With 200 rivians produced a week, the stock price of RIVN.US can return to the peak

After failing to meet his goals in 2021, Rivian (RIVN. US) plans for mass production are finally making progress in 2022. A week after overcoming production hurdles, Rivian increased the weekly production of its first electric car to nearly 200 units, according to people familiar with the matter.

Rivian suspended production at its plant in Normal, Illinois, for about a week around the beginning of this month for repairs and process improvements, people familiar with the matter said.

The App noted that Rivian began to produce R1T pickup trucks in limited quantities from August 2021, and by the end of December, the average weekly output was about 50 units. The proportion has been fluctuating, with the figure falling sharply at some points last month due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in factories and supply chain bottlenecks, people familiar with the matter said. News of increased production sent Rivian's shares up 14 percent at one point during the session on Wednesday.

While this year's accelerated mass production growth is a sign of progress, it will depend on Rivian's success in refining manufacturing processes and responding to supply chain disruptions.

The company's electric vehicles have been eagerly awaited as Tesla (TSLA). US) is partly because they are bigger, bulkier, and more in line with the gasoline trucks that Americans currently drive. Backed by a large number of investors, Rivian's public offering last November was the largest IPO of the year and the sixth largest in U.S. history.

Ford CEO Farley has yet to rule out the possibility of selling a $8 billion stake in Rivian.

The stock soared to more than $170 a share in the days after its first day of listing, but then plummeted, wiping out about two-thirds of its market value and falling below the issue price. As of press time, the stock was up 1.05% at $60.90.

Multiple lines go hand in hand

According to people familiar with the matter, production of the truck fell in part because Rivian's second car, the R1S SUV, was also on production on the same production line. While some marketable R1S models have been produced, the company still has some pre-production work to complete. Rivian must also deal with the coronavirus outbreak at the factory, people familiar with the matter said.

Rivian is also developing an all-electric delivery van for Amazon, which is produced on a separate assembly line. Rivian plans to deliver 10,000 such vans by the end of this year and 100,000 over 10 years to fulfill orders.

Tesla has also had trouble launching and boosting production of its first mass-market consumer car, the Model 3, while Tesla is already selling the higher-priced Model S sedan. Tesla CEO Musk said the company was in "production hell."

Among the company's top and middle management are some former Tesla employees who are determined to avoid repeating the mistakes Tesla made at its Fremont, Calif., plant. Some people familiar with the matter said other problems were also quite typical, such as the irregular supply of key components on the production line and the time spent on quality control checks at the other end of the line.

Rivian said the company's Normal plant will have the capacity to produce 150,000 electric vehicles a year by 2023 and plans to increase capacity to 200,000 per year. Last December, Rivian announced that it would build a second electric vehicle plant in Georgia, which will eventually be able to produce 400,000 vehicles a year, with production expected in 2024.