Nikola: Big time Fraud
Lucid: Producing cars, no charging network, can they scale?
Rivian: Producing cars, no charging network can they scale?
Big Auto: Producing cars, no charging network, have scale for everything but batteries.
Tesla: Producing cars, scaling including battery production, MAY be able to live up to their valuation, have charging network
So the EV IPOs are IPO'ing to be inferior peers to Big Auto.
And waiting in the wings are the chinese EV manufacturers. At some point they'll invade the US, especially if LFP chemistry hits 200 wh/kg which they have in labs but not in production.
Remember that for cheaper cars, Big auto loses money. The ICE drivetrain is already unprofitable for Big Auto for the historical consumer format, which is why everything is SUV these days.
EVs have the potential to deliver a car whose drivetrain is half the cost of an ICE, once batteries get cheap enough. LFP 200 wh/kg basically guarantees a substantial cost advantage of a consumer EV platform over ICEs that ICEs can't overcome, especially given the low-end torque advantages of the driving experience.
The 200 wh/kg enables a profitable small EV car. Big Auto won't fight that, and the startups won't either, because they are obsessed with SUVs.
The Chinese are basically all-in on LFP, because their market is super small cheap LFP cars. Once the density scales the practical use of LFP to US sized cars (Tesla Model 3s, which are small sedans and not really US-SUV platforms are already LFP) then there will be invasions.
At least Rivian has Bezos as a backstop, in Bezos's strange quixotic quest to produce companies that are close to but fundamentally inferior to Musk's, and Amazon as a vendor for the van platform.
To me, the big future in automotive is the mobile home. With housing costs exploding due to constrained supply, and a generation fundamentally economically disenfranchised, and with the convergence of broadband 5G/starlink, solar, batteries, and self-driving (at least on highways), the value proposition to young people for a mobile apartment is strong. I think it will start replacing the apartment as the preferred choice out of college. I mean, why cohabitate with four people in a cramped apartment when you can have your own mobile van that drives you to work if you have to, or drives you anywhere else you want to if you don't have to? Drops you off in an urban area and drives off to a cheap/free place to park, picks you up when you need it? Plus with the e-bike revolution for super flexible urbun and suburban mobility...