Rivian was rated Outperform with a $20 price target by Dan Ives at Yorkville Ives, in his first call on the stock since leaving Wedbush Securities, according to a note obtained by Price Target, an archive of Wall Street analyst research.
The target is $5 below the $25 Ives set at Wedbush in December, and about 85% below the $130 he set when he first covered Rivian after its 2021 IPO.
It implied 38% upside from Rivian’s $14.51 close on Tuesday, the day of the note.
“We believe Rivian is entering the most important phase of its development as R2 moves the company beyond the premium R1 market and gives its brand, manufacturing base, and software architecture access to a much larger pool of consumers,” Ives wrote.
He said additional R2 configurations were expected “to broaden the addressable price range through 2027.”
Rivian began customer deliveries of the R2 on June 9, using a midsize platform that Ives said was “engineered for higher volumes and lower costs.”
The note did not detail Ives’s valuation method or explain why the target sits below his last Wedbush call.
Rivian shares closed 1.2% lower at $14.34 on Wednesday and were trading 2.0% lower at $14.06 in pre-market trading on Thursday.
The note was published as owners and reservation holders criticized Rivian this week over its lack of transparency after it quietly removed the backrest fans from the R2’s ventilated front seats, a change the company attributed to excessive cabin noise.
Software and Autonomy
Ives said Rivian’s zonal electrical architecture “reduces vehicle complexity” and supports over-the-air software updates.
The Volkswagen joint venture “turns that technology into a revenue source outside Rivian’s fleet,” he wrote, adding that Volkswagen’s planned use of the architecture “validates Rivian’s engineering.”
Volkswagen has committed up to $5.8 billion to Rivian and the venture, and lent Rivian $1 billion on Wednesday secured by its stake in the joint venture.
The German carmaker became Rivian’s largest shareholder in May, with a 15.9% stake.
“Autonomy is the next extension of that model,” Ives wrote.
He said Rivian’s third-generation platform, built around its in-house RAP1 chip and a camera, radar and LiDAR sensor suite, “is expected to debut in R2 later this year.”
Rivian said last week that the first R2s with that hardware would go to employees by the end of 2026 and to customers in 2027.
The note cited the Uber agreement, under which Uber and its partners are expected to buy 10,000 R2 robotaxis with an option for up to 40,000 more, as “a defined commercial channel” for that roadmap.
Uber agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian under the deal, with deployments due to begin in San Francisco and Miami in 2028.
Ives also pointed to Rivian’s Amazon relationship, which he said spans “more than 40,000 commercial vans and one billion miles driven.”
“Together, these businesses create a path to monetize Rivian’s technology through consumer vehicles, commercial fleets, software licensing, and autonomy rather than relying solely on unit sales,” he wrote.
Stock Performance
Rivian shares are down 27.2% this year, having ended 2025 at $19.71.
They have fallen 20.9% over three months, though they remain 9.6% higher than a year ago.
The stock touched a four-month low of $13.96 on October 2, the day Rivian reported record third-quarter deliveries of 19,248 vehicles.
Rivian reaffirmed its 2026 guidance of 65,000 to 70,000 deliveries, implying between 23,193 and 28,193 vehicles in the fourth quarter.
At Wednesday’s close, the shares were 29% below their July 6 high of $20.20 and 37% below their 52-week high of $22.69.
Rivian, valued at about $20.8 billion, reports third-quarter results on October 29 and holds its second Autonomy & AI Day on December 9.
Ives’s $20 target matches the median of 11 analysts tracked by Price Target, whose targets range from $14 to $23, with six rating the stock a Buy, five a Hold and one a Sell.
Five Years of Buy Ratings
Ives has rated Rivian a buy since he first covered the stock at Wedbush in December 2021, when he set a $130 target and said the company was “in the catbird’s seat to take considerable market share in this EV arms race.”
He cut the target to $60 and then to $30 in 2022, calling the period since the IPO a “train wreck” and urging management to “stop the excuses.”
In October 2023 he cut the target to $25 from $32 after a $1.5 billion convertible bond sale, writing that “one step forward, two steps back is the theme for Rivian the last few years.”
He raised it to $20 from $15 in June 2024, calling Volkswagen’s investment “a core game changer for Rivian.”
Ives cut the target to $16 in August 2025 over tariff challenges, before raising it to $25 in December, when he said 2026 would be “a significant year for the company with the launch of R2,” according to a note obtained by Price Target.
Rivian shares have fallen 86% since his first rating and 29% since that December raise.
Ives left Wedbush this year after eight years and co-founded Yorkville Ives, a merchant bank launched in July with Yorkville Securities that also offers independent research.
On the same day, Yorkville Ives also initiated coverage of Tesla with a $500 target, General Motors with $100 and Nvidia with $300, all rated Buy.
