Rivian – (RIVN) $16.15 HOLD. Going to wait till 2/21 Earnings call to make a better judgment, too many conflicting signals to take a position.
Several weaknesses abound
Economies of scale – With about 57,,000 vehicles sold annually (double the previous year), it needs at least double that to break even or drastically increase prices, which is impossible, given that Tesla has decreased prices.
Inventory appears to be piling up.
GM and Ford have called out weakening EV demand and slowed production.
Amazon didn’t pick up as much last year.
Highly capital intensive – the chances of dilution and/or debt piling up are high.
On the other hand…it’s not curtains yet..
Amazon has a goal of deploying 100,000 EV trucks by 2030, and this is a huge under penetrated market.
Seems as though their potential competition is also weak and fading away. Lordstown (another EV pickup) and Arrival (another ”last mile” EV delivery van) faltered.
There is likely to be consolidation in this space amongst non Tesla start ups. Tesla itself faces difficulties and could buy up their competitors to fill out the gaps in their global lineup.
Reduction in Lithium input costs and other critical metals needed for the batteries, which made up a large share of the production costs and as these savings could start to show up in the manufacturing lines.
The valuation is not terrible, but I would like to see some progress against the current demand headwinds before taking a call.