Text size
The Li Xiang One PHEV
Courtesy of Li Auto Inc.
Li Auto,
as its electric vehicle counterparts
NIO
and
Tesla,
the year had a strong end. The Chinese EV sector is still on fire into 2021.
The Chinese manufacturer delivered the Li ONE SUV 6,126 vehicles in December. That’s up from 4,646 in November and up about 530% compared to December 2019, according to the company.
It can be a bit difficult to find a consensus delivery number for Li Auto (ticker: LI) and other Chinese EV manufacturers. Most analysts are based in Asia and it is difficult to gather a consensus. For example, Tesla (TSLA) delivered more than 180,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, which was better than the 176,000 analysts expected.
However, the Li number is quite strong, even without a real analyst consensus for comparison. The company, on its conference call in the third quarter, said it expected to deliver 11,000 to 12,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter. The company finished 14,464 in the fourth quarter, easily beating their own initial forecasts.
NIO (NIO) delivered over 7,000 vehicles in December. Along with Tesla and Li’s results, EV’s Chinese demand still appears to be quite healthy.
XPeng
(XPEV), the other US-registered Chinese EV producer, has yet to release December deliveries.
It can sometimes be difficult to call the price of the stock responding to even good news. Li stock fell after accounting for November delivery. Li was also selling more stock to raise money around the time of the November delivery announcement.
EV stocks are definitely in the bull market. Tesla rose about 740% in 2020 and is now the most valuable car company in the world by a wide margin. Li 2020 stock closed at $ 28.83, up significantly from its July price of $ 11.50 IPO.
The advantages make Li, and the Chinese EV sector as a whole, expensive. Barron’s recently wrote that Chinese EV stocks were too expensive for us. That article appeared in mid-December, and EV Chinese stocks, on average, trade about where they performed back then.
Analysts, for the most part, disagree Barron’s. More than 60% of analysts rate the three Chinese EV stocks – NIO, Li and XPeng – Buy. The average Buy ratio for stocks in the
Dow Jones business average
it is about 57%.
For Li, about 64% of analysts cover the company’s Buy rate rate. The average analyst price target is around $ 37 per share.
Monday should be an interesting day. Investors have recently demanded Tesla Model Y prices in China to deal with. Model Y is priced lower than NIO EC6 and around the price of Li AON.
That may be a concern for investors, but the delivery numbers look good.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]