Rivian has both good and bad news at end of tough day for EV stocks
By Chris Isidore, CNN Business
Electric truckmaker Rivian delivered a mixed bag for investors in its third-quarter earnings report, after a brutal day for its shares and those of other electric vehicle makers.
On the one hand, Rivian reported a smaller than expected adjusted loss of $1.4 billion, less than the $1.7 billion loss forecast by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. And it said that net reservations increased to 114,000 from 98,000 in its second-quarter report.
But its revenue of $536 million, while up 47% from second quarter revenue, fell short of analysts’ revenue forecast of $552 million.
The gain in reservations was notable after electric car maker Lucid reported late Tuesday that the number of reservations for its EVs had fallen to 34,000 from 37,000 in the previous quarter’s report.
That news sent Lucid shares tumbling 17% for the day and helped drag down shares of both Rivian and Chinese EV maker Nio by 12% each in regular hours US trading.
Leading EV maker Tesla also had shares fall 7%, though that could well have been more influenced by news that CEO Elon Musk had sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares since he closed the deal to buy Twitter two weeks ago.
Rivian also reaffirmed its goal of ramping up production to build 25,000 vehicles this year, a bullish target as other automakers, including Tesla, who have had to trim sales targets for the year due to supply chain issues.
In the first three quarters of this year Rivian has built just more than 14,000 vehicles, so hitting the 25,000 production target for the year would mean a 45% increase in production in the final three months of the year over the 7,400 it built in the just completed quarter.
But while it says it remains on target to hit that 25,000 goal for 2022, it pushed back its target date for the availability of its smaller R2 model to 2026. It had previously forecast a 2025 rollout for that model.
Shares of Rivian swung wildly on the report in after-hours trading, first gaining 3%, then falling to trade slightly lower, then rising 5%.
The-CNN-Wire
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