reuters  shares of churchill capital iv corp fell more than 40 on tuesday as its merger with electric vehicle maker lucid motors sparked concerns about the real worth of the company which has yet to start regular production the share slump followed weeks of speculation about the deal that had pushed the stock of churchill capital iv a special purpose acquisition company spac up more than 500 still even after the slide churchill capital iv’s stock price implied a 56 billion market capitalization for lucid once the deal closes making it one of the highest valued vehicle makers in the world and marking a hefty premium to the price at which the lucid agreed to merge with churchill capital iv it also implied a paper gain of nearly 33 billion for veteran dealmaker michael klein and his partners in the blankcheck acquisition firm “we’ve got the marriage made in heaven the royalty of spacs is michael klein and churchill capital iv” lucid chief executive peter rawlinson told reuters in an interview shares in elon musk’s tesla have surged more than 10 times in value over the past year to around 900 and the appreciation has pushed many investors to chase the next big thing in the electric vehicle sector this has kicked off a rush of spac mergers in the space which has seen the likes of nikola corp and fisker inc go public “it is very speculative my point is that everything is expensive in the ev value chain” pavel molchanov an analyst at raymond james  associates said “there is a high risk in every situation where a company goes public at a high valuation with zero revenue this is what we have seen in almost every spac taking an electric vehicle company public” in comparison general motors co was worth around 75 billion at midday tuesday while china’s leading electric car maker nio inc was valued at 72 billion lucid’s first electric car the luxury air won’t go in production now until late 2021 later than the spring 2021 launch initially planned its ceo said it will take tesla headon in the more affordable car segment in 2024 or 2025 when it plans to launch a rival to tesla model 3 the lucidchurchill capital iv deal includes new private investment that valued the company at 24 billion just a fraction of tesla but still the biggest ever involving a spac the recent runup in valuations of several ev startups including nikola and lordstown motors that have yet to produce saleable vehicles or meaningful revenue has drawn comparisons to the dotcom bubble of 19992000 with analysts and investors expecting a nearterm correction “the ev sector feels like it’s going through a correction lucid’s spacipo probably is driving circular negative reinforcement” said roth capital partners analyst craig irwin “we think tesla has been valued for teleportation so the correction is probably a very healthy thing this allows investors to watch for potential entry points in names they feel they might have missed” he added after lucid priced its air sedan starting at 77400 musk announced a price cut to its flagship model s sedan “the gauntlet has been thrown down” he tweeted however lucid’s fiveyear timeline to get to production of 250000 vehicles a year is a reminder of the challenges of scaling up mass production in the auto industry tesla founded in 2003 produced about 500000 electric vehicles last year