What happened

Wednesday is turning into another great day to own electric vehicle (EV) stocks, as EV start-ups jostle for pole position and a couple news items shake up the rankings.

In early afternoon trading, as of 12:15 p.m. ET, Rivian Automotive (RIVN 6.10%) stock has tacked on a respectable 4.1% gain, while Fisker (FSRN -12.70%) shares are up 4.5%, and Lucid Group (LCID 0.41%) is leading the pack higher with a 4.8% gain.

So what

Lucid stock is rising for its third straight day Wednesday as the luxury electric vehicle maker continues to benefit from a pair of positive news items. Investors are applauding the company's move to become a sort of arms supplier to other EV companies, as evidenced by the company's new partnership with Aston Martin.

At the same time, news that the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund known as Ayar Third Investment Company has doubled down on its investment in the company -- and indeed paid an above-market $6.77 per share to acquire a 65% interest in Lucid -- probably has investors thinking Lucid looks like a bargain at its present price of just $6.40 per share.

At the same time, Rivian and Fisker are looking like they've made smart choices with their alliances as well. Yesterday, Volvo announced that it will join Ford, GM, and Rivian in adopting the now dominant "NACS" EV charging plug championed by Tesla (TSLA -1.11%). At the same time, we learned yesterday that charging company ChargePoint will be adopting the NACS plug for its charging stations as well. And seeing as Fisker has already picked ChargePoint as its charging company of choice, this presumably means Fisker EVs, too, will become part of this charging consortium.      

It's starting to look like the EV industry is going to be one big, happy family -- a family that will one-and-all be using Tesla chargers to keep their electrons humming.

Now what

Well, one mostly happy family. In today's most notable bit of bad news, electric truckmaker Lordstown Motors (RIDE -1.70%) announced yesterday that it will need to file for bankruptcy protection. So Lordstown, it appears, won't be using anybody's chargers to power its Endurance electric pickup trucks going forward.  

Still, what's bad news for Lordstown is presumably good news for the EV companies that survive -- and now have one less competitor to worry about. Going forward, whatever market share Lordstown might have been able to capture will instead be divvied up among the survivors, which for the time being still include Rivian, Fisker, and Lucid.

For these three growth stocks, at least, the growth prospects just got a little bit brighter.