All in less than two weeks. After hitting the top at $ 172 on November 16, the freshman Rivian, who had amazed everyone with a spectacular hypo, sadly returned to the levels of the first day of listing, well below 100 billion capitalization (96 to be precise, although always a considerable sum, behind Daimler and in front of Ford and Gm), with a -12% discounting the bad news of the weekend.
To begin with, the battery life problems in the test vans ordered by the large shareholder (20%) Amazon – with 40% more energy consumption than expected and a consequent decrease in the declared range of 240 kilometers. Second reason but perhaps also the most important, the farewell to the collaboration project with Ford, another large shareholder (12%) who now no longer wants to make future pick-ups with the platform of the company founded and led by CEO RJ Scaringe .
The market has put two and two together and has seen fit to move on to the realizations while waiting to see what the developments will be for this electric start-up that has three models in its portfolio, the R1T pick-up, the R1S SUV and the van ( in three versions) designed for commercial use. By the end of the year, production for the first two will not exceed 1,200 units. And by 2023, the Normal, Illinois factory is expected to reach full capacity – 150,000 vehicles.
Therefore, it is okay to exploit the growth potential of a start-up, but evidently the negative news concerning the main protagonists of the rise of Rivian, Amazon and Ford, has cooled the enthusiasm of the market. The Californian company’s ace in the hole should have been proprietary architecture technology skateboard, which seemed to provide a competitive advantage. The fact that Ford pulled out of the company certainly turned the table and disappointed investors.
When the Blue Oval invested $ 500 million in Rivian in 2019, the assumption was that the companies would work on a joint project of truck electric. Ford, which will launch its F-150 Lightening in 2022 (price between 40 thousand and 60 thousand dollars, range up to 480 kilometers, natural competitor of Tesla’s Cybertruck and already 160 thousand orders) has an enormous capacity to make volumes, which Rivian would need to take a reality bath and deliver the famous 100,000 vans to Amazon by 2030.