Whenever an exciting investment theme comes along, people will initially look for the “picks and shovels” investment opportunities. This is a reference to the fact that while everyone was trying to get rich mining gold, some clever person was making a mint selling them “picks and shovels” they could use to find gold – or not. One example of a picks-and-shovels play on genetics is Illumina. Why? Because pretty much everyone sequencing DNA at the moment is using an Illumina machine to do it.
Using that same train of thought when looking at electric vehicles, we might think that investing in lithium batteries would be a good idea. Perhaps we might look at raw materials like cobalt and lithium, that are being used in batteries and invest in those commodities. (Bear in mind that innovators may find substitutes if the price of these commodities goes too high.) Then of course you could invest in electric vehicle charging stations, which sounds like an interesting business model. Setup the equipment, charge a rate that gives you a nice profit, then go play golf while passive income rolls in. Or if you’re like 98% of people out there, tell everyone you have a great idea about how to get rich then don’t actually execute on it.
One picks-and-shovels play on electric vehicles may be to find companies that are buildin