It's a mixed up day in the electric car market Tuesday, as shares of electric vehicle (EV) start-up carmaker Fisker (FSRN -12.70%) fall 7.7% through 2:10 p.m. ET, and Chinese rival Li Auto (LI 6.69%) falls 8.3%, while lithium battery company Freyr Battery (FREY 5.70%) moves in the other direction -- up 3.5%.

Company updates on important developments appear to be driving each of the moves.

EV sales rise

Let's begin with the electric carmakers. On Friday, just before the New Year's holiday, Fisker confirmed its final EV numbers for 2023: 10,142 Fisker Ocean electric SUVs produced, but less than half of those -- 4,700 -- delivered to customers.

Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker hailed the accomplishment, noting that Fisker finally became a "revenue-generating company" in 2023, and he characterized the money coming in as "substantial." That sounds like good news. But just how substantial is "substantial?"

Management says most of the cars delivered last year were Fisker Ocean Ones priced at $69,000 apiece, implying the revenue the company produced last year may approach $324 million. That's about half the company's market capitalization, and gives Fisker a price-to-sales ratio of about 1.8. Compared to Tesla's P/S ratio of 9, that seems to suggest that Fisker stock is cheap. But it's important to remember Tesla's revenue is profitable. Fisker's is not yet. At last report, the company was still losing money at the rate of $468.5 million per year, or about $1.60 per every $1 in sales, which probably explains the big difference in valuation.

Next up: Li Auto.

Li reported its numbers on Sunday. The company hit its sales target for December, delivering 353 more EVs than its 50,000-unit target, a growth rate of 137% year over year. And yet, this represented slowing growth relative to both the fourth quarter (up 185% to 131,805 deliveries) and the year as a whole (up 182% to 376,030 cars delivered).

Li also noted that it is now "the best-selling premium auto brand in the SUV market" in China.

Valuation-wise, Li costs about twice Fisker's price -- 3.6 times annual sales. But unlike Fisker, and like Tesla, Li is a profitable operation, earning $6.3 billion in net income over the last 12 reported months. Investors may be worried about the slowing pace of sales growth in December. But given how much better a business Li seems to be than Fisker, I don't believe the stock deserves to be punished as hard as Fisker is being punished today.

One of these things is not like the others

Speaking of stocks not getting punished, Freyr stands out as an EV stock that's looking a healthy shade of green in an EV sector mostly colored red today. But does the news justify the stock's rise?

Unlike Tesla, or Li, or even Fisker, Freyr remains a company without revenue (much less earnings). And the company's big news today is that not that its revenue is growing (nor even that it's become a "revenue-generating company" at all. Rather, Freyr announced today that it has redomiciled itself from Luxembourg to the U.S.

Management argues that this move is good for the company, and the stock, in that it will simplify Freyr's corporate structure, streamline its financial reporting, and make it easier for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that focus on lithium and lithium batteries to buy shares of Freyr, which may boost the stock price. None of that really makes the business any better, however.

On the other hand, Freyr also noted that moving to the U.S. may position it better to benefit from U.S. government subsidies currently being handed out to electric car battery manufacturers. I suspect that this is the factor that's most interesting investors in Freyr today, as it's the factor that seems most likely to translate into dollars and cents on the company's top line.

And Freyr could really use the help, so fingers crossed.