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Tesla<\/a> rivals Rivian, Lucid, and Fisker were riding high a few years ago. Amid surging investor interest, the electric-vehicle makers commanded hefty market caps and\u00a0spoke of bright futures.<\/p>\n Things look far less promising today. The EV sector faces a growth slowdown, and even market leader Tesla has warned of<\/a> challenging months ahead. For its less-established rivals, \u201cchallenging\u201d doesn\u2019t quite cover it.<\/p>\n Last month, Rivian announced<\/a> a disappointing quarter and outlook and said it would cut its salaried workforce by roughly 10%. Its market cap has plunged to $11 billion from a 2021 peak<\/a> of $153 billion.<\/p>\n Gene Munster, managing partner of Deepwater Asset Management, addressed the idea this week of Apple\u2014which recently canned its own EV project\u2014buying Rivian, noting the low valuation. Apple<\/a> \u201cneeds to break into some new market,\u201d he told<\/a> CNBC. \u201cThey need to do something big, and potentially Rivian would be just the answer to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, that would be an unusual move for Apple. Its most expensive acquisition to date was $3 billion for headphone maker Beats Electronics in 2014<\/a>. Amazon, which buys delivery vans from Rivian, is the EV maker\u2019s largest<\/a> shareholder, with about 16% of its hard-hit shares.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last month, Musk said of Rivian<\/a>, \u201cThey need to cut costs massively, and the exec team needs to live in the factory or they will die.\u201d He suggested the company had about six quarters before going bankrupt.<\/p>\n Lucid, meanwhile, has seen its market cap plummet from a peak<\/a> of $91.4 billion in 2001 to a $7.6 billion today. Last month, it said it would build only<\/a> about 9,000 EVs this year\u2014far below the 90,000 it predicted for 2024 three years ago. Its struggles led to speculation<\/a> last year that Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, which holds<\/a> about 60% of the EV maker, would acquire the rest of it. That didn\u2019t happen<\/a>.<\/p>\n As for Fisker, its market cap stands at $258 million, down from<\/a> $4.1 billion in 2021. Last month, it received a notice<\/a> from the New York Stock Exchange for noncompliance as its stock closed at under $1 on average for 30 trading days consecutively. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating claims<\/a> of \u201cunintended vehicle movement\u201d in Fisker\u2019s Ocean SUV, which recently received a much-watched poor review<\/a> from influential YouTuber Marques Brownlee (aka MKBHD).<\/p>\n Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reported<\/a> this week that the Fisker is in advanced talks with Nissan<\/a> about a partnership\u2014and a financial lifeline. Under the deal, the Japanese automaker would invest $400 million in Fisker\u2019s truck platform and build its planned Alaska pickup starting in 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that we have a future\u2014otherwise I wouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker told<\/a> Yahoo<\/a> Finance this week, declining to address the Nissan matter head-on. \u201cAnd I believe we\u2019re gonna manage to get out of this, I would say, general EV slump that there is out there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nA \u2018general EV slump\u2019<\/h2>\n
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