Shares of EV start-up Rivian hit new low following 2021 manufacturing cuts

Shares of Rivian Automotive, an electrical automobile start-up that went public by way of a blockbuster IPO final month, plummeted to a brand new low Friday morning after the corporate lower its 2021 automobile manufacturing goal.

Rivian mentioned after the markets closed Thursday that it anticipated to fall “just a few hundred autos brief” of this 12 months’s manufacturing goal of 1,200 autos. The corporate mentioned it confronted provide chain points in addition to challenges ramping up manufacturing of the complicated batteries that energy the autos.

“Ramping up a manufacturing system like this, as I mentioned earlier than, is a very complicated orchestra,” Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe mentioned. “We’re ramping largely as anticipated; the battery constraint is admittedly an artifact of simply brining up a extremely automated line, and, as I mentioned, it does not current any long-term challenges for us.”

Shares of Rivian have been down 15% early Friday morning to beneath $93 a share — a brand new low since they started buying and selling on Nov. 10. Friday additionally marked the primary time the corporate’s inventory opened beneath $100 a share.

The steep decline occurred regardless of Wall Road analysts’ warnings that there would undoubtedly be some manufacturing bumps within the street for the EV start-up. Total, analysts performed down the manufacturing lower, echoing the corporate’s view that it’s going to have little or no affect on Rivian’s long-term valuation.

“I do not personally suppose it is that large of a deal,” Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan mentioned Friday throughout CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Road.’ “It is a disappointing begin, however it’s fairly small.”

On the plus aspect, Rivian mentioned whole reservations for the electrical R1T pickup and R1S SUV elevated to 71,000 as of Dec. 15, up 28% in contrast with the newest tally of 55,400 autos in November. That is the next charge than what the corporate anticipated.

The updates got here alongside Rivian’s first quarterly report as a public firm and affirmation of plans for a brand new $5 billion plant in Georgia that is anticipated to start manufacturing in 2024.

Rivian’s third-quarter outcomes fell in-line with Wall Road income expectations and with estimates the corporate beforehand launched as a part of its IPO.

For the third quarter, Rivian reported an operational lack of $776 million and a web lack of $1.23 billion. The corporate had beforehand predicted an operational loss between $745 million and $795 million and a web loss between $1.21 billion and $1.28 billion.

— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.