Image source: Kandi.
Kandi Technologies (KNDI +2.51%) continues to expand its reach in China's nascent market for electric vehicles. It announced on Monday that its joint venture with Geely Automotive will work with Luzhou Jiecheng Auto Co. Ltd. on the sale of 1,500 Kandi vehicles for the launch of the Micro Public Transportation program.
The municipal government of Luzhou -- a port city in the Sichuan province of China -- expects to match government subsidies being doled out to promote cars running on cleaner fuel. China's air pollution is notorious in some markets, making Kandi's reasonably priced all-electric vehicles even more affordable. The transportation program is expected to take delivery of all of the cars later this year.
This isn't the first time Kandi has struck a deal with a Chinese city to get its cost-effective electric vehicles into the public transit system. A week earlier, it had announced a similar deal for the city of Kunming for at least 2,000 vehicles to launch its own Micro Public Transportation platform.
The week before that it was a deal valued at $89 million for 4,000 Kandi electric vehicles -- 2,500 of its Kandi K10 and 1,500 of its Kandi K11 -- for Zhejiang Shi Kong Electric Vehicle's Internet Plus initiative. Internet Plus is a plan intended to promote mobile commerce and Internet of Things, and carmakers are cashing in as they team up with tech companies to build connected cars.
All three press releases announcing the deals were pushed out on Mondays, but after three straight weeks of announcements of orders totaling at least 7,500, the stock remains one of the market's biggest disappointments. The stock has closed lower in eight of the past nine months, shedding more than half of its value along the way.
Kandi's stock has taken a hit despite the SEC winding down an investigation into the electric-car maker earlier this year, recommending no action be taken against Kandi. However, with some skeptics still concerned about possible accounting issues and revenue growth slowing -- Kandi posted a mere 9% year-over-year uptick in growth in its latest quarter -- winning investor confidence remains a challenge. Even with consistent profitability, stringing together four straight quarterly profits according to S&P Capital IQ data, Wall Street's been unimpressed with Kandi.
The best way for Kandi to win back the market's respect is to make sure that all of these orders that are slated to be delivered later this year pan out, leading to an accelerating growth rate during the latter half of the year. The press releases may have been coming at a consistent clip on Monday in recent weeks, but now it's the bulls that need to be as consistent.
