Rivian, the bustling electric vehicle company backed by Ford and Amazon, delivered 909 vehicles to customers in the fourth quarter of 2021, the company said in its second earnings report from historic IPO last year. The company says it has delivered a total of 920 vehicles in 2021.
Rivian said it generated $55 million in revenue over the course of the year, almost all of it in the last three months. She posted a net loss of $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter and a net loss of $4.5 billion for the year.
With supply chains constricted and global chip shortages continuing to hit the auto industry, Rivian is maintaining a modest production schedule for 2022. In a letter to shareholders, the company said it expects to produce just 25,000 vehicles over the course of the year. year, including its R1T Truck and electric delivery vans for Amazon. With no supply chain issues, the company said it could make 50,000 vehicles.
“We are certainly experiencing one of the most challenging supply chain environments the auto industry has ever seen,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said on an earnings call.
The earnings report follows a difficult week for Rivian, which had to walk back a planned price increase for its electric R1T truck and R1S SUV after backlash from customers. People who gave $1,000 to reserve one of the vehicles were outraged to learn that the original price had gone up to $20,000. After an uproar, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe issued a public apology. Meanwhile, the company’s share price fell more than 25 percent.
It was a notable drop, given the company’s high-flying status over the last six months. Rivian’s initial public offering helped raise close to $14 billion, and despite only shipping a small handful of trucks since production began, the company’s market value was almost double that of Ford.
Rivian’s ability to build scale vehicles is yet to be tested; it has just started manufacturing and delivering the R1T and is still preparing its R1S SUV and an electric delivery van for mass production. Although Rivian is still worth about $55 billion, its shares are down almost two-thirds from its peak and are well below their IPO price.
Rivian began shipping the R1T late last year, earning it the distinction of being the first company to deliver an electric truck to customers. Most of the initial deliveries were to employees, though some have gone to some actual customers. The rest of the auto industry is still struggling to get its own plug-in trucks into production. (GMC also began initial deliveries of the Hummer EV late last year.)
Rivian is also collaborating with Amazon on an electric delivery van. The e-commerce giant said it would order up to 100,000 vans through 2024, as part of the effort to decarbonize its logistics fleet. Amazon recently confirmed that owns about 20 percent of Rivian after participating in multiple rounds of financing prior to the initial public offering.
In the letter to shareholders, Rivian said it sold its first electric delivery van to Amazon in the fourth quarter of 2021. The van’s production ramp has been “smoother” than that of the R1T truck, the company said.
Rivian isn’t the only electric vehicle newcomer feeling growing pains. Lucid Engines cut production expectations to 12,000-14,000 vehicles from the original prediction of 20,000 vehicles.
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