Baird reiterated its Outperform rating and $23 price target on Rivian on Thursday after taking investors to one of the company’s Bay Area showrooms and meeting Chip Newcom, Rivian’s VP of Investor Relations.
Thursday’s update marked the fourth time analyst Ben Kallo has held both the rating and the price target unchanged since trimming the target in February.
“Positive outlook unchanged following showroom visit and IR catch-up,” Kallo wrote. “The R2 was at the center of our meeting (literally) and early indications from customers, investors, and media outlets have been positive.”
The analyst said that the positive outlook remains following the visit.
“Key topics from our meeting included R2 demand, autonomous development milestones, and RIVN’s core partnerships,” Baird’s analyst added. “Our estimates, price target, and positive outlook are unchanged following the visit.”
At Wednesday’s close of $16.01 the target implies 43.7% upside, the widest gap between Baird’s target and the market since the analyst set it, against 17% when he reiterated it in July and 42% at the December upgrade that established it.
What Was Discussed
The three topics Kallo lists are the three Newcom addressed at Goldman Sachs’s Communacopia conference two days earlier, where Rivian’s message was likewise unchanged from its July earnings call.
On R2 demand, Newcom said conversion from reservations was running ahead of expectations, each new trim was bringing more orders, the second shift at Normal remains planned for the third quarter with three weeks left, and the volume needed for positive automotive gross profit at the year’s exit rate has not been given.
On autonomy, Rivian’s engineering chiefs said point-to-point driving remains due by year-end, the RAP1 chip’s hardware characterisation should finish within about six weeks, and Chicago has joined San Francisco and Miami as a test city for the Uber robotaxi milestone.
On partnerships, Newcom set out the Uber tranche ladder, $300 million paid, $250 million on the next milestone, $700 million on three more, and said Volkswagen’s first vehicle on Rivian’s architecture is due next year.
Kallo’s “early indications from customers, investors, and media outlets” refers to the R2’s first three months: deliveries from June, reviews published over the past few months, the Forest Green and Coastal Cloud options opened to all buyers on Wednesday, and Borealis cars on the Normal line in a video Rivian’s Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe posted on Wednesday.
The Record Behind the Target
Kallo upgraded Rivian to Outperform from Neutral on December 18, 2025, raising the target to $25 from $14 and calling 2026 “the year of the R2,” in a note reported by EV.
He cut the target to $23 on February 13 after fourth-quarter results, to reflect consensus, and has reiterated it after the first-quarter delivery miss on April 6, the second-quarter beat on July 6, as EV reported, the results and 10-Q on August 4, and now the showroom visit.
The $14 Neutral target he held through 2025, at which he had called a second-quarter delivery miss in June, EV reported then, was 20.6% below the market by the day he abandoned it.
Baird’s December delivery build was 65,300 for 2026, with 15,100 R2s, against a consensus then of 66,478.
Rivian’s guidance, raised on July 2, is 65,000 to 70,000 including 20,000 to 25,000 R2s.
