RBC Capital reiterated a Sector Perform rating and $14 price target on Rivian on Thursday, a week before the electric vehicle maker’s “Autonomy & AI Day” event.
Despite praising the company’s efforts in autonomy, the analyst Tom Narayan warned that the upcoming models R2 and R3 play a crucial role in Rivian‘s future.
“We applaud Rivian for its autonomy pivot especially given our view that level 3 autonomy will be a critical step for all OEMs,” Narayan wrote in the research note first obtained by the platform PriceTarget.
“Its goal of in-sourcing could make autonomy a profit center, which is important especially given the company’s liquidity situation,” RBC Capital’s analyst added.
The price target implies a 20.1% decline from Wednesday’s closing price as the analyst cautioned that near-term execution remains paramount.
“While we see December 11’s event as important, being able to scale R2/R3 profitably will be far more critical for investors,” he said.
Rivian shares have gained 31% year to date.
Autonomy Day Preview
Rivian‘s event, scheduled for 9 a.m. Pacific time on December 11 and streaming on YouTube, will be focused on the ‘Rivian Autonomy Platform’ (RAP).
Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe has been previewing announcements in his latest public appearances.
In August, Scaringe said Rivian will offer “hands-free point-to-point” capabilities starting from 2026.
“We’re going to show some of this at our autonomy day,” he said. “Then we’ll increasingly start to allow eyes off.”
The CEO recently described a “two-hour demo drive around essentially all of the Southern Peninsula” where the vehicle drove “completely on its own,” adding that by decade’s end, “the ability to have hands off, eyes off in most situations is going to become very valuable and will start to drive a lot of purchase decisions.”
Last week, Rivian began rolling out a new autonomy software update to second-generation R1 vehicle owners, though the company has not disclosed release notes for the update.
November Sales Rise
Rivian sold 4,500 vehicles in the United States in November, up 14.1% from October’s 3,944 units and 24.1% higher than the year-ago period, according to Motor Intelligence data published Tuesday.
The sequential gain reflects market recovery following the September 30 expiration of the federal EV tax credit. Year-over-year registrations have increased in only three of the past eleven months — May, October, and November.
Scaringe said earlier this year the company expected the third quarter to be its strongest, due to the Credit expiration.
