What happened
Loosey-goosey Lucid Group ( LCID -4.72% ) stock is wandering higher in Wednesday-morning trading, rising 5.8% through 11:05 a.m. ET. One day after the electric car stock slumped on revelations that it probably isn't going to be hired to build Apple's electric car after all, InsideEVs.com had a bit of good news that took away the sting for Lucid shareholders:
Apple may not love Lucid -- but Jay Leno does.
Image source: Lucid Group.
So what
In the latest episode of Jay Leno's Garage on YouTube, the former late-night comedian and noted car enthusiast opened up with a line calculated to delight early Lucid investors: "No matter how bad a day you're having" -- and Lucid shareholders certainly had a bad day yesterday -- feeling the rapid acceleration of a Lucid Air electric car "will cure it. It's really good. It's really good."
Reminding viewers that Lucid's Air was just named Motor Trend's 2022 car of the year, Leno explained that he didn't want to run a segment on the Air until it was actually available for sale. Lucid is "going to deliver about 500 cars this year," however, noted Leno -- and so the time had come to review it.
And -- he likes it! Comparing the Lucid to Tesla ( TSLA -3.65% ), Leno expressed the hope that having two fine electric automobile makers in the market will encourage each company to up its game and make increasingly better automobiles.
Now what
And yet it's worth pointing out that just one month ago, this same Jay Leno was singing the praises of Tesla -- in particular, pointing out that Tesla is "probably eight to ten 10 years ahead in battery technology."
In Leno's estimation, Tesla deserves its $1 trillion valuation "because they are that much more ahead" of the companies that are "sort of copying Tesla." Whether one of those companies -- Lucid -- deserves its own $68 billion valuation, or even today's 5.8% jump in stock price, remains to be proven.
Maybe check back once those 500 Lucid Airs have been delivered, and we get an idea of what kind of profit margin Lucid is earning on them?
