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Rivian delivered 4,467 vehicles in the second quarter, up 264% from the first quarter.
Courtesy of Rivian
Rivian Automotive
gave investors a production update that quickly sent the stock higher on Wednesday. The company’s numbers show it has sold more electric trucks than the trucking giant
Ford Motor
.
For the second quarter,
Rivian
(ticker: RIVN) produced 4,401 vehicles at its plant in Normal, Ill., and delivered 4,467 during the same period.
Rivian delivered just over 1,200 vehicles in the first quarter and produced 2,553 units, so the second quarter figures mean sales were up 264% and production jumped about 72%.
The company added in its announcement that it is on track to deliver 25,000 vehicles in 2022. That’s the same as the forecast given by management in its first-quarter earnings report.
Rivian has sold about 6,600 electric trucks since it started delivering vehicles a few quarters ago. For now, he has the lead
Passage
,
which has sold about 2,300 F-150 Lightning electric pickups through June. Rivian, however, had a head start of a few months. Ford delivered 1,837 Lightnings in June.
Rivian shares gained 10.4% on Wednesday to close at $29.66 per share. The
S&P 500
and
Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 0.4% and 0.2% respectively.
Wall Street, along with investors, appear pleasantly surprised by Rivian’s update.
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Baird analyst Ben Kallo wrote Wednesday that Rivian’s output was slightly better than his estimate of 4,250 units. Rivian “has faced growing pains as it gets into production, but today’s news…shows a step in the right direction,” Kallo added in his report.
Kallo rates Rivian’s stock Buy and has a $67 price target on the stock. DA Davidson analyst Michael Shlisky is at the other end of the valuation spectrum. He rates the stock Sell and has a $24 price target on the stock.
Rivian’s production also beat Shlisky’s estimate, which he called “moderately positive” in a report on Wednesday. However, that didn’t change my mind about Rivian as an investment. “Our thesis is not about the lack of production guidance from the RIVN, especially not in the short term,” Shlisky added in his report. It focuses more on long-term issues such as industry competition and profitability.
Rivian is not expected to be profitable on a full-year basis until the second half of the decade.
Heading into Wednesday trading, Rivian’s stock had fallen about 74% so far this year, in part because rising interest rates and inflation have dampened some investors’ enthusiasm for new companies that don’t generate free cash flow.
Rivian has also struggled to ramp up production as quickly as Wall Street had hoped. At the start of the year, Wall Street expected the EV maker to deliver more than 40,000 vehicles in 2022.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
