The electric car SPAC boom has receded, how is the new American car-making force living?

A few days ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk released "nonsense" in an interview, saying that USelectric vehiclestartups Lucid and Rivian are both on the trend of bankruptcy."Unless they can cut costs drastically, they will be in deep trouble and end up in the car cemetery like everyone else except Tesla and Ford," Musk said.

Musk's remarks to a certain extent revealed the current status of American electric vehicle start-ups represented by Rivian and Lucid.At that time, Lucid, Lordstown, Nikola, and Canoo and other new American car-making forces took advantage of the Dongfeng of electric vehicles and went public through SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies). Now, after the electric car SPAC craze has subsided, these companies still thrive Still?

Rivian :Stockstumble, stocks sell off

Image credit: Rivian

Rivian can be said to be the most potential electric vehicle start-up in the United States. It was officially listed in November last year. The market value on the first day of listing was close to that of the big brother GM. It was once known as the "next Tesla".However, the head of Tesla said that Rivian is going bankrupt. Why?

In the first quarter of this year, Rivian posted a net loss of $1.6 billion with negative gross margins.After the quarterly earnings report, Rivian's stock price hit a new low, falling from a record high of $179.5 to $24.7, causing investors such as Ford and Amazon to suffer huge losses. Among them, Ford lost $5.4 billion due to Rivian in the first quarter, and Amazon's shares in Rivian were also It lost $7.6 billion in the first quarter.

Subsequently, Ford sold Rivian stock twice, for a total of about 15 million shares, worth about $400 million.In addition to Ford, JPMorgan also helped an unidentified seller sell 13 million to 15 million Rivian shares.Rivian has lost about three-quarters of its market value this year.

As Musk said, "If Rivian continues to lose money selling and delivering electric cars, it will face bankruptcy unless Rivian can raise more money."However, now that the enthusiasm for electric vehicles in the capital market has begun to cool, investors have returned to calm, and electric vehicle startups must start making profits or prove themselves as viable businesses in order to attract new investment.So whether Rivian can get out of the woods will depend on whether it can "make big changes or cut costs drastically," as Musk said.

Lucid :Stocksdown, lack of funds

Lucid's situation is similar to that of Rivian, both of which have already started mass production and delivery of cars, and are favored by many investors.

Last July, Lucid completed a reverse merger and went public with special-purpose acquisition firm Churchill Capital Corp. IV.In November, Lucid's market value rose to about $90 billion, surpassing Ford Motor ($79.4 billion) and only about $1 billion less than GM.But now, because it has lowered its production target for this year and the market is worried about supply chain problems, Lucid's market value has fallen by about three-quarters from its previous peak, and its stock price has dropped by 40% from the day of its IPO.

Currently, Lucid is gearing up to launch its second production model, the $179,000 Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance Model, a 1,050-horsepower grand tourer with a range of 446 miles. .

Lucid said the company needed to raise more capital to support plans such as building a second factory in Saudi Arabia.In December, Lucid issued a $2 billion convertible bond.Those bond yields aren't enough, and Lucid may have to sell more stock to raise money, said Joel Levington of Bloomberg Intelligence.