What You Missed This Week in EVs and Clean Energy

Institutional investors and professional traders rely on The Fly to keep up-to-the-second on breaking news in the electric vehicle and clean energy space, as well as which stocks in these sectors that the best analysts on Wall Street are saying to buy and sell.

From the hotly-debated high-flier Tesla (TSLA), Wall Street’s newest darling Rivian (RIVN), traditional-stalwarts turned EV-upstarts GM (GM) and Ford (F) to the numerous SPAC-deal makers that have come public in this red-hot space, The Fly has you covered with “Charged,” a weekly recap of the top stories and expert calls in the sector.

PRICE CUTS: On Thursday, Tesla lowered the price on its Model 3 rear-wheel drive sold in the U.S. to $38,990 from $40,240 and also lowered prices for the Model 3 long-range and performance cars, reported The Wall Street Journal’s Sherry Qin. Tesla, which also lowered the price on its Model Y long-range vehicle and performance model, has cut prices for its U.S. vehicles several times this year, the report noted.

Click here to check out Tesla’s recent Media Buzz Sentiment as measured by TipRanks.

CHINA-MADE EV SALES: Tesla sold 74,073 China-made electric vehicles in September, a 10.9% decrease from a year earlier, showed data from the China Passenger Car Association on Sunday, Reuters reports. Sales of China-made Model 3 and Model Y cars were down 12.0% from a month earlier.

EV-CHARGING STANDARD: Hyundai Motor (HYMTF) and Kia Corp (KIMTF) said on Thursday that they had decided to adopt Tesla’ electric vehicle charging technology in the United States, according to Reuters. Joining their global peers, including Ford Motor, General Motors and Nissan (NSANY) in adopting Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, or NACS, Hyundai’s and Kia’s moves take the Elon Musk-led company’s superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard at the expense of the rival Combined Charging System, or CCS, the report says.

SALE LOSSES: Nio (NIO) employs 11,000 people in research and development, but only sells 8,000 cars a month, Keith Bradsher of The New York Times reports. The company offers $350 augmented reality glasses for each seat in its cars, has introduced a cellphone that interacts with the car’s self-driving system, and employs 30 technicians to make 300,000 electric car motors a year. None of this, however, is profitable and the company lost $835M from April to June, or $35,000 for each car it sold. Nio and other companies in China’s electric car sector have formidable government backing, which allows them to withstand massive losses and keep growing.

MOVING TO THE NEXTERA SIDELINES: KeyBanc downgraded NextEra Energy (NEE) to Sector Weight from Overweight without a price target. Given recent volatility in the utilities space, the firm is “shaking up” its ratings and price targets to reflect its current views on the space. It believes the recent market selloff over the past couple of weeks has “created sufficient valuation dislocations that investors can benefit from.” Utilities finally appear inexpensive, and KeyBanc recommends focusing on “quality names.” The firm is stepping away from NextEra on growth sustainability concerns.

HIGH-RISK VIS-A-VIS INVENTORIES: Raymond James downgraded SunPower (SPWR) to Outperform from Strong Buy with a price target of $9, down from $17. The firm expects a demand uplift in 2024 as California demand stabilizes and the overall market gradually adapts to the cost of capital environment. However, it is concerned that SunPower faces a “particularly high-risk vis-a-vis inventories.” SunPower’s $424M of inventories as of June 30 is an outsized figure for a company of this size, equating to a “whopping” 89% of book equity, Raymond tells investors in a research note.