EV shares mixed on Tuesday. Lucid jumped 11.5%; NIO up 2%; Li Auto up 1.6%; XPeng fell 8.8%; Tesla fell 5.5%.

Lucid stock jumped over 11%. Morgan Stanley upgrades Lucid's stock on opportunity for change.

Lucid Group's stock has had a tough time ever since the EV maker announced its founder and chief executive was on his way out.

Far from being a detriment to the company, the change afoot in the C-suite might present an opportunity, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said on Monday. Jonas raised his ratings on Lucid's stock to the equivalent of hold, from sell, based on the possibilities,

"We see emerging scope for Lucid's ability to play a role in the embodied AI theme" as a maker with access to capital and strategic relationships that uniquely enable it to straddle geopolitical hurdles, potentially partnering with both China and the Western world, he said.

NIO’s US-listed shares up 2% as it the Chinese EV maker has partnered with CATL to create the world's largest and most advanced battery swap network for passenger cars.

CATL will help Nio develop its battery swap network, while its Choco-Swap technology standard and network will be introduced into subsequent newly developed models under Nio's new Firefly brand.

Both networks will operate in parallel to provide electric vehicle users with a more seamless and efficient battery swap experience, making it easier to travel with pure electric vehicles.

Tesla stock fell over 5% after dropping 4.8% on Monday. The drop Tuesday came after RBC analyst Tom Narayan cut his Tesla stock price target to $320 from $440. He kept his buy rating.

"Much of the attention around Tesla has centered on its recent delivery performance in Jan. and Feb. in Europe and China," wrote Narayan.

Early 2025 sales results for Tesla have been weak, leading Wall Street to cut estimates for first-quarter and full-year deliveries.

Chinese electric-vehicle maker XPeng posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results and gave strong guidance. Shares weren't budging on Tuesday trading, though. The stock's starting point is the most likely reason.

Tuesday morning, XPeng reported a loss of 10 cents per share on sales of $2.2 billion. Wall Street was looking for a loss of 22 cents per share on sales of $2.2 billion, according to FactSet.

Looking ahead, XPeng expects to deliver 91,000 to 93,000 cars in the first quarter, up about 320% year over year. For March, guidance implies about 31,000 vehicles delivered, up about 250% year over year.

A drop after a solid result feels surprising, but expectations were running high. Coming into Tuesday trading, XPeng ADRs were up more than 100% so far this year.

Li Auto’s US-listed shares rose 1.6% after the Chinese plug-in hybrid specialist released a new autonomous-driving model.

The gains came after Li Auto unveiled its new vision-language-action autonomous-driving system dubbed Mind VLA, which will help facilitate advanced driver-assistance features such as identifying store signs and parking, the automaker said in a statement Tuesday.

The Mind VLA model will transform the car from purely a means of transportation into a sensitive driver that has hearing, seeing and finding functions, said Peng Jia, Li Auto's vice president of autonomous-driving algorithms.