Rivian’s Loses Hit $19 Billion

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 27, 11:10AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Rivian’s Loses Hit $19 Billion — © Rivian Normal Plant Floor (CC BY-SA 4.0) by Rivian

The Department of Energy’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing plans to loan small EV company Rivian Automotive (NASDAQ: RIVN) $6.6 billion. As part of an analysis of Rivian’s finances, as the announcement was made, The Wall Street Journal put Rivian’s losses at $19 billion since it went public in 2021. It indicates how difficult it will be for the company to become profitable with unit production that remains tiny.

The loan would consist of $6 billion in principal and $600 million in capitalized interest. Much of the money would be used for a production facility in Georgia. However, the fact that Rivian can produce more vehicles does not mean people will buy them. Rivian’s shares rose only modestly the second day after the announcement.

A month ago, Rivian received an investment of as much as $5.8 billion from VW. The money will go into Rivian, and a JV will be between it and the second-largest car company in the world. Rivian gets badly needed capital. VW gets access to advanced EV technology. VW has struggled with EV sales, and its business is in trouble. It may close plants in its home market of Germany which it has not done in its history.

Rivian’s shares rallied briefly on the news about the federal government loan and on the VW news, but the VW rally only lasted a few days, and the second announcement barely helped the stock. So far this year, Rivian’s shares are down 48%, while the S&P is 25% higher. Over the last five years, Rivian’s shares have fallen 90%. That is what a $19 billion loss gets you.

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.