Rivian, a new force in American car manufacturing, recently released its Q2 2024 financial report, which showed that the company's revenue for the quarter was $1.15 billion, an increase from $1.12 billion in the same period last year. Both earnings per share (actual loss) and revenue from the automotive business exceeded analysts' forecasts surveyed by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
Despite this, Rivian's losses still increased to $1.46 billion year-on-year, equivalent to a loss of $1.46 per share. As a reference, the loss for the second quarter of 2023 was $1.2 billion (a loss of $1.27 per share).
CEO RJ Scaringe stated that Rivian's production guidelines for this year will not change, but due to the factory shutdown in April to optimize costs, the company is working hard to rebuild inventory. Affected by this, the delivery volume in the next three quarters will slightly decline.
Scaringe also emphasized that the cost optimization effect obtained from the factory shutdown and renovation cannot be directly reflected in the second quarter, and is expected to take effect in the third quarter. In addition, he reiterated the company's plan to achieve its first profit in the fourth quarter of this year.
Specifically, Rivian only produced 9162 vehicles in the second quarter of this year, but its significant progress in cost control and process optimization is almost equivalent to Tesla's previous process improvements. According to Rivian's data, after significantly simplifying the manufacturing process, the production efficiency of the upcoming second-generation version of the main car series R1 will increase by about 30%, thanks to the savings of 65 components and 1500 welding points.
Meanwhile, Rivian plans to launch a more cost-effective R2 model in early 2026. According to the plan, the new car will become Rivian's new sales driver, accounting for approximately 65% of the company's future sales. It is understood that the R2 is priced at approximately $45000, almost half of the current R1 model, aimed at attracting a wider range of market consumers.
According to Tim Fallon, Vice President of Manufacturing at Rivian, the pre order volume of R2 has exceeded 100000 units and continues to grow.
It should be noted that despite Rivian's adjustments in product and market strategy, its stock has still fallen by 42% in the past 12 months, with a drop of over 5% in Wednesday's trading local time.
Some argue that the decline in stock prices may be partly due to the urgent goal set by CEO RJ Scaringe to achieve profitability in the fourth quarter, as well as the combined impact of the company's sustained losses in every electric vehicle manufacturing.
Despite significant progress in improving cost efficiency, enhancing products, and further strengthening the balance sheet in the second quarter, Rivian still incurred losses of over $32000 per electric vehicle sold, highlighting the challenges the company faces in pursuing profitability.
The competitive landscape of the US electric vehicle market is rapidly changing. Although there is still a significant gap between the market penetration rate of electric vehicles in the United States and China, which has already exceeded half, according to JD Power's analysis, the demand for electric vehicles in the mass market is growing. By 2024, the mainstream market share of new energy vehicles will increase by 63%. This indicates that new energy vehicles are becoming an increasingly popular choice among American consumers. In the past July, traditional car manufacturers such as Kia, Hyundai, Honda, and Ford have all recorded their best July performances, further supporting this analysis.
This performance inevitably compresses the survival space of new forces, and some new force electric vehicle companies have begun to feel the challenges that exist. For example, Fisker filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware, USA in June of this year. In contrast, companies that receive strong support such as Rivian and Lucid demonstrate greater resilience.
Rivian has received support from Volkswagen, which announced in July that it plans to invest up to $5 billion in Rivian to strengthen both parties' electric vehicle and software development capabilities; Lucid's major shareholder, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, has also pledged to inject $1.5 billion into the company to support its operations.