Rivian Electric Trucks Outsell Ford F-150 Lightning, Stock Soars

Text size

Rivian Automotive

gave investors an update on production that quickly sent the stock higher Wednesday. The company’s numbers show it has sold more electric pickup trucks than truck giant

Ford Motor
.

For the second quarter,

Rivian

(ticker: RIVN) produced 4,401 vehicles at its plant in Normal, Ill., and delivered 4,467 during the same period.

Rivian delivered a bit more than 1,200 vehicles in the first quarter and produced 2,553 units, so the second-quarter figures mean sales grew 264% and production jumped about 72%.

The company added in its release that it is on track to deliver 25,000 vehicles in 2022. That is the same as the forecast management gave in its first-quarter earnings report.

Rivian has sold about 6,600 electric pickup trucks since it started delivering vehicles a few quarters ago. For now, it has the lead on

Ford
,
which has sold about 2,300 electric F-150 Lightning pickups through June. Rivian, however, had a head start of a few months. Ford delivered 1,837 Lightnings in June.

Rivian shares gained 10.4% Wednesday, closing at $29.66 a share. The

S&P 500
and

Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively.

Wall Street, along with investors, appear pleasantly surprised by Rivian’s update.

read more

• China’s Auto Sales Show a Robust Rebound

Baird analyst Ben Kallo wrote Wednesday the Rivian production figure was a little better than his estimate of 4.250 units. Rivian “has faced growing pains as it has started production, but today’s news …shows a step in the right direction,” added Kallo in his report.

Kallo rates Rivian stock Buy and has a $67 price target for shares. D.A. Davidson analyst Michael Shlisky falls on the other end of the ratings spectrum. He rates shares Sell and has a $24 price target for the stock.

Rivian production topped Shlisky’s estimate too, which he called a “modest positive” in a Wednesday report. That didn’t change his mind about Rivian as an investment though. “Our thesis is not about RIVN missing production guidance, especially not in the near term,” added Shlisky in his report. He is more focused on longer-term issues such as industry competition and profitability.

Rivian isn’t expected to be profitable on a full-year basis until the second half of the decade.

Coming into Wednesday trading, Rivian stock was down about 74% so far this year, partly because rising interest rates and inflation have sapped some investors’ enthusiasm for new companies that don’t generate free cash flow.

Rivian has also struggled to ramp up production as quickly as Wall Street hoped. At the start of the year, Wall Street expected the EV maker to deliver closer to 40,000 vehicles in 2022.

Write to Al Root at [email protected]