Stifel reiterated its ‘Buy’ rating and $22 price target on Rivian on Thursday, saying the R2 midsize SUV “seems to be off to a great start,” in a note archived by Price Target.
Analyst Stephen Gengaro picked Rivian as the eighth stock in Stifel’s “30 Stocks in 30 Days” series. He cited higher order conversions for the R2 and several awards, including MotorTrend’s 2027 SUV of the Year.
“Rivian’s progress on autonomy appears strong, which we believe will be a market share driver over time,” Gengaro wrote.
Stifel also placed Rivian first in a category named after New York Mets rookie Carson Benge, who it said “showed great promise in his 2026 rookie season and has significant upside.”
The call is the latest in an unbroken run. Gengaro has rated Rivian a ‘Buy’ since he started covering it nearly three years ago, through two target cuts and a stock that is now well below where it stood when he began.
Where the Target Stands
The $22 target is 62% above Rivian’s Wednesday close of $13.54.
It is the second-highest of the 11 targets set on Rivian in the past three months, according to Price Target’s Rivian page, where they range from $10 at Mizuho to $23 at Baird with a median of $18. Seven of the 11 firms rate the stock ‘Buy’, two ‘Hold’ and two ‘Sell’.
Price Target, a sister publication of EV, archives Wall Street analysts’ research on the electric vehicle, artificial intelligence and semiconductor sectors.
Rivian shares were down 2.1% at $13.25 in pre-market trading on Thursday, about 20 minutes before the market opened.
Thursday’s note came three days after Gengaro reiterated the same rating and target following Rivian’s third-quarter results. “R2 order conversion has been stronger-than-expected, and although there are some higher near-term costs associated with ramping production, margins seem to be gaining traction,” he wrote then, naming Rivian’s AI Autonomy Day on December 9 as a possible next catalyst.
A ‘Buy’ Since 2023
Gengaro initiated coverage of Rivian on December 7, 2023, with a ‘Buy’ rating and a $23 target. He cited brand awareness from the R1 models, Amazon’s order for 100,000 electric delivery vans and the coming R2, which he said could compete with Tesla’s Model Y. Rivian shares traded at about $18.80 that day.
He flagged the macroeconomic backdrop, high interest rates and cash burn as headwinds, and expected margins to benefit from in-house motors, a new battery pack and better supplier terms.
Stifel cut the target to $18 in February 2024, after Rivian guided for 2024 production roughly flat with the year before. It then cut the target to $16 on November 11, 2024, while keeping its ‘Buy’ and pointing to the R2 launch as a key milestone and to Rivian’s liquidity, backed by Volkswagen‘s planned investment.
Gengaro said then that the joint venture with Volkswagen opened “the door for potential opportunities for Rivian to be a technology partner with other OEMs.”
In February 2025, Gengaro wrote that Rivian was “making solid progress toward several key milestones,” including positive gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2024. He said investments from Volkswagen and a Department of Energy loan would give it enough capital to fund the ramp of its midsize platform in Georgia.
He raised the target to $18 in May 2025, then cut it back to $16 in August, citing tariffs, the pending end of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit and production downtime ahead of the R2 launch. In that note he also listed a $22,000 sequential rise in cost of goods sold per unit and a wider 2025 adjusted EBITDA loss forecast of $2.0 billion to $2.25 billion.
The climb since then has been steady. Gengaro lifted the target to $17 in November 2025, saying the “underlying long-term story is intact.” He noted that Rivian’s gross loss per vehicle, excluding software and services, had narrowed to $985 from $3,142 in the second quarter.
He raised it again to $20 in February 2026, after Rivian guided for 62,000 to 67,000 deliveries this year against his forecast of 52,000. He also pointed to improving margins and “very positive pre-production reviews” of the R2.
He kept the call in March after Rivian’s deal with Uber, and raised the target to $22 in July on stronger second-quarter deliveries and a 75 million-share equity offering, calling the R2 rollout “a critical milestone.”
In August, he kept the target after Rivian’s adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization came in at $379 million, narrower than his forecast of $642 million, and put liquidity at “$7.2 billion pro forma, plus $1.25 billion from Volkswagen and Uber.”
Across the 11 Stifel notes on Rivian that Price Target has archived since February 2025, the rating never changed and the target moved five times. Counting the two cuts in 2024, it has changed seven times since initiation, between $16 and $23, and $22 is its highest since the first call.
Target Against the Shares
The $22 target is $1 below where Gengaro started. Rivian’s shares are about 28% below their price on the day he initiated coverage.
The stock fell to $11.67 on October 28, the day before Rivian’s third-quarter results, and has since recovered some ground. Its 52-week high is $22.69.
Rivian’s third-quarter gross margin narrowed to 8% from 11% in the second quarter. It raised its 2026 delivery forecast to 67,000 to 70,000 vehicles from 65,000 to 70,000.
Across all its covered stocks, Stifel has reached 83% of its targets within 12 months, ranking fifth of 26 firms on 42 scored targets, according to Price Target’s scoring.
UBS upgraded Rivian to ‘Buy’ on November 2 with a $17 target. Analyst Joseph Spak called a recent selloff “a buying opportunity ahead of an inflection in R2 ramp and gross margins.”
The $23 high in Price Target’s three-month range sits $1 above Stifel’s, while the $10 low implies a further fall of about 26% from Wednesday’s close.
