Rivian Heads Toward Oblivion

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Rivian Heads Toward Oblivion

© Courtesy of Rivian

Electric vehicle (EV) startup Rivian Automotive Inc. (NASDAQ: RIVN | RIVN Price Prediction) posted abysmal quarterly figures, which opens the door to anxiety that it will not survive, at least as a standalone public company. Another EV experiment may disappear fairly soon. The market for EVs may be weaker than expected. Certainly, the capital to pursue it has disappeared.
[in-text-ad]
In a letter to shareholders, which was of interest to the entire automaker community, Rivian management said it had a net loss of $1.7 billion. Rivian’s financials were buried under a mountain of positive news about the company that included glowing stories from the media. It was not enough to veil Rivian’s very deep trouble. It expects to lose $5.45 billion for the calendar year.
[nativounit]
Some of the trouble was based on the supply chain problems that have affected almost all car companies. The problem with Rivian is that it cannot handle more delays. Rivian said it would build its forecast 25,000 vehicles this year. That remains to be seen. It also trumpeted 100,000 vehicle orders from Amazon. Further, the company said it had 98,000 preorders for its vehicles. Preorders mean nothing, as impatient buyers can go elsewhere.

A Wedbush analyst told Yahoo! Finance that the results were a “horror show” and will drive inventors away from the shares. The Wall Street Journal said Rivian will need to do more to preserve cash. Rivian has only $15 billion left on its balance sheet.
[wallst_email_signup]
Rivian also has another hurdle. Its vehicles face competition from much larger companies. At the head of this line is Ford, America’s largest seller of pickups.
[recirclink id=1160345]
The EV market will not be changed if Rivian fails to survive. It already is crowded enough with sellers that inventory will be available to all buyers without a problem.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618