Amazon has ordered 100,000 supply vans, however Rivian has been reluctant to say what number of it has shipped. On Wednesday, it stated solely that it was “ramping manufacturing and deliveries.” On the decision with analysts, Mr. Scaringe stated he anticipated the vans to make up roughly a 3rd of the 25,000 autos within the 2022 manufacturing forecast.
In some ways, Rivian epitomizes the sharp shift to bearishness within the inventory market this 12 months.
In November, buyers piled into its preliminary public providing, through which the corporate raised $13.5 billion, and its shares then soared, briefly giving Rivian a inventory market worth that was almost as massive as these of Ford Motor and Normal Motors mixed.
However the inventory plunged this 12 months after the corporate lower its manufacturing targets. The 80 p.c decline in Rivian’s shares is way steeper than a 31 p.c drop in Tesla’s inventory over the identical interval and a 38 p.c drop for Ford, which is introducing its personal electrical truck.
Rivian makes autos in Regular, Ailing., and plans one other manufacturing unit in Georgia. Constructing and working meeting strains requires huge quantities of money, which is why new automotive corporations can run into dire monetary straits if manufacturing lags and gross sales fall quick. Even Tesla, which sells extra electrical automobiles than every other firm, generally discovered itself working low on funds.
Within the first quarter, Rivian used up $1.45 billion in money working its enterprise and investing in new services and tools, rather more than the $800 million it consumed within the first quarter of 2021. The corporate had $16.4 billion in money on its stability sheet on the finish of the primary quarter, down from $18.1 billion on the finish of final 12 months.
The decline in Rivian inventory slashed the worth of the stakes held by its largest shareholders. Amazon’s 18 p.c stake is value $3.2 billion, down from $16.8 billion in the beginning of the 12 months. Ford, one other early investor, bought a few of its shares on Monday, and its remaining stake is value $1.9 billion. It will have been value $9.7 billion on the finish of final 12 months.
Rivian stated it took greater than 10,000 orders for its truck and its S.U.V. after it raised costs in March. These orders had a median worth of over $93,000, the corporate added.
However as a result of Rivian’s autos promote for comparatively excessive costs, analysts questioned how a lot demand there is likely to be if inflation continued to eat away at households’ spending energy. “It stays to be seen how a lot urge for food customers have for a price ticket of a Rivian,” Mr. Nelson stated.
