increase led by the company's ES6 five-seater, high-performance smart electric SUV. The majority of sales in the month came from the ES6 and the company's EC6 electric coup SUV, which saw 2,874 deliveries.
To help push adoption, Nio says it has been accelerating the deployment of its power network. As of Jan. 31, the Shanghai-based company has built 836 power swap stations, 3,766 power chargers, and 3,656 destination chargers. Nio is gearing up to make a run at the U.S. market and is reportedly hiring a local team of experts in the country, a media report said. If Nio has ambitions to enter the U.S., the world's second-largest EV market, it will have to play catch up to Tesla and Ford.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Nio as a Sell with a rating score of D.
