Rivian is the closest rival there is to Tesla when it comes to electric vehicles. The company was the first to produce a fully electric pick-up truck thr R1T with 314 miles (505 km) range. Several examples of the truck have already been produced and mostly issued to Rivian employees for further testing.
Under the RIVN ticket, the company sold 153 million shares on their IPO and raised $11.9 Billion. Each share went for $78 which was above the highest expected estimates of $72-$74. Rivian is now valued over $80 billion on a fully diluted basis, interestingly, Ford – one of its backers – is worth around $77 billion, despite having the best selling car in the USA, the F150 pick up truck. Ford owns 12% of Rivian (worth around $10 billion) as well as Amazon which has a 20% stake (worth around $17 billion). Amazon has already ordered over 100,000 Rivian EV vans to be used for deliveries.
Currently, Rivian has only one factory based in Normal, Illinois which has the capacity to produce 150,000 vehicles but will get the number to 200,000 after an upcoming upgrade.
“We better be growing at least that quick; certainly before the end of the decade is how we think about it,” Scaringe, Rivian founder, said in an interview ahead of the startup market debut on the Nasdaq on Wednesday.
The automaker has plans to build 3 more plants, a new one in the US, one in Europe and one in China. The goal is to reach 1 million vehicles per year in by 2030, that’s Tesla’s current production rate. Since September, the company has been ramping up producing of the Rivian R1T truck at their Illinois plant. They have two other cars on the cards, an SUV, R1S and a van, the EDV.
The second plant in the US will be used to produce battery cells for its vehicles. These are all ambitious plans, but with the successful IPO and very strategic partners, Rivian is in a good position to achieve them, let’s wait and see how this unfolds in the next decade.