Author: Michelin

Recently, the new energy track of the US stock market could be said to be as crazy as a fire: Tesla’s stock price has surpassed one trillion, and even Musk’s high-level sale of stocks cannot stop the rebound of the stock price. Lucid has just announced the delivery, and the stock price has risen by 40% in response. Yesterday, another “rival” of Tesla, RIVIAN, officially went public, and its stock price soared by 50% within ten minutes, with a market value breaking through one trillion dollars at one point. On the first day of listing, RIVIAN closed with a market value of 85.9 billion dollars, surpassing various traditional car manufacturers such as Ford.

It should be noted that RIVIAN’s first mass-produced car, the R1T, just rolled off the production line less than two months ago on September 14th, and formal delivery began just a month ago. This market value can be said to be astronomical.

The Debut of Pure Electric Pickup, Another “Tesla Rival”?

Compared with the high-profile style in the electric car field, RIVIAN may be relatively unfamiliar to China, and what is seen most is probably its contest with Tesla. Indeed, even in the United States, RIVIAN is a relatively low-key and practical one. This startup company, founded in 2009, has been dormant early on, and it was not until nearly ten years after its establishment that it made a debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show at the end of 2018, directly dropping two real vehicles. This appearance made RIVIAN famous in one battle. The most noteworthy among them is the pure electric pickup R1T, which is also the first model that RIVIAN delivers.

Pickup trucks may be a must-have companion for the American people. In the car sales statistics in the United States over the years, pickup truck models have always occupied a prominent position in the list. In recent years, Chevrolet, Ford, RAM, and Toyota have also taken notice of the electric pickup truck market, announcing that they will launch electric pickup truck models in the US market.

Before the release of RIVIAN’s electric pickup truck R1T in 2018, Musk had repeatedly revealed his intention to build an electric pickup truck. Shortly after the release of R1T, he officially announced the design sketch of Cybertruck, which is a bit of a crisis for Musk at that time due to the emergence of RIVIAN.

In fact, from the design and specifications of the R1T released by RIVIAN at that time, it was indeed an impressive product.

From the official launch of the electric pickup truck R1T on September 14th to today, RIVIAN has produced 180 vehicles and delivered 156 vehicles. According to the official statement, early production of vehicles was basically delivered to its own employees, so we can only rely on limited feedback from foreign media to see if this electric pickup truck is as excellent as it was claimed at the time of release.

Built on a pure electric platform, the R1T uses a battery layout similar to Tesla, with batteries laid flat on the chassis and the battery capacity reaching 135 kWh. The vehicle is equipped with four electric motors, with each motor having a power of 147 kW, and the total output power ranging from 300 to 562 kW, providing a towing capacity of 5,000 kg and a wading depth of 1 meter. Compared with traditional light pickup trucks, the weight of the battery pack and other components make the electric pickup truck heavier, weighing 3.24 tons, but the overall weight of the vehicle does not affect its power performance. In foreign media driving tests, it can easily accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 3.5 seconds and complete a quarter mile in 11.9 seconds.

RIVIAN’s self-developed pure electric platform also enhances R1T’s space integration capability. The front trunk of R1T reaches 300 L, and an adult woman can sit inside it; the vehicle also features multiple spaces that can be opened and closed. The right rear door can be opened, and when pulled out, it becomes an integrated camping kitchen; the left rear door can be opened, and there is a hidden storage space of 200 L under the cargo box, the door panel of which can also be used as a footboard to support a rooftop tent. It fully considers the scenarios for American users to buy pickups for camping trips.

In the cabin, RIVIAN also adopts a simplified design, abandoning physical buttons and providing interaction through a central control touch screen. The voice system is equipped with the Amazon Alexa voice assistant. On the central control screen, similar to Tesla, the air conditioning can also be adjusted by dragging and dropping.

In a test drive by foreign media Edumunds, under non-heavy load conditions, the RIVIAN R1T has a range of 317 miles (510 kilometers), which is slightly more than the official EPA range of 314 miles (505 kilometers). However, they also provided feedback that “this is currently the electric car with the highest energy consumption”, with an energy consumption of 48 kWh per 100 miles. However, for pickup trucks that can climb mountains, carry and tow cargo, their energy consumption is higher than that of mainstream car and SUV models, which is to be expected.

Previously, what the GeekCar office was most concerned about was how the range of an electric pickup truck that needs to tow and carry cargo would be affected when it is fully loaded. Unfortunately, most of the foreign media test drives were non-loaded experiences, so it will take more RIVIAN vehicles to be delivered to answer our questions.

What supports RIVIAN’s nearly $100 billion market value?

To be honest, as the first pure electric pickup truck delivered, RIVIAN R1T meets everyone’s expectations of pure electric pickup trucks. However, can this one model and delivery of just over 100 vehicles support an almost $100 billion market value?

If RIVIAN R1T and Tesla Cybertruck are considered competitors in the blank electric pickup truck market, then the stories behind them are even more numerous: executive defections, lawsuits against each other, and social media disputes…Since its debut in 2018, RIVIAN has become a rising star in the eyes of many and an object of capital pursuit. After its debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos personally visited RIVIAN to meet with the founder, and has participated in financing four times since February 2019. According to RIVIAN’s previous prospectus, Bezos currently holds a 22.4% stake and is the largest shareholder of RIVIAN.

Bezos and Musk, the top billionaires who recently took turns topping the world’s richest list, in addition to competing in space travel, also sparked imagination of their competition in the electric vehicle field between RIVIAN and TESLA.

Bezos is very “dedicated” to promoting RIVIAN: in July of this year, when Bezos rode his own Blue Origin rocket into space, the RIVIAN R1T pickup truck served as the vehicle to transport the astronauts on site; Amazon also placed a large order of 100,000 RIVIAN EDVs, an electric delivery vehicle developed together by the two companies; previously, Amazon had acquired the self-driving startup ZOOX, and in the future, ZOOX’s autonomous driving technology may be applied to RIVIAN.

Just half a month ago, the 100,000 vehicle order placed by Hertz indirectly triggered a surge in TESLA’s stock price, and now RIVIAN’s listing, coupled with Amazon’s previous 100,000 vehicle order, has helped bolster RIVIAN’s multi-million dollar market value. After all, Amazon’s support means that RIVIAN not only has the potential market prospects of electric pickup trucks and electric SUVs, but also the realization of commercial applications such as pure electric unmanned freight transportation.

(Amazon and RIVIAN’s cooperative electric delivery truck, put into use in February 2021)

Conclusion

In the prospectus of RIVIAN, I found that Ford, the fourth largest shareholder, invested $500 million in RIVIAN in 2019. Two days after going public, RIVIAN’s market value has exceeded Ford’s. RIVIAN’s first electric pickup truck, the R1T, is also a direct competitor to Ford’s F-150 Lightning. I wonder if Ford ever thought that the return on investment would come so quickly.

RIVIAN is currently in the stage of burning money, although it has just started delivery. However, backed by major shareholders such as Amazon and Ford, and with current orders of 55,000 vehicles, it seems to have a winning attitude that everything is ready except for delivery. However, “delivery” is precisely the biggest challenge they face at present.

Currently, RIVIAN only has one factory in Illinois, which was acquired from Mitsubishi and has an original production capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year. After converting the production line, RIVIAN can only produce over 500 vehicles by the end of this year, and the existing 55,000 vehicle orders can be delivered at the earliest by the end of 2022.

Doesn’t this scene sound a bit familiar?

It seems that RIVIAN cannot avoid the “production hell” that Tesla once struggled with. Before the Cybertruck and Ford F-150 Lightning are delivered, RIVIAN’s biggest enemy it might face is its own production capacity.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.