Rivian delivered just 8,640 vehicles in the first three months of 2024, the company’s worst quarterly mark since the end of 2022. But the company says the slow start won’t impact its overall guidance for the year — it still expects to deliver between 46,000 and 51,000 EVs by the end of 2025.
The company warned that the first quarter would be challenging. On a conference call with analysts in February, Rivian’s chief financial officer said that a “challenging demand environment, partially driven by the impact of the fires in Los Angeles” — plus the seasonal drag on sales to start the year — would result in fewer deliveries. The company was still able to build 14,611 vehicles in the quarter.
The soft first quarter comes in what is likely to be another challenging year for the company as it aims to release a more affordable mass-market EV in 2026.
Rivian has reworked its flagship R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck so that it loses less on each sale. It also laid off 10% of employees last year. The results of those cost-cutting efforts started to show in the financial results for 2024. In the final quarter of last year, the company recorded a $170 million of positive gross profit, although $60 million of that came from software and services.
But much remains up in the air for Rivian. It is planning to make and sell roughly the same number of EVs this year as it did in 2024, meaning growth won’t come until 2026. Meanwhile, the company warned in February that “changes to government policies and regulations” could hurt its efforts to hit those more modest marks.
Those changes are coming. After a few months of waffling, President Trump now says he’s committed to placing a 25% tax on cars that are imported to the United States, and also on certain parts that are brought into this country. Rivian builds its EVs in Illinois, so it doesn’t have to worry about the former — but the latter could still sting.
Trump has threatened to end or reduce the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, which helps blunt the high cost of Rivian’s vehicles. Rivian is also currently trying to build a new factory in Georgia and is leaning on a $6.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy. That loan was finalized a few days before Trump took office, but Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to stop government payments — in many cases, illegally, according to the courts — could threaten that lifeline.
