Electric vehicle thematic

The Australian fund manager Paragon are currently running a fund with a focus on the electric vehicle thematic. Notice, however that all of the stocks that they hold based on this theme appear to be cobalt and lithium miners. You wonder, are they even aware that there is an electric vehicle manufacturer listed on the ASX?

Back in 2012 I was quite optimistic about electric bikes of all types and so I invested in the only two ASX listed companies at the time that offered exposure to this theme: Vmoto and Galaxy Resources (several years ago Galaxy were operating a factory in China, with plans to manufacture batteries for e-bikes at some stage).

Since then the Galaxy share price has soared, while that of Vmoto has trended ever lower.

While there are substantial differences between the two companies, I do recall that prior to the surge in the Galaxy share price, the management of this company held a series of shareholder briefing sessions in all the major cities of Australia.

My feeling is that the management of Vmoto would be wise to take a leaf out of the book of Galaxy. While Vmoto seems to have a very loyal group of WA based shareholders who have been sticking with the company for years, I don't think the VMT share price is going to turn in the right direction unless they are able to attract a broader shareholder base.

It surely couldn't hurt if the management spent a bit of time in the eastern seaboard cities, or Sydney and Melbourne at least, given that this is where most Australian analysts, fund managers and investors are based.