Rivian shares were rising for an 11th consecutive session on Thursday morning, the longest winning streak on record for the EV maker, as investors positioned for the start of R2 customer deliveries next week.
The stock was trading slightly higher as of press time, on track for an 11-session climb that lifted the shares about 43% and marked the longest unbroken run of gains in Rivian‘s history since its November 2021 initial public offering.
The run surpassed the company’s previous record of nine straight gains, set in early December 2025 and matched again earlier this week.
The shares had closed at $18.27 on Wednesday, up 5.67%, and extended the advance on Thursday, when they traded as high as $18.50, the highest intraday level since January.
A Record Built on R2 Anticipation
The rally gathered pace as investors positioned for the start of customer deliveries of the R2, the midsize SUV Rivian is counting on to move from a niche manufacturer to higher volumes.
Rivian will begin delivering the R2 to customers in the United States on June 9, with Canadian deliveries not planned until next year.
Over the 11-day run, the stock climbed 43.02%, according to Dow Jones data, recovering much of the ground lost in a slide through late April and the first half of May.
It was the best 11-day stretch for the shares since the 11 days ending December 9, 2024, when they rose 44.21%, though that earlier period did not represent an unbroken streak of daily gains.
The advance has added billions of dollars to Rivian‘s market value, which reached about $23.4 billion by Thursday.
Trading volume on Wednesday ran about 72% above the three-month average, reflecting the intensity of the buying into the record.
New Catalysts
The final leg of the streak coincided with fresh announcements around the R2 and the company’s technology ambitions.
Rivian said earlier this year that it would integrate AT&T 5G connectivity into the R2, expanding an existing relationship with the carrier ahead of the model’s market rollout.
Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough, appearing at investor conferences this week, pointed to the potential for further technology-licensing deals, a prospect that has drawn investor attention to Rivian‘s in-house software and electrical architecture.
The company sees “opportunities for partnership via licensing or monetization,” McDonough told the Baird 2026 Global Consumer, Technology and Services Conference on Tuesday.
The CFO said the integration of Rivian‘s technology across multiple Volkswagen Group brands had created a “lighter lift” for potential future deals with other carmakers.
McDonough also framed the R2 as the basis for international expansion, saying Rivian has “ambitions to take it more global” as production scales.
Speaking at the UBS 2026 Auto and Auto Tech Conference on Wednesday, McDonough also pushed back on a report that Rivian planned to bring LiDAR development in-house, calling it “more of an erroneous headline” with “no plans today” to do so.
She said Rivian had begun data collection in the markets where it plans to deploy autonomous vehicles with Uber, targeting “driver out” robotaxi operations in Miami and San Francisco in 2028.
The licensing angle builds on the model Rivian established with Volkswagen, whose joint venture with the company centers on shared software and electrical-architecture development.
The June 9 Catalyst
Rivian said on Monday that hundreds of employees have already taken delivery of the R2 ahead of the customer launch, without disclosing a precise number.
The disclosure came days after a production R2 carrying the build number 581 was spotted outside a soon-to-open showroom, the highest R2 sequence to surface publicly and a sign the company has built inventory ahead of June 9.
The R2 starts at $57,990 for its Performance Launch Edition, with an eventual entry price of about $45,000, and is aimed at premium compact electric SUVs such as the Tesla Model Y.
Rivian drew more than 68,000 reservations within 24 hours of the R2’s unveiling in March 2024.
On June 9, the company will begin sending order invitations to reservation holders in waves, with vehicles built and delivered within roughly two to six weeks of a firm order.
Invitations are weighted by reservation date and proximity to a service and demo center, with existing R1 owners tending to receive earlier timing.
Public demo drives also begin that day at Rivian Spaces, the first chance for non-employees to drive the model.
Recovering From a Spring Low
The record streak marked a sharp reversal from a slide that ran through late April and the first half of May.
Rivian shares had closed at $12.90 on May 19, before the climb began the following session.
From that level, the stock advanced in steady steps, closing through the $13, $14, $15, $16 and $17 levels in successive sessions before reaching $18.27 on Wednesday and trading higher still on Thursday.
At its Thursday level, the stock had risen 58.5% from its 52-week closing low of $11.64, reached on August 6, 2025.
It remained down 17.8% from its 52-week closing high of $22.45, reached on December 19, 2025, and was up 33.9% from its level a year earlier, when it closed at $13.78 on June 5, 2025.
The stock was down 6.4% so far in 2026.
Measured against its history, it stayed well below its all-time closing high of $172.01, set on November 16, 2021 shortly after Rivian‘s initial public offering, leaving it down 89.27% from that peak.
A New Largest Shareholder
The rally followed a shift in Rivian‘s ownership, with Volkswagen overtaking Amazon as the company’s largest shareholder for the first time since the 2021 listing.
The German automaker raised its stake to about 16% after a $1 billion share purchase that closed on April 30, part of an investment agreement of up to $5.8 billion tied to a software and electrical-architecture joint venture.
Volkswagen now holds more than 209 million shares, while Amazon, an early backer, has seen its holding diluted to around 12% as it has not added to its stake.
McDonough has told investors that Rivian expects to receive an additional $2 billion of capital from Volkswagen this year.
The structure gives Rivian cash to extend its runway without raising equity on the open market, though each tranche dilutes existing holders.
A Cash-Intensive Ramp
The capital matters because Rivian remains deeply unprofitable as it scales toward the R2.
The company reported $1.38 billion in first-quarter revenue and a net loss of $416 million, with $119 million in gross profit.
Rivian has guided to an adjusted pre-tax loss of between $1.8 billion and $2.1 billion for 2026, which it has described as a transitional year of heavy investment ahead of the R2 ramp.
It is targeting 62,000 to 67,000 total deliveries this year, up from 42,247 in 2025, with the ramp weighted to the second half and dependent largely on R2 volume.
At the UBS conference, McDonough said the upsized first phase of the Georgia plant takes Rivian to total capacity of 515,000 units and “a path with that scale to free cash flow positive” in the future.
She said the company had increased the principal of its Department of Energy loan by $600 million in the renegotiation that enlarged the plant’s initial phase.
Analysts remain divided on the stock, with the consensus price target clustered around $18, roughly where the shares now trade after the run.
The rally has pushed the stock past that consensus target, leaving its next move dependent on how the June 9 launch unfolds.
Whether the record run marks a turning point or a peak will depend on how quickly the R2 converts its reservation backlog into deliveries once customer handovers begin next week.
