Four and a half years after their stock market debuts briefly valued them above General Motors and Ford, two American EV brands will on Thursday (March 12) attempt to demonstrate that the investor confidence of late 2021 was not entirely misplaced.
Rivian will launch its third model at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, unveiling final pricing, trim levels, colours and specifications for the R2 compact SUV.
Investors and prospective customers will focus on the first trim prices closely, given that the $45,000 entry-level figure long promised by the company will not arrive immediately.
The R2 will debut in a higher-priced dual-motor configuration, with a base single-motor variant to follow.
Lucid Motors will hold an investor day in New York, at which it has promised to offer analysts and journalists “an early, in-depth preview” of its forthcoming midsize vehicle programme.
The Saudi-backed EV maker has not confirmed that it will open orders for the model on Thursday.
Lucid said multiple times that it intends to deliver the first units before the year end, with the interim CEO Marc Winterhoff, noting during the last earnings call that the volume won’t be significant in 2026.
The Bubble
Rivian listed on Nasdaq on November 10, 2021, pricing its shares at $78.
By the close of its first day of trading, the stock had risen nearly 30%, giving the company a market capitalization of $85.9 billion — already above both Ford Motor and General Motors.
Within a week, its shares reached an all-time high of $172.01, pushing its valuation to approximately $150 billion. Rivian had delivered fewer than 200 vehicles at the time.
Its IPO was the largest in the United States since Facebook in 2012.
Lucid had gone public earlier that year via a SPAC deal and watched its shares nearly double through the second half of 2021.
By mid-November, the same week Rivian‘s stock peaked, Lucid‘s market cap crossed $91 billion, surpassing Ford‘s $79 billion and briefly eclipsing General Motors.
Lucid had delivered its first customer vehicles fewer than three weeks earlier.
The two companies, combined, were briefly worth more than $240 billion. Neither had meaningful revenue, and both were valued as though they were on a path to rival Tesla.
Missed production targets amid weaker than expected demand collapsed both stocks through 2022 and beyond.
Rivian hit an all-time intraday low of $8.26 in April 2024, a 95% decline from its peak.
Lucid shares fell 65% in 2025 alone and are down by more than 96% since its 2021 all time high.
The stock price plunged in 2025 as the company reduced twice its annual production guidance and as the Board ousted the CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson in February 2025.
Neither company has come close to the valuations the market assigned them in November 2021.
Both are still trying to get there. Thursday is where that effort becomes real.
Rivian: R2 Is the Bet
For Rivian, the stakes on March 12 are straightforward. The R2 is not simply a new model — it is the vehicle the company’s financial survival depends on.
In a sign of how the launch is being managed, the EV maker quietly removed the “$45,000 starting price” language from its R2 product page ahead of Thursday’s event.
The wording had appeared on the site alongside a “Reserve” button and a “Coming 2026” notation for months.
In its place, the page now carries a countdown to March 12, with the confirmation that Rivian will reveal “the full lineup.”
The removal signals that the company founded and led by RJ Scaringe is managing expectations before the official unveil.
The production R2 will debut in a dual-motor, all-wheel drive configuration that will carry a higher price than the $45,000 threshold the company first announced in March 2024.
A base single-motor model is expected to arrive “shortly after,” Scaringe told CNBC last month.
The repositioning adds a layer of complexity.
The $7,500 federal EV tax credit that existed when Rivian first announced the $45,000 figure has since been eliminated, effectively widening the price gap for buyers who had anchored to that number.
At SXSW, Rivian will reveal the full R2 lineup — pricing, trim configurations, available colors, and specifications — alongside the launch of its online configurator.
The event will mark the first time reservation holders and the general public can place orders. EV maker Rivian will also provide the first public test rides of the vehicle starting on March 13, as reported by EV earlier this week.
Rivian delivered 42,247 vehicles in 2025, a decline from the year before, and has issued 2026 delivery guidance of between 62,000 and 67,000 units. Management has said R1S, R1T, and commercial delivery van volumes will remain roughly in line with 2025 totals, which implies that approximately 19,700 to 24,700 R2 crossovers must be produced and delivered this year for the company to hit its own targets. Rivian reported its first positive gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2025. The R2 is the vehicle that is supposed to turn that into a trend.
Production will begin at Rivian‘s Normal, Illinois plant in a single shift, with a second shift expected toward the end of the year.
Cash burn has defined Rivian‘s history as a public company.
The company posted net losses of $4.69 billion in 2021, $6.75 billion in 2022, $5.43 billion in 2023, and $4.75 billion in 2024.
Each dollar spent on developing the R2 platform — including a custom in-house silicon chip and a new zonal vehicle architecture — has been a wager that a high-volume, lower-cost model could eventually make the business sustainable.
Lucid: The Midsize or Nothing
Lucid has two models on sale — the Air sedan and the Gravity SUV — and produced 17,840 vehicles in 2025.
Lucid announced last month it had revised its fourth quarter production figures, causing the year’s total to drop below the 18,000 unit mark.
Its 2026 production guidance of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles represents meaningful growth but falls short of the Wall Street expectations.
The midsize crossover, targeting a starting price under $50,000 — approximately $20,000 below the entry-level Air sedan — is the product that changes Lucid‘s addressable market entirely.
The platform will underpin a minimum of three distinct models, including an off-road focused variant and a sedan.
All vehicles will feature Nvidia’s DRIVE AGX Thor computing platform and target Level 4 autonomous capability.
Lucid assembled the first prototypes at its Casa Grande, Arizona plant in late January.
Production is planned to begin in late 2026 at Lucid‘s factory in Saudi Arabia, which has an annual capacity of 150,000 units. Meaningful volumes are not expected until 2027.
At the Investor Day, which begins at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time and will be broadcast live, Lucid‘s senior leadership team will present on the midsize vehicle platform, advancements in its software stack, its autonomy strategy, and financial outlook.
It is a preview — the company’s first formal, detailed public showing of the third model.
When orders do open, Lucid has said it will skip the reservations model it used for previous vehicles and go straight to purchase orders.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund holds more than 50% of the company’s stock and has invested over $9 billion in Lucid since its initial $1 billion commitment in 2018.
PIF is also the entity behind a government purchase agreement signed in April 2022, under which Saudi Arabia committed to buying up to 100,000 Lucid vehicles over ten years — 50,000 in an initial tranche, with an option to purchase an additional 50,000.
Winterhoff said earlier this year that deliveries on that 50,000-vehicle order will accelerate in earnest next year once the midsize model enters production.
Lucid has $4.6 billion in liquidity, which Boussaid said is sufficient to fund operations into the first half of 2027.
Winterhoff has said additional capital will be needed to complete the midsize ramp.
The company laid off 12% of its US workforce last month, in a move expected to cut $500 million in costs over three years.
On the same week in November 2021, Rivian and Lucid were each worth more than General Motors.
On March 12, 2026, they will each attempt to show that the products used to justify those valuations actually exist.
Lucid‘s VP of Communications Nick Twork commented on both rivals earlier on Saturday, commenting on an X post praising vehicles from Rivian, Lucid, and Tesla.
“I owned a Rivian for two years and several Teslas over the years and agree,” Twork wrote. “Different philosophies. Different strengths. Healthy competition pushes technology forward.”
