Rivian Sure Had A Good Month

Rivian had a rough start to 2023. The company burned through cash in the year’s first quarter, lost a number of high-ranking staff, and announced that its budget-minded volume model was a ways off. But Rivian promised, through it all, that things would improve later in the year. Now, in July, it seems the automaker may have been right.

Rivian Recalls Nearly Every Car It Has Built

Rivian’s second-quarter results are in, and the numbers are way up. Increases in deliveries and production, exceeding not only the first quarter’s results but the second quarter’s estimates — the kind of thing Wall Street loves to see. Reuters has the full report:

Rivian Automotive on Monday beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly deliveries on stable demand for its electric vehicles, sending its shares up nearly 9% in premarket trading.

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Rivian second-quarter vehicle deliveries jumped 59% to 12,640, compared with estimates of 11,000 vehicles, according to 15 analysts polled by Visible Alpha.

It produced 13,992 vehicles at its manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois during the same period, 4,597 more than in the first quarter.

Rivian is still aiming for a goal of 50,000 trucks produced this year, though that’s specified as a production rather than sales goal. The full earnings report for Q2 will come in August, so that’s when we’ll fully know the financial effects of the company’s sales surplus – and see if shareholders feel as enthusiastic then as they do now.

As of this writing, Rivian shares are up over 17% from last week’s close, though with a dip in after-hours trading (the market closed early today, because traders also just want to get home and grill for the Fourth of July). Whether the day’s high remains on investors’ minds, or if reality begins to quietly creep back in, remains to be seen.