With gains of over 600% and 1,100% in 2020 alone, the electric vehicle revolution is only getting started…
This past September alone, the number of electric vehicles sold worldwide was up 91% from a year before.
In Europe, electric vehicles are expected to account for 10% of all new cars sold this year. In 2021, that number will be 15%!
Meanwhile, any doubts some investors had about Tesla Inc. (TSLA) are long gone. Elon Musk’s electric vehicles maker has already sold more than 320,000 vehicles this year alone, and both production capacity and demand keeps rising.
Several Chinese companies have joined the fray, and have gone from zero to 100,000 cars sold in what seems like months.
Even the old car giants are getting into electric vehicles. General Motors Co. (GM) recently announced its reviving the Hummer line of trucks. Except these new Hummers are all-electric.
Mind you, this is all despite the global Covid pandemic hitting everyone’s wallets hard.
As the revolution gains ground, electric vehicle stocks are soaring. Tesla shares are up by more than 600% for the year!
China’s Nio Ltd. (NIO) has done even better, soaring over almost 1,100%. That’s an increase of more than 10 times!
And sales are still growing. Regulators in both China and Europe are pushing hard for wider adoption of electric vehicles, and it’s likely the coming Biden administration will do the same.
That means these huge growth rates are just the beginning. There’s much more money to be made by investing in electric vehicle stocks now.
Here are the 5 best electric vehicle stocks to buy today:
Nio Ltd. (NIO)
For most Western investors, Nio came out of nowhere this year to become the best-performing electric vehicle stock on the market. But this Chinese company isn’t empty hype.
Nio’s explosive performance is based on a reputation for good quality in China, and on some stellar delivery numbers. On October 2, the firm revealed that its September car deliveries were up 133% compared to the previous September.
Nio’s October deliveries also turned out to be more than double those in 2019. The company has kept growing and has strong backing from Chinese authorities for whom air pollution is a huge domestic issue.
But this is still only the first inning of Nio’s growth. The company is only making about 100,000 cars a year, about a third of Tesla’s capacity. That leaves plenty of room to grow, and demand in China is strong as the country has already mostly recovered from the Covid pandemic.
Workhorse Group Inc. (WKHS)
Based outside of Cincinnati, Workhorse is a highly successful electric vehicle that’s tapping into the huge growth of online shopping we’ve seen in 2020.
See, instead of making electric cars like Tesla or Nio, Workhorse makes electric delivery trucks. It’s a genius move because delivery companies plan out their cargo, routes, and times down to the inch. That means they know exactly how much they spend on fuel, and how much an electric vehicle could save them.
Delivery vehicles also drive a relatively low amount of miles each day and start and end each day at the same warehouse. That solves the issue of where and when to recharge the vehicles. Simply have them charge at the warehouse overnight, and never worry about running out of power.
As of the beginning of November, Workhorse is making its electric delivery vehicles as fast as it can but still has a backlog of almost 2,000 ordered vehicles, including an order with one of America’s largest delivery vehicle distributors.
Workhorse stock is up by more than 640% this year, and with orders still coming in, there’s plenty more room to grow.
Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)
Nvidia may be most famous for its graphics processors used in PC and console gaming, but the company’s chips are used extensively in electric vehicles to control all the different electronic sensors and motors that keep the car on the road.
Nvidia’s chips are also the brains behind self-driving cars. Tesla’s car AI is “trained” using only Nvidia chips, for example. Nvidia is also working with Daimler ADR (DMLRY), better known as Mercedes-Benz, to create all-new hardware and software to power the next generation of Mercedes cars. Most will be electric, and all will be built around Nvidia’s supercomputer chips.
This approach of starting with AI and then building a car around it is precisely what Tesla and Nvidia did together, and as Tesla’s numbers show, it’s the best only way to make electric cars. Chinese companies such as Nio and others are following suit, and even the older car makers are now seeing the light.
Nvidia as and will keep being the leading supplier of the AI chips that power the electric vehicle revolution for years to come.
Baidu Inc. (BIDU)
Baidu may be known in the West as “China’s Google,” but the tech giant does much more than online ads and web search. In fact, Baidu is the leader in China’s quickly-growing self-driving and electric cars market. For example, the firm accounted for a whopping 91% of all self-driving car test drive miles in China in 2019.
It’s Baidu that in 2019 helped a state-owned Chinese company to create the country’s first electric vehicle, self-driving taxi. For the last two years, Baidu has also been partnered with Volvo to create smart electric vehicles for the Chinese market, the largest car market in the world.
This makes Baidu the leader in the growing market for autonomous electric vehicles, a market that China especially is betting big on to help clean up its dirty cities and crowded roads.
Tesla Inc. (TSLA)
No list of best electric vehicle stocks would be complete without mentioning Tesla. As the largest, most established, and most successful electric vehicle company to date, Tesla is nowhere near done growing.
The firm continues to be a leader in battery technology in partnership with Panasonic, and its huge Gigafactories can produce power packs at scales that no other company can rival. That means Tesla can price its cars that are difficult for others to compete with.
That founder and CEO Elon Musk is an investor darling and tech genius certainly helps too, and so far he’s been able to exceed investor expectations at every corner. With factories both in the West and in China, more than 300,000 car deliveries a year, and new, cheaper models in the works, Tesla is the undisputed leader in the electric vehicle market.
