Rivian marks billions in losses for Q4 2021

Rivian has presented its business figures for the fourth quarter and the 2021 fiscal year. Due to the expenses for the production ramp-up, the loss increased enormously. As deliveries are still at a manageable level, sales are still low.

++ This article has been updated. Kindly continue reading below. ++

Rivian handed over a total of 920 R1Ts to customers last year after deliveries began in September. The latest quarterly and full-year report now shows that Rivian delivered 909 vehicles in the fourth quarter – and only eleven at the start of deliveries in September.

With the revenue from the 909 vehicles, Rivian posted quarterly revenue of $54 million, the equivalent of €49.2 million or €54,125 in revenue per vehicle on average.

However, the net loss in the fourth quarter increased significantly – from $353 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 to now $2.461 billion (2.24 billion euros). At the end of fiscal year 2021, this leaves a net loss of $4.668 billion or 4.25 billion euros. As analysts had expected better results in the run-up to the business figures, the share price fell after the announcement of the figures.

The figures demonstrate that it is extremely costly to start up mass production of a vehicle. Rivian released more numbers in the shareholder letter suggesting that things are still bumpy – albeit slightly better than in Q4. In 2022, Rivian was already able to build 1,410 cars through March 8. That averages out to about 140 cars per week – down from about 84 cars per week in Q4. In February, there were reports that production was down for at least a week for improvement work. So in the weeks when production took place, it was more than 140 units per week.

Rivian states that all three vehicles are now in production: next to the R1T electric pickup truck, the R1S SUV is being built on the same line, while production of the Amazon van has also started. Rivian had some new production details as well: the EDV-700 was built and has already been delivered; in addition, the first pre-production models of the smaller EDV-500 are now available. And the first European versions of the EDV-500 have also been built.

While orders for the Amazon Transporter are clear, more pre-orders were received for the R1T and R1S: The company now has 83,000 pre-orders (as of March 8); the last official figure was 71,000 pre-orders. It is unknown whether pre-orders have been cancelled due to the back-and-forth about price increases.

Rivian has stated that the supply chain will be the limiting factor for its own production for the current year. As a result, it expects to produce 25,000 vehicles for the entire year – without the delivery problems, it could reportedly be 50,000 vehicles. Although production – and with deliveries so lacking, sales – are not going as planned, Rivian plans to keep its development work going. The “Next Generation Vehicle Platform” will then operate at 800 volts – again with dual and quad motor configurations.

Update 06 April 2022

Rivian announced production totals for the first quarter of 2022. The company produced a total of 2,553 electric vehicles at its manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois and delivered 1,227 vehicles. These figures are in line with the company’s plans, and Rivian stated that it believes it is well-positioned to deliver on the 25,000 vehicle production expectation for the entire year.

rivian.com (shareholder letter as PDF), rivian.com (update)