Rivian’s Electric Van destined for Amazon was spotted in Germany on May 6

Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter

According to pictures posted on Twitter by Next Move, Rivian‘s van was seen on May 6 in Germany with a Swedish license plate. Recently, the company declined to disclose how many of these vehicles were built so far, but during the recent visit by Media to the facility, dozens of those were seen ready to be delivered apart from the ones on the assembly line.

Rivian has a current contract with Amazon (who has a 20% stake) for 100,000 units, expected to be achieved by 2024. For other companies, Rivian plans to start accepting orders for fleet vehicles in 2022 and will start delivering them in 2023. The vans are highly configurable and have a payload capacity ranging from 1,960 pounds to 2,750 pounds, the company says.

During Q4 2021 Conference call held in March, Rivian’s CEO said the company expects the production to ramp considerably during the second quarter: “With these supply constraints, the EDV is being built or being used to refine the digital integration of our software systems with Amazon to ensure alignment with the standard operating procedures for these vehicles.

Feedback from Amazon and the drivers on the software is quickly being ingested, and we’re using that to drive the OTAs on the platform. With all this we expect EDV production to ramp considerably during Q2″.

In late April, dozens of charging piles were seen at the Amazon Hub in Illinois.

According to what sources told CNBC’s David Faber, Ford is planning to sell 8 Million Rivian shares when the insider lockup expires on Sunday representing 7.84% of its stake in the EV startup. In Q1 2022, Ford reported a net loss of $3.1 billion from its stake of 102 million Rivian shares.

The same sources said JPMorgan Chase also plans to sell “between 13 million and 15 million for an unknown seller”. The total amount will be around 21—24 million shares could represent a dump of over $645 million if considering the higher case scenario for JP Morgan Chase sell.

Rivian share price hit on Friday, a new all-time low at $28.71, down 84% from its high in November 2o21. Earlier this month, the company announced a $1.5 billion state and local incentive package for its second factory planned for Georgia. On Dec. 3, 2021, The Financial Times reported that the UK was offering Rivian $1.32 billion to build a plant in Somerset.

Rivian announced on April 5 that produced a total of 2,553 vehicles in Q1 2022 at its manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois. The EV maker delivered 1,227 vehicles during the same period being in line with the company’s expectations for the year. Rivian believes it is “well positioned to deliver on the 25,000 annual production guidance provided during its Q4 earnings call on March 10, 2022”. 

Rivian had its IPO on November 10, 2021, raising nearly $13 Billion with a price of $78.00 per share. By then, Rivian and Lucid stocks were among the favorites for short-squeeze traders leading Rivian shares to their All-Time-High at $179.47 after the first week of trading. Rivian shares are now trading around $32.50, 82% down from their recent highs.

The company will report its financial results on May 11, 2022, after market close. Rivian will host an audio webcast to discuss its results and provide a business update at 2:00pm PT / 5:00pm ET the same day.

Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter