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2021-12-31

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Lucid Vs. NIO Stock: Which EV Stock Is The Better Buy?

SummaryThe EV market is getting ever more competitive. Owning strong brands or tech will be important for companies to differentiate themselves from others.Both NIO and LCID have strong brands and gre

Lucid Vs. NIO Stock: Which EV Stock Is The Better Buy?

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{"i18n":{"language":"en_US"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":9003323526,"tweetId":"9003323526","gmtCreate":1640881982381,"gmtModify":1676533550976,"author":{"id":3570794022406987,"authorId":3570794022406987,"authorIdStr":"3570794022406987","name":"ashburn","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"currentWearingBadge":{"badgeId":"44212b71d0be4ec88898348dbe882e03-2","templateUuid":"44212b71d0be4ec88898348dbe882e03","name":"Executive Tiger","description":"The transaction amount of the securities account reaches $300,000","bigImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9d20b23f1b6335407f882bc5c2ad12c0","smallImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ada3b4533518ace8404a3f6dd192bd29","grayImgUrl":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/177f283ba21d1c077054dac07f88f3bd","redirectLinkEnabled":0,"hasAllocated":1,"isWearing":1,"stampPosition":0,"hasStamp":0,"allocationCount":1,"allocatedDate":"2022.03.29","exceedPercentage":"80.98%","individualDisplayEnabled":0},"individualDisplayBadges":[],"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Nio&nbsp;</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Nio&nbsp;</body></html>","text":"Nio","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":5,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9003323526","repostId":1139674064,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1139674064","pubTimestamp":1640878484,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1139674064?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-12-30 23:34","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Lucid Vs. NIO Stock: Which EV Stock Is The Better Buy?","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1139674064","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryThe EV market is getting ever more competitive. Owning strong brands or tech will be important for companies to differentiate themselves from others.Both NIO and LCID have strong brands and gre","content":"<html><head></head><body>Summary<ul><li>The EV market is getting ever more competitive. Owning strong brands or tech will be important for companies to differentiate themselves from others.</li><li>Both NIO and LCID have strong brands and great tech, which allow them to demand high ASPs.</li><li>NIO seems like the lower-risk choice among these two, and due to being a lot farther along from a production ramp perspective, it is, I believe, the better choice today.</li></ul><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0fe01e445aec1bb67f1b8d810f551603\" tg-width=\"1536\" tg-height=\"1025\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>Trygve Finkelsen/iStock Editorial via Getty ImagesArticle ThesisThe EV space has brought up many companies that do not seem too viable in the long run, but there are also strong contenders apart from Tesla (TSLA). In this report, we&#39;ll pit Lucid Group, Inc. (LCID) and NIO Inc. (NIO) against each other - two of the most interesting EV players that combine strong brands and high-end technological capabilities. In this report, we&#39;ll take a deeper dive into the tech and product side and will look at individual risks for both companies. Overall, I do believe that NIO is the more attractive choice among these two at current prices.Lucid And NIO In The EV MarketThe global EV market has been growing rapidly, with EV sales likely coming in a little north of six million, which is roughly twice as high as during the previous year. Clearly, EVs are a huge growth sector in the global automobile market, although it should be noted that most vehicles sold around the world are still powered by internal combustion engines. Over the years, EV market share should continue to climb rapidly, but it is not looking like EVs will dominate ICE vehicles any time soon.The market leaders in the EV space are Tesla and BYD (OTCPK:BYDDY), and, depending on how one counts plug-in hybrids, Volkswagen (OTCPK:VWAGY). NIO Inc. and Lucid Group, Inc. are not among the largest companies for now. NIO is selling around 11,000 vehicles a month right now, which translates into a ~130,000 annual sales pace. Sales have been growing quickly, however, which is why NIO will most likely sell more than 130,000 vehicles next year, as deliveries should continue to climb sequentially. Lucid is way smaller for now, in terms of deliveries, as the company has likely sold a couple of hundred vehicles this year. Next year, Lucid Group targets deliveries of around 20,000 vehicles - up by a lot versus 2021, but still a relatively small number compared to the deliveries NIO and many other peers will hit next year.LCID Vs. NIO&#39;s Past Quarterly PerformanceAs noted above, NIO&#39;s sales performance was way stronger than that of Lucid over the last three months, but that was hardly a surprise as LCID just began delivering vehicles to customers. On a share price basis, however, Lucid fared better:<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a7a6e7cb1b1485f32cc25ade9f387a5b\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"433\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>Data by YChartsOver the last three months, LCID is up close to 50%, whereas NIO saw its shares drop by close to 20% over the same time frame. In NIO&#39;s case, macro worries about Chinese regulation played a role, whereas LCID benefitted a lot from growing enthusiasm for US-based EV players caused by Rivian&#39;s (RIVN) huge IPO success. On top of that, the start of deliveries also attracted new investors to Lucid&#39;s stock. If analysts are correct, NIO is the much better value today:<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0b1d0939d657b284e25d8447ccb211b5\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"481\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>Data by YChartsShares are trading at less than half the consensus price target, which implies 100%+ upside over the next year, whereas LCID is trading almost perfectly in line with the current consensus price target - which implies no upside over the next year. NIO&#39;s underperformance over the last quarter thus seems to position the company well for a strong performance from the current level, whereas the same can&#39;t be said about Lucid.Lucid Vs. NIO Key MetricsLet&#39;s take a deeper look at the tech of the two companies, as well as at their branding, and their specific key risks. Both NIO and Lucid are active in the high-end segment of the EV industry, selling vehicles with ASPs well north of the average Tesla. NIO&#39;s ASP is around $70,000, and Lucid&#39;s ASP is even higher than that for now, as the company is selling the most expensive AirDreamversion first. Tesla, the current EV leader, has an ASP of around $50,000. Both NIO and Tesla are thus operating in a more luxurious, higher-end segment of the market compared to Tesla. How are these companies able to demand way higher ASPs than Tesla? There are several factors at play, including branding, but one of the most important factors is their great tech.NIO&#39;s battery-swapping technology, for example, allows its customers to fully &#34;recharge&#34; in a couple of minutes, while most other EVs take way longer to fully charge. Lucid doesn&#39;t employ battery-swapping, but its racing-tested 900V technology allows for both a huge range as well as for fast charging speeds - Lucid&#39;s architecture allows customers to charge up to 300 miles worth of energy in just 20 minutes. The Tesla S, for reference, uses a ~400V architecture that allows customers to recharge 200 miles in 15 minutes. Clearly, both NIO&#39;s solution, as well as Lucid&#39;s solution, seem superior compared to what Tesla is offering.NIO&#39;s and Lucid&#39;s tech also looks highly competitive when it comes to their respective batteries. The Lucid Air Dream has an EPA range of 520 miles, which should be sufficient for almost all use cases. NIO has a larger product portfolio compared to Lucid, but when we take a look at its top-end sedan, battery performance looks even better. The NIO ET7, with a 150kWh battery (smaller options are available, too), has a range of up to 1,000km, which equates to around 620 miles of range. Again, both NIO and Lucid perform well compared to Tesla - the flagship S Plaid has an EPA range of 350 miles. Thanks to its experience in developing and supplying racing engines for electric race cars, Lucid crafts an especially efficient engine:<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/edf92a9709beceb826f2e86b3bc25dd6\" tg-width=\"1502\" tg-height=\"829\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>Source: Lucid presentationA smaller, more efficient engine results in lower resource usage and reduces the weight of the vehicle, all else equal. This does, in turn, lead to a longer range, and it also allows for better handling and driving performance, all else equal. Lucid is by far not the biggest EV player today, but its engineers have developed some of the most compelling products and solutions among all currently active EV players.NIO puts a lot of focus on technologies that will eventually allow for autonomous driving and puts massive numbers of sensors and huge computing power in its vehicles today. The ET7 uses the following sensing units for that goal:<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b39530a306d0b27d76d36bccec0e147d\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"331\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>Source: NIOWith 33 sensors that use up to 8MP, NIO&#39;s sensing capabilities easily blow away those of Tesla. The Tesla Model 3, which is, according to CEO Musk, ready for full-self-driving, only uses 8 cameras with 1.2MP each. One of NIO&#39;s sensors in the ET7 thus has almost as much sensing performance as all of the cameras in the M3 combined - and NIO uses 32 additional sensors in its model. Clearly, NIO&#39;s offering is superior - and that obviously comes at a price, as NIO is not skimping when it comes to putting the best tech in its vehicles. This is also showcased by the massive processing power of the chips NIO uses in the ET7. The ET7 uses four NVIDIA (NVDA) Orin SoCs, each of which offers slightly more than 250 trillion operations per second, which makes for combined computing power of more than 1,000 TOPS - unheard of in any production vehicle. Using four SoCs at the same time also provides for the redundancy that is required for critical systems in a self-driving scenario. it should be noted that NIO&#39;s self-driving tech is not as excellent on the software side - yet. At least for now, peers such as XPeng (XPEV) seem to employ the stronger algorithms, but that is a problem that NIO can solve over the coming quarters and years, and integrating future software in its vehicles that come with top-notch hardware shouldn&#39;t be a very difficult task. Lucid&#39;s self-driving tech, even though it doesn&#39;t get a lot of recognition yet, is not looking bad at all, either. The DreamDrive suite utilizes 32 onboard sensors, almost on par with NIO&#39;s Aquila system (and 4x more sensors compared to the M3, which is allegedly L5 ready from a hardware perspective).Strong tech alone doesn&#39;t make for an attractive vehicle, however, as design, manufacturing quality, etc. have to be considered as well. Luckily, both NIO and Lucid compete very well on that basis, although the data on Lucid is still limited due to the low sales numbers - not too many people have driven a Lucid Air yet, thus data about reliability, etc. is limited. NIO, however, has been selling thousands of vehicles a month for quite some time, and its users are very satisfied with the vehicles&#39; quality. CnTechPost reports that J.D. Power has rated NIO the highest-quality EV company in China, ahead of Tesla. Lucid is not active in the country yet, but test drives by a wide range of auto journalists and magazines have generally resulted in very positive reviews. Both NIO and Lucid thus look strong from a design, quality, and tech perspective, with NIO putting more focus on customer-friendly items such as battery-swapping and driving assistance, whereas Lucid puts more focus on engine performance, battery tech, etc. Both avenues have their advantages, but I personally could see NIO benefit more from its easy-to-use, customer-friendly approach, as not too many people will buy an EV based on criteria such as the battery architecture. Still, Lucid&#39;s ability to develop high-performing vehicles should come in very handy in the highly competitive EV industry going forward.With NIO, the main risk the market seems to worry about now is regulation/politics. I personally do not believe that regulation will be a huge risk for NIO. Chinese companies never were able to compete successfully in the ICE vehicle space, but with EV technologies bringing change to the entire global automobile industry, China saw its chance to become a global automobile powerhouse. Hurting NIO and other Chinese EV players would run contrary to those goals, which is why I believe that China is more interested in nurturing its own EV players, including NIO, instead of hurting them. Still, the market puts a discount on every Chinese company today, and that holds true for NIO as well - which might be a good thing for those seeking to buy into the company at a below-average valuation.For Lucid, regulation doesn&#39;t seem like an important risk. Instead, the main risks here are the high valuation and the production ramp. As Tesla has shown, ramping up vehicle production is no easy task. The company oftentimes had to battle with delays and other issues, sometimes summarized as &#34;Production Hell&#34;. The same could hold true for Lucid, which will have to ramp up production at a high speed in the coming months and quarters in order to meet its ambitious production goals. It&#39;s not a certainty that it will experience similar issues to other manufacturers, of course, but due to a lack of experience, this seems a considerable risk worth keeping an eye on. On top of that, LCID&#39;s high valuation could be a considerable risk - shares trade at around 30x next year&#39;s expected revenue, and there is no guarantee at all that those revenues will actually be generated.Is Lucid Or NIO Stock The Better Buy?Both NIO and Lucid have attractive products that seem highly competitive in the EV market that is seeing more and more entrants. I do believe that both companies will have operational success over the coming years, driven by strong tech, attractive brands, and compelling product quality. Operational growth does not necessarily result in share price growth, however, as valuations can be a major hurdle when one buys at a price that is too high.In NIO&#39;s case, that does not seem like an overly large risk, as shares are inexpensive relative to how other EV players are valued - NIO trades at ~4x next year&#39;s expected revenue, which represents a clear discount compared to LCID, RIVN, TSLA, and so on. Lucid, on the other hand, is trading at a very premium valuation of 30x next year&#39;s sales.I do believe that, based on its larger size, more established operations, better progress in ramping production, and due to its much more reasonable valuation, NIO is the better pick among these two today.The recent share price decline makes for an attractive entry point for those interested in owning this top-notch Chinese EV player.</body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Lucid Vs. NIO Stock: Which EV Stock Is The Better Buy?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nLucid Vs. NIO Stock: Which EV Stock Is The Better Buy?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-12-30 23:34 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4477181-lucid-vs-nio-stock-better-buy>Seeking Alpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummaryThe EV market is getting ever more competitive. Owning strong brands or tech will be important for companies to differentiate themselves from others.Both NIO and LCID have strong brands and ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4477181-lucid-vs-nio-stock-better-buy\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"NIO":"蔚来","LCID":"Lucid Group Inc"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4477181-lucid-vs-nio-stock-better-buy","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1139674064","content_text":"SummaryThe EV market is getting ever more competitive. Owning strong brands or tech will be important for companies to differentiate themselves from others.Both NIO and LCID have strong brands and great tech, which allow them to demand high ASPs.NIO seems like the lower-risk choice among these two, and due to being a lot farther along from a production ramp perspective, it is, I believe, the better choice today.Trygve Finkelsen/iStock Editorial via Getty ImagesArticle ThesisThe EV space has brought up many companies that do not seem too viable in the long run, but there are also strong contenders apart from Tesla (TSLA). In this report, we'll pit Lucid Group, Inc. (LCID) and NIO Inc. (NIO) against each other - two of the most interesting EV players that combine strong brands and high-end technological capabilities. In this report, we'll take a deeper dive into the tech and product side and will look at individual risks for both companies. Overall, I do believe that NIO is the more attractive choice among these two at current prices.Lucid And NIO In The EV MarketThe global EV market has been growing rapidly, with EV sales likely coming in a little north of six million, which is roughly twice as high as during the previous year. Clearly, EVs are a huge growth sector in the global automobile market, although it should be noted that most vehicles sold around the world are still powered by internal combustion engines. Over the years, EV market share should continue to climb rapidly, but it is not looking like EVs will dominate ICE vehicles any time soon.The market leaders in the EV space are Tesla and BYD (OTCPK:BYDDY), and, depending on how one counts plug-in hybrids, Volkswagen (OTCPK:VWAGY). NIO Inc. and Lucid Group, Inc. are not among the largest companies for now. NIO is selling around 11,000 vehicles a month right now, which translates into a ~130,000 annual sales pace. Sales have been growing quickly, however, which is why NIO will most likely sell more than 130,000 vehicles next year, as deliveries should continue to climb sequentially. Lucid is way smaller for now, in terms of deliveries, as the company has likely sold a couple of hundred vehicles this year. Next year, Lucid Group targets deliveries of around 20,000 vehicles - up by a lot versus 2021, but still a relatively small number compared to the deliveries NIO and many other peers will hit next year.LCID Vs. NIO's Past Quarterly PerformanceAs noted above, NIO's sales performance was way stronger than that of Lucid over the last three months, but that was hardly a surprise as LCID just began delivering vehicles to customers. On a share price basis, however, Lucid fared better:Data by YChartsOver the last three months, LCID is up close to 50%, whereas NIO saw its shares drop by close to 20% over the same time frame. In NIO's case, macro worries about Chinese regulation played a role, whereas LCID benefitted a lot from growing enthusiasm for US-based EV players caused by Rivian's (RIVN) huge IPO success. On top of that, the start of deliveries also attracted new investors to Lucid's stock. If analysts are correct, NIO is the much better value today:Data by YChartsShares are trading at less than half the consensus price target, which implies 100%+ upside over the next year, whereas LCID is trading almost perfectly in line with the current consensus price target - which implies no upside over the next year. NIO's underperformance over the last quarter thus seems to position the company well for a strong performance from the current level, whereas the same can't be said about Lucid.Lucid Vs. NIO Key MetricsLet's take a deeper look at the tech of the two companies, as well as at their branding, and their specific key risks. Both NIO and Lucid are active in the high-end segment of the EV industry, selling vehicles with ASPs well north of the average Tesla. NIO's ASP is around $70,000, and Lucid's ASP is even higher than that for now, as the company is selling the most expensive AirDreamversion first. Tesla, the current EV leader, has an ASP of around $50,000. Both NIO and Tesla are thus operating in a more luxurious, higher-end segment of the market compared to Tesla. How are these companies able to demand way higher ASPs than Tesla? There are several factors at play, including branding, but one of the most important factors is their great tech.NIO's battery-swapping technology, for example, allows its customers to fully \"recharge\" in a couple of minutes, while most other EVs take way longer to fully charge. Lucid doesn't employ battery-swapping, but its racing-tested 900V technology allows for both a huge range as well as for fast charging speeds - Lucid's architecture allows customers to charge up to 300 miles worth of energy in just 20 minutes. The Tesla S, for reference, uses a ~400V architecture that allows customers to recharge 200 miles in 15 minutes. Clearly, both NIO's solution, as well as Lucid's solution, seem superior compared to what Tesla is offering.NIO's and Lucid's tech also looks highly competitive when it comes to their respective batteries. The Lucid Air Dream has an EPA range of 520 miles, which should be sufficient for almost all use cases. NIO has a larger product portfolio compared to Lucid, but when we take a look at its top-end sedan, battery performance looks even better. The NIO ET7, with a 150kWh battery (smaller options are available, too), has a range of up to 1,000km, which equates to around 620 miles of range. Again, both NIO and Lucid perform well compared to Tesla - the flagship S Plaid has an EPA range of 350 miles. Thanks to its experience in developing and supplying racing engines for electric race cars, Lucid crafts an especially efficient engine:Source: Lucid presentationA smaller, more efficient engine results in lower resource usage and reduces the weight of the vehicle, all else equal. This does, in turn, lead to a longer range, and it also allows for better handling and driving performance, all else equal. Lucid is by far not the biggest EV player today, but its engineers have developed some of the most compelling products and solutions among all currently active EV players.NIO puts a lot of focus on technologies that will eventually allow for autonomous driving and puts massive numbers of sensors and huge computing power in its vehicles today. The ET7 uses the following sensing units for that goal:Source: NIOWith 33 sensors that use up to 8MP, NIO's sensing capabilities easily blow away those of Tesla. The Tesla Model 3, which is, according to CEO Musk, ready for full-self-driving, only uses 8 cameras with 1.2MP each. One of NIO's sensors in the ET7 thus has almost as much sensing performance as all of the cameras in the M3 combined - and NIO uses 32 additional sensors in its model. Clearly, NIO's offering is superior - and that obviously comes at a price, as NIO is not skimping when it comes to putting the best tech in its vehicles. This is also showcased by the massive processing power of the chips NIO uses in the ET7. The ET7 uses four NVIDIA (NVDA) Orin SoCs, each of which offers slightly more than 250 trillion operations per second, which makes for combined computing power of more than 1,000 TOPS - unheard of in any production vehicle. Using four SoCs at the same time also provides for the redundancy that is required for critical systems in a self-driving scenario. it should be noted that NIO's self-driving tech is not as excellent on the software side - yet. At least for now, peers such as XPeng (XPEV) seem to employ the stronger algorithms, but that is a problem that NIO can solve over the coming quarters and years, and integrating future software in its vehicles that come with top-notch hardware shouldn't be a very difficult task. Lucid's self-driving tech, even though it doesn't get a lot of recognition yet, is not looking bad at all, either. The DreamDrive suite utilizes 32 onboard sensors, almost on par with NIO's Aquila system (and 4x more sensors compared to the M3, which is allegedly L5 ready from a hardware perspective).Strong tech alone doesn't make for an attractive vehicle, however, as design, manufacturing quality, etc. have to be considered as well. Luckily, both NIO and Lucid compete very well on that basis, although the data on Lucid is still limited due to the low sales numbers - not too many people have driven a Lucid Air yet, thus data about reliability, etc. is limited. NIO, however, has been selling thousands of vehicles a month for quite some time, and its users are very satisfied with the vehicles' quality. CnTechPost reports that J.D. Power has rated NIO the highest-quality EV company in China, ahead of Tesla. Lucid is not active in the country yet, but test drives by a wide range of auto journalists and magazines have generally resulted in very positive reviews. Both NIO and Lucid thus look strong from a design, quality, and tech perspective, with NIO putting more focus on customer-friendly items such as battery-swapping and driving assistance, whereas Lucid puts more focus on engine performance, battery tech, etc. Both avenues have their advantages, but I personally could see NIO benefit more from its easy-to-use, customer-friendly approach, as not too many people will buy an EV based on criteria such as the battery architecture. Still, Lucid's ability to develop high-performing vehicles should come in very handy in the highly competitive EV industry going forward.With NIO, the main risk the market seems to worry about now is regulation/politics. I personally do not believe that regulation will be a huge risk for NIO. Chinese companies never were able to compete successfully in the ICE vehicle space, but with EV technologies bringing change to the entire global automobile industry, China saw its chance to become a global automobile powerhouse. Hurting NIO and other Chinese EV players would run contrary to those goals, which is why I believe that China is more interested in nurturing its own EV players, including NIO, instead of hurting them. Still, the market puts a discount on every Chinese company today, and that holds true for NIO as well - which might be a good thing for those seeking to buy into the company at a below-average valuation.For Lucid, regulation doesn't seem like an important risk. Instead, the main risks here are the high valuation and the production ramp. As Tesla has shown, ramping up vehicle production is no easy task. The company oftentimes had to battle with delays and other issues, sometimes summarized as \"Production Hell\". The same could hold true for Lucid, which will have to ramp up production at a high speed in the coming months and quarters in order to meet its ambitious production goals. It's not a certainty that it will experience similar issues to other manufacturers, of course, but due to a lack of experience, this seems a considerable risk worth keeping an eye on. On top of that, LCID's high valuation could be a considerable risk - shares trade at around 30x next year's expected revenue, and there is no guarantee at all that those revenues will actually be generated.Is Lucid Or NIO Stock The Better Buy?Both NIO and Lucid have attractive products that seem highly competitive in the EV market that is seeing more and more entrants. I do believe that both companies will have operational success over the coming years, driven by strong tech, attractive brands, and compelling product quality. Operational growth does not necessarily result in share price growth, however, as valuations can be a major hurdle when one buys at a price that is too high.In NIO's case, that does not seem like an overly large risk, as shares are inexpensive relative to how other EV players are valued - NIO trades at ~4x next year's expected revenue, which represents a clear discount compared to LCID, RIVN, TSLA, and so on. Lucid, on the other hand, is trading at a very premium valuation of 30x next year's sales.I do believe that, based on its larger size, more established operations, better progress in ramping production, and due to its much more reasonable valuation, NIO is the better pick among these two today.The recent share price decline makes for an attractive entry point for those interested in owning this top-notch Chinese EV player.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":177,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":3,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}