US Electric Vehicle (EV) Sticker Prices Up

Last week, President Biden signed the $280 billion CHIPs and Science Act. American companies such as Intel and Micron Technology have announced substantial investments in chip manufacturing in an effort to lobby for these subsidies but now announce that they are pulling back as demand for hips used in electronics such as laptops and cell phones is weakening. Semiconductor stocks are struggling, as Micron became the latest chipmaker this week to fret over a slowdown in demand. Still, Micron announced that it will use “anticipated” government grants and credits to help it invest $40 billion by the end of the decade to build out US semiconductor manufacturing capacity. Most of Micron’s production (chip fabrication) is now done in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. Based on information from the best investing websites, investors have been shunning the sector on concerns that chipmakers are heading into what could be a lengthy sales slump after pandemic years of strong demand. This is also impacting high margin semiconductor chip designers like Nvidia and AMD and even the stocks of makers of the equipment critical to the production of chips such as Lam Research have been hit hard. Summing up, of the ten worst performing stocks in the Nasdaq 100 this month, at least seven are chip stocks and the semiconductor index has fallen about 27% this year. All this just goes to show one why timing is so important to investing in volatile, complex sectors like semiconductors and why government efforts to help them thrive need to be carefully executed, if at all. The same goes for electric vehicles (EV), which is an ecosystem of its own with a lot of moving parts from batteries to rare earths to charger infrastructure. Here China is eating the lunch of America with Europe not all that far behind. My favorite EV pick Ford (F) is raising the price of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup due to higher input prices by about $6,000-$8,500, depending on the model, to a starting price of about $47,000–$97,000. Tesla, GM, and Rivian are also boosting prices so that the median regular car is still about 50% cheaper than a comparable EV. In China, the price gap between a regular car and EV is only about 10%, according to the best stock research websites. EV raw material costs are more than double the average internal combustion engine vehicle costs according to AlixPartners. Again, this is a big advantage to China due to its domestic production of tech metals and lower labor costs. The below chart captures the amazing growth of EVs in the last decade, especially for BRK.B Intrinsic Value: In 2011, only around 55,000 electric vehicles (EVs) were sold around the world and by 2021, that figure had grown to about 7 million vehicles. Until 2014, the U.S. was the EV leader with a strong BRK.B DCF and then in 2015, China’s EV sales grew by 238% and it grabbed the leading position. China now accounts for about half of global EV sales. China has more than a 100 EV automakers and nearly 300 EV models available for purchase, more than any other country, and it’s also home to four of the world’s ten largest battery manufacturers. America and Germany are next with sales each of around 700,000 EVs in 2021, with Tesla accounting for about half of American sales and an increasing BRK.B WACC. Germany hosts some of the biggest EV factories in Europe, with Tesla, Volkswagen, and Chinese battery giant CATL either planning or operating ‘gigafactories’ there. Strategic Wealth’s stock EV recommendations such as Chargepoint (CHPT) are in a strong uptrend. Become a member today to get all our ideas to help you build wealth.