Rivian shares slide despite more EV reservations: how come?

Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ: RIVN) on Thursday said reservations for its R1T and R1S electric vehicles now stand at 71,000 – a 28% increase from last month. Shares still slid another 10% after-hours.

Rivian to slightly miss its production target

Rivian had a target of producing 1,200 vehicles this year but said it will miss it by “a few hundred vehicles”. Commenting on that, Barclays’ Brian Johnson said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell”:

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It’s a short-term concern. It kind of recalls some of the early issues around Tesla, and frankly, a lot of the investor base, some of whom were very sceptical of Tesla, including myself, back in those days, are willing to cut Rivian a little bit of slack on production.

The EV maker also reported its first quarterly results as a public company after the bell. Its net loss printed at $1.23 billion for an operational loss of $776 million – in line with its previous estimates.

The California-based company generated $1 million in revenue that matched Street estimates, but its per-share loss of $12.21 was significantly above $5.52 that analysts were anticipating.

Rivian to set up a new vehicle assembly plant

According to Rivian, it will spend $5.0 billion to set up a new vehicle assembly plant in Georgia with a capacity to produce 400,000 vehicles per year. The new factory will start production in 2024.

Expectations for Rivian are high, with many seeing it as “the one” that could challenge Tesla. According to Johnson, Rivian is in better shape than Tesla was in its early days.

Rivian has more monitored equipment than Tesla had when it launched the Model S simply because of the huge cash backing even before the IPO from Amazon and Ford. Secondly, they have veterans at the plant who come from both Tesla and established legacy players like Nissan.