Electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive Inc. reported a smaller-than-expected third-quarter loss and, contrary to some of its young peers, reiterated its full-year production target of 25,000 vehicles. The company’s shares were up more than 15% on the heels of the report.
Rivian executives also said they are pushing back the timeline for the launch of their R2 platform for sport-utility vehicles, which will be built at the company’s planned Georgia plant, to 2026 from 2025. Chairman and CEO RJ Scaringe said the delay “doesn’t represent a material change” in plans but instead gives his team more time to incorporate some of the things it has learned from building up production of its vehicle lineup at its Illinois factory.
“Those ramps have informed our thinking on making sure that we have as close to a flawless ramp as possible with R2,” Scaringe said.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, Rivian lost $1.7 billion on revenues of $536 million. The net loss included a $696 million net realizable value accounting charge; without that and including some other factors, Rivian’s adjusted EBITDA loss was $1.3 billion versus a loss of $727 million in the prior-year period.
During the quarter, the company produced nearly 7,400 vehicles—an increase of 67% from the second quarter, thank in part to a second shift starting work—and delivered almost 6,600. Scaringe and CFO Claire McDonough affirming their 2022 guidance for 25,000 vehicles implies that the quarter-to-quarter production rate will need to rise another 45%. And that will require the company’s supply chain to play ball.
“The supply chain continues to be our largest source of uncertainty as we continue to ramp production,” McDonough told analysts on a conference call. “We've experienced five days of production downtime in October and November due to a lack of supply of a key component, which limited our quarter-to-date production.”
For 2022, the Rivian team has lowered its capital expenditure guidance to $1.75 billion because it is shifting some planned spending to 2023, when it expects capex will climb to $2 billion.
Shares of Rivian (Ticker: RIVN) were changing hands around $32.40 heading into the lunch hour Nov. 10 after closing at $28.07 the day before. Over the past six months, they have now climbed more than 40%, growing the company’s market capitalization to nearly $29 billion.
