Citi began coverage of Rivian on Monday with a Neutral rating and a price target of $18.00, citing the EV maker’s “launch risks” of the new R2 sport utility vehicle.
Analyst Michael Ward said Rivian’s long-term outlook depends on producing the R2 across two manufacturing plants, and pointed to the company’s record of difficulty with high-volume production.
“Our current valuation reflects the launch risks with the R2, and we are initiating coverage with a Neutral rating,” Ward wrote.
The R2 is the cheapest vehicle Rivian has built, and the company has said the volume it brings is what takes the business to profitability.
The analyst valued Rivian on a multiple of projected 2027 and 2028 revenue.
A comparable group of five global battery electric vehicle manufacturers trades at 3.8 times expected 2027 revenue and 3.3 times 2028 estimates, he said. Citi applied the midpoint of that range to its own forecasts for Rivian.
Where the Call Sits
Rivian traded at about $15.86 when the note was published, against a 52-week range of $12.39 to $22.69, so the target implies about 13% upside.
UBS analyst Joseph Spak raised his target to $17.00 from $16.00 in July while keeping a Neutral rating.
Others are further apart.
TD Cowen upgraded Rivian to Buy in July with a $20 target, raised from $17, after modelling full-scale R2 demand at 212,000 to 335,000 units.
JPMorgan cut its target to $9.00 from $10.00 in March while holding Underweight, after Rivian guided to a 2026 loss before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of about $2 billion.
Citi was not among the banks that ran Rivian’s share sale in July, when the company priced 75 million shares at $15.50. Goldman Sachs, Allen and Company, Barclays, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo were joint bookrunners.
The Production Question
Citi’s caution bears on the part of Rivian’s business that is changing fastest.
The R2 went on sale in June, and Rivian has guided to 65,000 to 70,000 deliveries across its lineup this year after 22,559 in the first half, which requires roughly double the rate in the second.
The company has been building the R2 on a single shift at its Normal, Illinois plant since saleable output began on April 22, and expects to add a second by the end of this month.
Chief Operating Officer Javier Varela has said the additional volume will not appear until the fourth quarter.
Rivian produced 49,476 vehicles in 2024 and guided to between 46,000 and 51,000 for 2025. It reported revenue of $5.39 billion in 2025 and a net loss of $3.59 billion.
The early build has drawn owner complaints.
Within the first 47 days of customer deliveries, R2 buyers posted about five separate quality problems covering paint, exterior lighting software, the high-voltage battery, charging hardware and cabin components.
Owners described the matrix LED adaptive high beams as effectively inoperative, a complaint Rivian acknowledged and corrected in software release 2026.24.
Owners on Rivian Forums separately reported that a faulty communications module on the high-voltage battery had flagged a number of cars and was delaying handovers, with one buyer holding a VIN in the 2100s saying a delivery appointment was cancelled twice before he was told the part needed replacing and that the work meant dropping the battery pack.
Rivian has not published a list of affected vehicles.
Owners have also posted on Reddit about a pickup cancelled after a wiring harness fault, repeated delivery cancellations on Half Moon Grey cars and a suspension of deliveries in that colour, a failed test drive, a call from Rivian service, an air conditioning failure, delivery delays in Denver, the sales process and service capacity for families.
The Analyst
Ward covers the automotive sector for Citi, including dealership groups, and reinitiated the bank’s coverage of Lucid in March with a Buy rating and a $17.00 target, one of only two buy ratings on that stock at the time.
He has cut the target twice since, to $14.00 in May after a first-quarter miss and again in August, while keeping the Buy rating.
Citi’s previous analyst on the sector, Itay Michaeli, left for TD Cowen in 2024 and is the analyst behind that firm’s Buy rating on Rivian.
