Ford And GM Are Gaining On EV Rival Tesla As Its Stock Stalls

Tesla (TSLA) has seen its share price increase as much as 743% since it was added to the S&P 500 back in December, but now the EV maker stock has lost its luster, and its rival carmakers are surging ahead.

Ford’s (F) stock is up nearly 75%, according to CNN, pushing it in the top 10 of the S&P 500 for 2021 after launching its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck in May. The automaker has also unveiled a new compact hybrid truck, bringing back the Maverick moniker, and is rolling more than 125,000 Ford Broncos down the production line and into dealerships.

But Ford is betting on electric vehicles going forward, telling investors in May that it expects EVs to account for 40% of its global sales by 2030.

"This is our biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford started to scale the Model T, and we're grabbing it with both hands," Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement.

Even General Motors (GM) has made a commitment to electrifying its vehicle lineup, saying in June that it has earmarked $35 billion on EVs by 2025.

GM’s shares are up 40% as well, CNN reported.

However, Tesla’s stock has slid nearly 25% from its all-time high set earlier in 2021 and is down 2% for 2021 to date, despite being fully invested in the electric vehicle market from the start, according to CNN.

Critics have been wary of Tesla. Legendary investor Bruce Greenwald has said he doesn’t think the car company will dominate the electric car market in 20 years.

“Twenty years from now, you really think that they're going to dominate the auto market ? Not a chance,” Greenwald told Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer back in May.

“We know what a competitive auto market looks like. Because in that market, most of the big companies have flirted with bankruptcy at one time or another,” he said.

Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has also been criticized for his Twitter posts that often spark market influence over Dogecoin, Bitcoin, Esty, Signal, GameStop, “Baby Shark,” and Cyberpunk, to name a few.

But Tesla’s 2021 Model 3 was named the Most American-Made Car by Cars.com on Wednesday, pushing past Ford’s Mustang that came in at No. 2. The electric car was the first time an EV took the top spot in the survey’s 16-year history, sending Tesla’s shares up 5% following the news.

Shares of Tesla were trading at $683.73 as of 1:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, up $27.16, or 4.14%, while shares of Ford were trading at $15.22, down 20 cents, or 1.27% at the same time. Shares of GM were trading at $59.97, down 15 cents, or 0.25% also at the same time.