Rivian broadens quarterly loss year-by-year

The US electric car start-up Rivian has presented its business figures for the first quarter of 2022. The net loss in the first three months of the year was 1.59 billion US dollars, compared to 414 million US dollars in the same quarter of the previous year. Compared to Q4 2021, however, the loss fell.

In Q4 2021, the loss had been $2.46 billion (€2.34 billion), while the current quarterly loss is the equivalent of $1.51 billion.

Rivian is still in the critical phase in which enormous investments are necessary for the start-up and ramp-up of production – but hardly any revenue is generated through the small number of deliveries. Rivian produced 2,553 vehicles in the first quarter of 2022. 1,227 vehicles were delivered, generating a turnover of 95 million US dollars (90.4 million euros).

Rivian has produced a total of around 5,000 vehicles so far. Rivian puts the number of pre-orders for the R1 models at over 90,000 units – the company currently produces the R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV. Since the controversial price increase in March, more than 10,000 additional pre-orders have been received – at an average price of over $93,000 per vehicle.

Rivian is sticking to its goal of producing 25,000 vehicles in 2022 as a whole. That is only a fraction of what the company is aiming for in the future: When completed, the plant in Normal, Illinois, and the second factory in Georgia are expected to have a combined production capacity of 600,000 vehicles per year.

“We are now ramping production and deliveries of our R1T, R1S, and EDV 700, and while there have been challenges in ramping these vehicles with the current supply chain backdrop, we couldn’t be more energized about the impact we can deliver,” the investor letter says.

Rivian also reiterates three cornerstones of its strategy. One is to increase market share in existing markets by ramping up production, expanding software and service offerings, and expanding its product portfolio. The latter is to be achieved by means of diversifying their “portfolio of consumer and commercial vehicles across multiple price points, form factors, market segments, and geographies”. However, there are no details on this yet; the company had already secured naming rights for possible further models in July 2021.

On the other hand, Rivian has announced some development steps for the existing models. On the one hand, there will be revised electronics and new drive variants with only one motor, which will be called ‘Enduro’ – up to now, the R1 models have one motor per wheel. Rivian also announces the introduction of an LFP battery pack. But again, there are no specifics yet.

Shortly before the publication of the quarterly figures, it was announced that major shareholder Ford has sold part of its Rivian shares. The carmaker sold eight million Rivian shares worth 214 million US dollars (204 million euros). Ford now holds almost 94 million shares, or a 10.5 per cent stake, in Rivian and is the fourth-largest shareholder in the US company.

rivian.com (letter to investors as PDF), reuters.com, sec.gov (both stock sales)