All discussion of Rivian Automotive

[Mengy]

To bad and sad that RIVIAN is taking such a nasty hit It’s a nice truck; I’ve seen at least three the last week.. nice

It's a wonderful truck, but Rivian needs to get their production in order and their finances under control NOW or there won't be a company left in a year or two to make the awesome trucks.

 

[RobStark]

Ford's RIVN losses are market to market accounting phony baloney paper losses.

They made actual profit on the 8M shares sold.

It took Tesla 10 years to get their finances in order and make a consistent profit.

 

[Msicario]

It's a wonderful truck, but Rivian needs to get their production in order and their finances under control NOW or there won't be a company left in a year or two to make the awesome trucks.

I totally agree; Amazing truck, love everything about it; I can’t see the the Ford Lightning and Cyber truck being over all better. Price but worth it.

 

[Msicario]

Rivian‘s vehicles will make it. Whether Rivian as an independent company will make it is something else entirely. Their market cap is closely approaching their cash on hand. Throw in the factory, IP, orders, etc. and the company‘s book value is worth far more than stock price right now. Hmmm.

How much lower do you think their stock/shares will drop?

 

[MP3Mike]

It took Tesla 10 years to get their finances in order and make a consistent profit.

And Rivian has been around 13 years so far...

 

[Cosmacelf]

Well, let

How much lower do you think their stock/shares will drop?

Let's look at stock volume today:

Volume: 84,104,359 Avg. Volume: 18,157,650

Hmmm. Think Ford and JP Morgan's seller dumped their combined 22M shares today? Maybe? Maybe not? I think that's what will determine price this week. That and this week's earnings call. Price is at $22.78/share now, Yahoo says book value is $21.67/share. Stocks do trade below book from time to time. My crystal ball is cloudy.

 

[Msicario]

Well, let

Let's look at stock volume today:

Volume: 84,104,359 Avg. Volume: 18,157,650

Hmmm. Think Ford and JP Morgan's seller dumped their combined 22M shares today? Maybe? Maybe not? I think that's what will determine price this week. That and this week's earnings call. Price is at $22.78/share now, Yahoo says book value is $21.67/share. Stocks do trade below book from time to time. My crystal ball is cloudy.

I’ll guess we’ll know Wednesday or Thursday when the dust settles.
Might be a good time to buy a few hundreds I just can’t imagine Bezos

Well, let

Let's look at stock volume today:

Volume: 84,104,359 Avg. Volume: 18,157,650

Hmmm. Think Ford and JP Morgan's seller dumped their combined 22M shares today? Maybe? Maybe not? I think that's what will determine price this week. That and this week's earnings call. Price is at $22.78/share now, Yahoo says book value is $21.67/share. Stocks do trade below book from time to time. My crystal ball is cloudy.

I guess we’ll know best on Thursday Bezos won’t allow it to fail.. might be a good time to buy
It would definitely be a real shame not seeing the R1T & RS1 into real production.

 

[Brando]

This Aussie one of the better monitors of electrification IMHO.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjzi56cxvmEDwjo1Bd2Yxpg

gM

VW

 

[RobStark]

And Rivian has been around 13 years so far...

Then it took Tesla 15 years from inception to make a consistent profit and 10 years from the sale of their first car.

 

[Msicario]

This Aussie one of the better monitors of electrification IMHO.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjzi56cxvmEDwjo1Bd2Yxpg

gM

VW

GM the CNN misinformation in the Automotive Industry

 

[zecar]

SP in 2024 is what matters. Their IPO timing could not have been better. Bezos is the last person looking at short term performance.

The concerning issues for me whether they will be chronically short on parts.

I see Rivian's investment in private fast chargers as a demand driver. But there is no reason to drive demand when production is inhibited by lack of parts.

I see Musk slow rolling adding CCS1 while other EV makers except Rivian underestimating the superiority of Supercharger.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I see Musk slow rolling adding CCS1 while other EV makers except Rivian underestimating the superiority of Supercharger.

Tesla is doing what every other big company does, responding to government incentives. The individual states are spending money from an infrastructure fund and Tesla is hoping to get some of that money to open up their network. Texas closed them out of the money pot, so they’ll probably be the last state to get access.

 

[zecar]

Could Tesla even consider opening chargers to CCS1 cars on the west coast? It seems to me that Musk will do enough to seem cooperative but not so much to give away Tesla's advantage.

I suspect that most of the federally funded state money will not go to filing gaps but to add chargers in urban areas. Charger companies, except for Tesla, are going to be interested in maximum utilization of the equipment they install.

Rivian still says they will launch a private charger network. So no public money for them.

 

[Brando]

try to explain this

Tesla Superchargers Would Save Texas Money, But State Denied Tesla Grants

Tesla lost grants to rivals even though it only applied for minimal funding, and its Supercharger stations cost 1/5th of the competition to deploy.

insideevs.com

 

[RobStark]

Could Tesla even consider opening chargers to CCS1 cars on the west coast? It seems to me that Musk will do enough to seem cooperative but not so much to give away Tesla's advantage.

People keep saying "That idea is way too crazy for Elon to actually implement."

And then Elon does it.

 

[MP3Mike]

So Rivian lost $1.6B in Q1, they also burned $1.7B in cash with $16.4B in cash left. (If this rate continues they have less than 2.5 years of cash on hand.)

They produced 2,553 vehicles. They delivered 1,227 vehicles at a loss of ~$409k/each. (They really need to scale up to try to turn this around or it is going to hurt a lot.)

 

[RobStark]

According to CNBC Rivian has $17B cash as of March 31. It has added 10k reservations since price hike.

Rivian stock jumps as the EV automaker says demand remains high and production is on track

Electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive on Wednesday maintained its 2022 production target, saying it's still on track to build 25,000 vehicles this year.

www.cnbc.com

Rivian "loses $409k for every car sold" has a familiar ring to it. #RIVNQ

 

[MP3Mike]

Rivian "loses $409k for every car sold" has a familiar ring to it. #RIVNQ

That comes right from their report, and it doesn't include any of the SG&A, R&D, etc...

And they expand on that some:

We generated negative gross profit of $(502) million for Q1 2022. As we produce vehicles at low volumes on production lines designed for higher volumes, we have and will continue to experience negative gross profit related to significant labor and overhead costs. This dynamic will continue in the near term, but we expect it will improve on a per vehicle basis as production volumes ramp up faster than future labor and overhead cost increases. Additionally, we recorded a lower of cost or net realizable value (“LCNRV”) adjustment to reflect the amount we anticipate receiving upon vehicle sale (after considering future costs necessary to ready the inventory for sale) and losses on firm purchase commitments. These expenses negatively impacted gross profit in the first quarter of 2022 by $188 million; additionally, we expect these items to continue to negatively impact operating results in near-term periods. We also experienced increased logistics costs due to expedited freight associated with supply chain challenges.

It is mainly a problem of low volume, and sounds like they have had to pay some suppliers "penalties" for buying fewer parts than they committed to. It should get better when/if they can get production ramped up to full speed.

 

[MP3Mike]

You have to figure that they still have about 80k pre-orders left at the old prices, and anybody that can will either buy it for themselves, buy it and flip it, or sell the pre-order. They are likely going to be losing money on every single one of those because they mispriced them but decided to honor the price anyhow.

If they produce 25k in the rest of this year as guided and 50k next year they will just be getting to the point of possible profit on vehicle sales about the time they are going to run out of cash at their current burn rate. So they have a chance to make it out of this, especially if they can start to control expenses and ramp production fast. I question their ability to do either of those things. Some of which aren't under their direct control, like part supply. (It is hard to control expenses when you need to build out the delivery and service infrastructure to support the production ramp.)

 

[Cosmacelf]

You have to figure that they still have about 80k pre-orders left at the old prices, and anybody that can will either buy it for themselves, buy it and flip it, or sell the pre-order. They are likely going to be losing money on every single one of those because they mispriced them but decided to honor the price anyhow.

If they produce 25k in the rest of this year as guided and 50k next year they will just be getting to the point of possible profit on vehicle sales about the time they are going to run out of cash at their current burn rate. So they have a chance to make it out of this, especially if they can start to control expenses and ramp production fast. I question their ability to do either of those things. Some of which aren't under their direct control, like part supply. (It is hard to control expenses when you need to build out the delivery and service infrastructure to support the production ramp.)

It’s 55K cars at the old price. The unknown is indeed their ability to ramp production. Based on their financials, looks like they’ve overhired for the low level of production they are at. Classic mistake, and just shows them pissing away even more money. It doesn’t mean they are toast though. Frankly, I don’t know why VW or someone doesn’t just buy them. Their enterprise value is like $5B max.