On December 17, Rivian, a new american car manufacturer, announced its first financial report after listing. In the third quarter, the company achieved operating income of $1 million and a net loss of $1.233 billion, a significant increase from $288 million in the same period last year.
However, losses are the norm for Rivian, who, according to its prospectus, lost $400 million in 2019 and $1 billion in 2020, respectively. In addition, in the first three quarters of 2021, Rivian's cumulative loss has reached $2.2 billion.
Founded in 2009, Rivian is an American electric vehicle manufacturer and automotive technology company headquartered in Irvine, California, with the main products of sports SUVs and pickups.
In stark contrast to its slightly dismal performance, Rivian is the subject of many investors in the capital markets.
On November 10 this year, Rivian was listed on the NASDAQ Composite Index, raising a total of $13.7 billion, soaring 29.14% on the first day of listing, and the market value once exceeded 100 billion US dollars, as of press time, Rivian is the world's fifth-highest market capitalization car company, in front of it only Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and BYD.
Of course, there are also many people who "pour cold water" on Rivian's excessive market value.
Jessica Caldwell of data conglomerate Edmunds said, "Tesla has made a fortune for many investors, and now everyone wants to join the next big project in the electric vehicle space, however, companies like Tesla don't come up very often and valuations for Rivian are problematic." ”
Tesla CEO Musk has also "teased" on social media that the valuation of some companies before going public is not at least one car for every billion dollars.
At present, Rivian's production and sales are on a small scale. According to the earnings report, Rivian began delivering R1T pickups and R1S SUVs in September and December, respectively, with prices starting at $67,500 and $70,000, respectively. As of December 15, Rivian had produced a total of 652 R1 series electric vehicles, delivering a total of 386 vehicles.
But at the same time, the number of orders on Rivian's hands is still growing, and the company said in a letter to shareholders that due to media attention and a positive experience among consumers, the number of orders for the R1 series has reached 71,000 units as of December 15. In addition, Rivian has received support from large companies such as Ford and Amazon, including Amazon's large order for 100,000 electric delivery vehicles under it in 2019, and has now completed the certification process to complete the sale.
Based on the shortage of supply, Rivian, who has raised huge funds through IPO, has made the most normal decision - to expand production.
On the same day as the earnings report, Rivian announced that it will spend $5 billion next year in Georgia to build a second plant, which is expected to start production in 2024 and reach an annual capacity of up to 400,000 vehicles. In addition, Rivian is preparing to expand the capacity of its existing plant and plans to recruit another 800 to 1,000 employees by the second quarter of 2022.