Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Andres Sheppard released on Monday a new research note on the Illinois-headquartered EV maker Rivian as the company prepares to report its first quarter earnings results on Tuesday, after the closing bell.
Rivian‘s vehicle deliveries fell to 8,640 units in the first quarter of the year. The analyst said they came in “slightly above Visible Alpha Consensus of 8,217 vehicles” despite the sequential decline from the 13,588 EVs registered in the final quarter of last year.
Looking ahead to Rivian’s earnings call scheduled for Tuesday at 5 p.m. Eastern time, the analyst said the key areas to watch are the company’s progress on its joint venture with Volkswagen and its efforts to commercialize the R2 vehicle line, which is expected to start production in the first half of 2026 with a starting price around $45,000.
The Illinois-headquartered carmaker will receive $16 million in state incentives to help fund a new supplier park adjacent to its manufacturing plant in Normal, state officials said earlier this Monday.
Rivian plans to invest $120 million to build the 1.2 million-square-foot facility, which will allow component suppliers to co-locate near Rivian’s assembly operations and support production growth, including the upcoming R2 model.
The analyst reiterated a Neutral rating on Rivian shares with a price target of $15.00. The stock closed at $13.83 on Friday, implying an upside potential of about 8.5% from current levels, according to Cantor Fitzgerald’s target.
The analyst Andres Sheppard said in the note that first quarter production figures (14,611 vehicles) were “above our estimate of 13,750 vehicles.” This year, Rivian expects EV production to fall from 51,579 to between 46,000 and 51,000 deliveries.
“For 1Q25, sell-side consensus is expecting revenues of ~ $997M, and Gross margins of ~1.8%,” the analyst noted. “Recall that in 4Q24 Rivian achieved its first ever positive gross profit of $170M, although this primarily driven by the sale of regulatory credits.”
“On the call, we’ll be looking for further detail on Rivian’s progress with its Volkswagen Joint Venture (total deal size of ~$5.8B), and on the company’s progress towards commercializing its R2 line, which is slated for SOP in 1H26 (starting price of ~$45,000),” he aded.
The joint venture was revealed last July and officially launched in November. Named ‘Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies’, the joint venture has a total deal size of up to $5.8 billion (up from an initial $5 billion) and kicked off in mid-November.
As reported earlier this Monday, the world’s largest asset manager Blackrock raised its stake in Rivian throughout the first quarter of 2025.
The firm added 2,065,057 Rivian shares during the quarter, following a purchase of nearly 3.79 million shares in the final three months of 2024. The latest increase brings its total holding to more than 49 million shares — a level last seen in the second quarter of 2023.
Meanwhile, Rivian’s U.S. sales have continued to decline. The automaker sold an estimated 2,970 vehicles in April, down 25.5% from a year earlier and below the 3,910 units sold in March, according to data from Motor Intelligence published late last week.
Rivian has posted year-over-year sales declines in each month of 2025 so far. In February, when reporting fourth-quarter results, the company… [sentence incomplete – feel free to share the rest if you’d like it completed].
