Rivian: Gross profit clears the way for investment by Volkswagen

Rivian has met the requirement for an investment of one billion US dollars from Volkswagen by achieving a profit target. The US company achieved a gross profit for the second quarter in a row. Last year, Volkswagen pledged to invest a total of up to 5.8 billion dollars in Rivian. Part of this sum is now expected by June 30, Rivian announced.

Rivian: Number of planned deliveries reduced

The cooperation gives Volkswagen access to Rivian's electronics architecture, which it hopes will help it solve its software problems. The billions from Germany will give Rivian some breathing space to ramp up production of a cheaper model next year, which should increase sales. Uncertainty following US President Donald Trump's round of tariffs is currently creating headwinds. Rivian has lowered its delivery target for this year to between 40,000 and 46,000 vehicles. Just over a month ago, the previous target range of 46,000 to 51,000 vehicles had been confirmed. Rivian has so far built a large SUV, a pickup and a delivery van, which is used by Amazon.

Fears of uncertainty among consumers

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe expects the import duties to increase the cost per car by "a few thousand dollars" this year. Beyond 2025, it is difficult to give an order of magnitude, he said in a conference call with analysts. In addition, Scaringe emphasized that consumers are also becoming more price-conscious when buying cars due to the uncertainty.

With the current models, Rivian achieved an average sales price of 88,500 dollars in the last quarter. The size of this market is "limited". That is why Rivian is focusing heavily on the future R2 model with a price starting at 45,000 dollars. In the past quarter, Rivian's turnover remained at the previous year's level of just over 1.2 billion dollars. The Californian company reduced its bottom-line loss from 1.445 billion dollars a year earlier to 541 million dollars.

(mfz)