Electric truck maker Rivian handed investors a mixed bag in its third-quarter earnings report, after a rough day for its shares and those of other electric vehicle makers.
On one hand, Rivian reported a smaller-than-expected adjusted loss of $1.4 billion, less than the $1.7 billion loss forecast by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. And it said net bookings rose to 114,000 from 98,000 in its second-quarter report.
But its revenue of $536 million, while up 47% from second-quarter revenue, fell short of analysts’ revenue forecasts of $552 million.
The gain in bookings was notable after electric car maker Lucid reported late Tuesday that the number of bookings for its EVs had fallen to 34,000 from 37,000 in the previous quarter’s report.
That news sent shares of Lucid (LCDX) down 17% on the day and helped send shares of both Rivian and Chinese EV company Nio (NIO) down 12% each in regular US trading hours.
Top EV company Tesla ( TSLA ) also had its shares fall 7%, though that may well have been more influenced by the news that CEO Elon Musk had sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla ( TSLA ) shares since closing the deal to buy Twitter two weeks ago.
Rivian also reaffirmed its goal to increase production to build 25,000 vehicles this year, an upward target as other automakers, including Tesla, have been forced to cut sales targets for the year due to supply chain problems.
In the first three quarters of this year Rivian built just over 14,000 vehicles, so hitting the 25,000 production target for the year would mean a 45% increase in production in the last three months of the year over the 7,400 it just built. completed quarter.
However, while it says it remains on target to hit that 25,000 target by 2022, it has shifted the target date for availability of the smaller R2 model to 2026. It had previously predicted a 2025 launch for that model.
Shares of Rivian rose sharply in after-hours trading, initially gaining 3%, then retreated to trade slightly lower and then rose 5%.
