Shares of electric-vehicle makers traded broadly higher Friday following the decision by the United Auto Workers union to strike at plants of the Big Three legacy automakers.
Tesla Inc.’s stock TSLA, -0.38% rose 0.5% toward a two-month high in premarket trading, with the EV market leader seen as a key beneficiary of the labor troubles faced by General Motors Co. GM, +2.09%, Ford Motor Co. F, +0.83% and Chrysler parent Stellantis N.V. STLA, +1.49%.The strike comes as the three automakers have been making a big push into the EV market, efforts that could be weakened by the higher costs and production disruptions resulting from a prolonged strike.
Tesla is not the only company that could benefit from the UAW strike. The Global X Autonomous & Electric Vehicles exchange-traded fund DRIV rose 0.4% ahead of the market open, while futures ES00, -0.66% for the S&P 500 index SPX slipped 0.1%. Among other U.S.-based EV makers, shares of Nikola Corp. NKLA, +8.26% shot up 14.4%, shares of Rivian Automotive Inc. RIVN, -0.79% gained 0.5%, shares of Workhorse Group Inc. WKHS, -3.10% added 0.7%, shares of Fisker Inc. FSR, +3.61% were up 0.5% and shares of Mullen Automotive Inc. MULN, +15.63% advanced 7.0%.EV makers based in China were also getting a boost. Nio Inc.’s stock NIO, +1.16% climbed 1.7%, XPeng Inc. shares XPEV, -0.38% rose 1.3% and shares of Li Auto Inc. LI, +1.23% edged up 0.2%.