Stocks opened modestly higher on Monday morning, with the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 2.02%) climbing about 0.4% just after the beginning of regular trading on Wall Street. With the gains, the Nasdaq added to its November rebound after having struggled over the preceding few months.

Tesla (TSLA -1.11%) plays a key role in the Nasdaq, acting as a key driver of growth from its vantage point as a hybrid industrial and technology company. The pioneering electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer is apparently close to reaching a new milestone in the long-term strategy that CEO Elon Musk set out early in the company's history. Yet despite Tesla's modest share-price gains on the day, another company -- Li Auto (LI 6.69%) -- managed to claim the prize as the EV stock winner early Monday. Here's what you need to know.

Tesla aims at a new price point

Tesla shares opened up between 1% and 2% on Monday morning. Investors weighed reports that the EV manufacturer might be making good on a promise that Musk has made for years, and they tried to ascertain what impact it could have on the long-term trajectory of the entire company.

Tesla is reportedly planning to build a new car at its German Gigafactory facility near Berlin that would be available for 25,000 euros, according to a Reuters report. The EV's price tag would work out to roughly $27,000 at current exchange rates, and the model would potentially supplement or replace production of the Model Y electric SUVs that the German manufacturing plant is currently making. Tesla did not comment on the report, although Musk had recently visited the facility.

Details on the particulars of how Tesla would be able to achieve a lower price point for a mass-produced EV were limited. However, some speculated that efforts to streamline production of key components like the vehicle underbody could cut costs dramatically.

For Tesla investors, the news is mixed. On one hand, such a move is integral to Tesla's long-held plans to boost vehicle deliveries roughly tenfold to 20 million per year by the end of the decade. However, it seems likely that a low-priced car will necessarily have lower margins than more expensive EV models, and that could lead to slower growth in profits than Tesla has recently seen.

Li keeps climbing

Meanwhile, Chinese EV company Li Auto saw its stock jump almost 10% Monday morning. The Tesla competitor is standing out in the cutthroat EV market in China, and investors are taking notice.

Li's gains began last week following the release of the EV automaker's October delivery figures. Li put 40,422 vehicles into the hands of customers during the month, which was more than 4 times its delivery count from October 2022. It marked the first time that Li had delivered over 40,000 EVs in a single month, and it brought the total number of vehicles delivered in 2023 to more than 284,600.

Unlike Tesla, Li has worked to capture the high end of the EV market in China. The automaker claimed the status of best-selling premium brand among SUVs selling for more than 300,000 Chinese renminbi, or roughly $41,000. Its large plug-in hybrid SUV models have done particularly well, with the L9 ranking first among full-size SUVs for more than a year now.

China will remain a battleground for both Li and Tesla, along with numerous other EV manufacturers. Even though Tesla can't claim dominance over the Chinese EV market, there's ample demand to allow multiple players to see success. That's what shareholders seem to be counting on Monday morning in bidding up shares of both Li and Tesla.