RIVN

What is Rivian and how do they make money?

Rivian Automotive, Inc. is a reminder that the American electric vehicle game is not a monopoly. The company develops and manufactures electric pickup trucks and delivery vans, earning revenue through the production and sale of these vehicles and reports this revenue in one segment. 

Rivian currently sells two electric cars to consumers, the R1T, a two-row, five-passenger pickup truck or ute, and the R1S, a three-row, seven-passenger sport utility vehicle (SUV).

Rivian also sells Electric Delivery Vans (EDV) to commercial customers. In fact, Rivian’s EDV was designed and engineered in collaboration with Amazon, Rivian’s very first commercial customer.

Rivian was founded by engineer and CEO Robert “RJ” Scaringe as “Mainstream Motors” in 2009 with him as the sole employee. 

Based in San Jose, California, Rivian also has EV production facilities across California, Illinois, Arizona and Michigan in the United States, plus Woking in the United Kingdom and Vancouver, Canada.

How many vehicles has Rivian delivered so far?

As of 8 March 2022, Rivian has delivered a total of 2,425 vehicles to its customers. The company has also taken 83,000 orders for R1 vehicles from consumers and 100,000 EDV orders from Amazon.

Rivian plans on delivering a total of 25,000 EVs during FY2022.

Is Rivian profitable?

No, the company has not made a profit yet.

Rivian generated net losses of US$426m, US$1.02b and US$4.69b in FY2019, FY2020 and FY2021 respectively.

Is RIVN stock a good buy?

Investor sentiment has been mostly negative since Rivian went public in November 2021. Shortly after IPOing at a price of US$78, Rivian’s share price jumped to a high of US$179.47 but quickly began diving. RIVN stock price hit a low of US$33.46 in March 2022.

During the final quarter of FY2021, Rivian only delivered 909 of the 1,200 vehicles they promised due to supply chain problems, a spike in Omicron Covid-19 cases, inflationary pressures, severe winter weather in Central Illinois and a planned 10-day shutdown to fine-tune production lines. Rivian has stated, “we anticipate supply chain challenges to persist through 2022.”

However, some investors still see light at the end of the tunnel for Rivian. The company is strongly backed by Amazon (AMZN), Ford (F) and Cox Automotive financially, logistically and in manufacturing expertise. 

Who owns the most RIVN stock?

RIVN’s largest shareholders are institutional investors or public companies.

These include T. Rowe Price Group (18%), Amazon.com (17.59%), Abdul Latif Jameel IPR Company Limited (11.82%), Ford Motor Company (11.32%) and Cox Enterprises (4.36%).

Founder and CEO Robert “RJ” Scaringe owns significantly less: 1.37% of the company.

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