DA Davidson raised its price target on Rivian on Monday, citing the EV maker’s apparent on-schedule R2 ramp following last week’s first-quarter earnings release.
Analyst Michael Shlisky maintained the Neutral rating in a note sent to clients before the US market open.
“We are maintaining our NEUTRAL rating on RIVN, with a new price target of $15 (from $14) following 1Q:26 earnings,” Shlisky wrote before praising the recent progress made with Rivian‘s cheapest model ever.
“We were pleased to hear that the R2 appears to be on schedule, with salable units rolling off the line,” the analyst stated while increasing the price target on the EV stock to $15 from $14.
The new target implies an upside potential of 5.5% based on Friday’s closing price.
The Irvine-headquartered EV maker has moved past the R2 pilot-build phase and is now producing vehicles intended for customer delivery — which are scheduled to begin within weeks.
Monday’s note marked DA Davidson’s second consecutive price-target revision, following the firm’s April 1 upgrade from Underperform to Neutral that maintained a $14 target.
Rivian shares were trading 0.6% lower at $14.12 in Monday’s pre-market session.
The Pricing Gap Persists
Despite raising the price target, Shlisky preserved his caution on R2 commercial execution.
“At the same time, we continue to view the roll-out as not without risk, as initial models will sell nowhere near the promised $45K range and volume expectations seem aggressive,” he wrote.
Rivian has officially launched the R2 at the SXSW Festival on March 12.
The mid-size SUV will debut with a Performance Dual Motor variant priced at $57,990 — roughly 29% above the originally promoted $45,000 starting point.
The $45,000 base trim has been delayed to late 2027.
The pricing gap was the central factor in Shlisky’s April 1 upgrade note, in which he described initial-trim pricing as roughly 55% higher than some consumers expected.
Rivian’s 2026 R2 delivery target of 20,000 to 25,000 units remains a meaningful execution challenge given the trim-mix concentration at the higher price point.
Georgia Plant Expansion
Shlisky pointed to Rivian’s decision to expand its near-term construction plan at the new Georgia plant as an analytical signal of internal confidence.
“RIVN has expanded its near-term construction plan at the new Georgia plant, suggesting it sees a hit on its hands with the R2,” he wrote.
“We view visibility as low at the moment, but the vehicle appears promising.”
The Georgia plant is being built for Rivian’s midsize platform and European exports.
The expanded construction commitment implies management expects R2 demand to support more aggressive production capacity than originally planned.
The Shlisky Trajectory
DA Davidson’s note marks the fourth significant rating or price-target action by Shlisky on Rivian over the past nine months.
In August 2025, the analyst maintained Neutral but lowered his price target to $13, citing profitability challenges and execution hurdles.
Three months later, Shlisky raised the price target to $15 from $13, maintaining a Neutral rating.
In February 2026, following Rivian‘s Q4 2025 earnings, Shlisky downgraded the stock to Underperform from Neutral and cut his price target to $14, warning that the R2 ramp guidance of 20,000-25,000 units was overly aggressive.
The February note compared the R2 launch ambition to the Ford Mustang Mach-E’s debut year — the only mid-size EV launch in recent memory that approached the volume Rivian was targeting — but noted that the Mach-E had benefited from the $7,500 federal EV credit and Ford‘s broad dealer network, neither of which Rivian has.
Last month, with Rivian shares down roughly 24% year-to-date, Shlisky upgraded the stock back to Neutral on valuation grounds — explicitly not on improved fundamentals.
Monday’s price-target raise to $15 returns the figure to where it stood between November 2025 and February 2026.
Q1 2026 Context
Rivian reported first-quarter deliveries of 10,365 vehicles, within the 9,000-11,000 H1 quarterly range that Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough flagged on the Q4 2025 earnings call in February.
The EV maker reaffirmed full-year delivery guidance of 62,000 to 67,000 vehicles for 2026 — a figure that requires the second half of the year to deliver roughly 40,000 to 47,000 vehicles, or 20,000 to 24,000 per quarter, on R2 ramp.
CEO RJ Scaringe confirmed on the Q1 call that the R2 ramp remains on track.
Adjusted EBITDA for 2026 is guided at a loss of $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion.
The R2 has been positioned to reach positive gross profit by exit 2026, contingent on the production ramp meeting Rivian’s targets.
