Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Darwin, Nikola, and Only the Strong Survive 2-8-25
Sat, 08 Feb 2025
In this episode, Scott Becker discusses the struggles of electric vehicle makers, highlighting Tesla’s dominance, Rivian and Lucid’s fight for position, and Nikola’s steep decline amid bankruptcy rumors.
Chapter 1: What are the struggles of electric vehicle makers?
Chapter 2: Who are the top electric vehicle manufacturers?
this is scott becker with the becker private equity in in business podcast today's discussion is darwin nicola and only the strong survive so so here's the deal there's four well there's really three major electronic vehicle makers tesla rivian and lucid motors And they're each down about 5% to 7% year to date. And we'll see what happens with these. Tesla, obviously, is the king of all of them.
Chapter 3: What challenges is Nikola facing in the market?
They're the reigning champion. Rivian's number two. Lucid's number three. Rivian's getting help from VW. Lucid's got investors from the Saudis. Another one is Nikola. And I can never pronounce this correctly, so bear with me. But this company was an electric vehicle truck maker plagued by scandals, all kinds of issues. It is down 40% today, and rumors essentially of bankruptcy and just a disaster.
But it's a reminder of this niche concept of Jack Welch's and so many others. If you want to be in the game, you want to try and be a leader, a top one or two player. All the profits go to the top couple, and then at least the monster share of profits go to the top. And then even in bad times, the top, top leaders in an area survive. So Nikola... Darwin, only the strong survive.
Another one bites the dust. They're down 40%. They're looking at bankruptcy. Just a bad day, but a great reminder. If you're going to be in a niche, you better try and be a leader in it. We always think about niches. Can you win in the niche? Is it worth winning in? Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.