What happened

Shares of several big-name electric vehicle (EV) stocks were trading down at midday on Thursday, after category leader Tesla (TSLA 0.06%) gave weak guidance for 2022.

Here's where things stood as of noon ET for these three stocks, relative to their closing prices on Thursday: 

  • Lucid Group (LCID 0.55%) was down about 9.3%.
  • Nio (NIO -3.62%) was down about 4%.
  • Rivian Automotive (RIVN -1.00%) was down about 7.8%.

So what

Tesla reported its fourth-quarter earnings after the U.S. markets closed on Wednesday, and they were a mixed bag. While the numbers were good, with revenue and earnings per share both beating Wall Street's consensus estimates, the view ahead wasn't quite what EV investors were hoping to hear. (Among the key points: The company is wrestling with supply chain challenges; there will be no new Tesla models in 2022; and the company is not working on a long-rumored $25,000 model for China.) 

That report -- notably, Tesla's concerns about ongoing supply chain issues -- plus continued concerns about rising U.S. interest rates and the potential for conflict in Ukraine put pressure on all three of these companies' stocks on Thursday. 

To be clear, none of the three moved on negative company-specific news. (In fact, all three companies have been quiet recently.) But for reference, here are the latest developments on each:

  • Lucid's post-merger share lockup period ended last week. (Lucid went public last year via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company; insiders were restricted from selling for a set period after the merger closed.) Often, a lockup expiration is followed by a stock price decline as insiders sell, but Lucid actually rallied after its largest shareholder, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, said that it plans to hang on to all of its Lucid shares for the duration.  
  • Nio has a busy year ahead, with three new models expected. Company officials recently confirmed that two of those models are on track. Nio expects to begin production of the ET7, its new flagship luxury sedan, on March 11, with deliveries beginning on March 28; deliveries of the one-size-down ET5 sedan to Chinese customers will begin in September, and in Norway and other global markets next spring. (Nio is also expected to launch a new electric SUV model this year, but it hasn't yet shared details on the vehicle or its timing.) 
  • Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Rivian had paused production for several days in early January to implement some process improvements. But, the report said, the company is now ramping up output to "close" to 200 vehicles per week, up from 50 per week in December. Rivian hopes to be building its EVs at a rate of 150,000 per year by sometime in 2023.
A blue Nio ET7, an electric luxury-sports sedan.

Nio executives confirmed last week that production of the company's new flagship ET7 sedan is on track to begin in mid-March. Image source: Nio.

Now what

Investors can look forward to more extensive updates from each of these three companies when they report fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 earnings. None of the three have announced dates for those reports, but all are expected sometime in mid to late February.