Gary Black Pegs Rivian's Lower Deliveries To Van Production: 'Amazon Can Only Take So Many'

Future Fund Managing Partner Gary Black pegs the difference between Rivian Automotive Inc‘s RIVN deliveries and production numbers in the fourth quarter to be likely due to its bumped-up delivery van production.

What Happened: On Tuesday, Rivian announced the fourth quarter production of 17,541 vehicles and delivery of 13,972 vehicles. For the full year, the company produced 57,232 vehicles but delivered only 50,122.

Black attributes the difference to Rivian’s scaled electric delivery van (EDV) production instead of lowered demand for its R1 vehicles.

“Amazon can only take so many deliveries,” Black said in a post on X.

Huge difference between $RIVN 4Q deliveries (14K) and production (17,5K) is likely EDV. Amazon can only take so many deliveries.

— Gary Black (@garyblack00) January 2, 2024

A drone video of Rivian’s manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois, from mid-December, showed the parking lot swamped with Rivian’s delivery vans. Amazon, also a Rivian shareholder, is the biggest customer for Rivian’s delivery vans. They placed an order for 100,000 EDVs from Rivian in 2019.

However, during the company's third-quarter earnings call, company CFO Claire McDonough said that the company expects Amazon to take fewer deliveries of its vehicles in the fourth quarter as compared to prior periods due to the upcoming holiday period.

“…Because Amazon limits the intake of new commercial vans during its peak holiday delivery period, we expect a more significant gap between production and deliveries in Q4 relative to prior periods,” McDonough then said.

Cybertruck And Rivian: Black on Tuesday reiterated in another post that the huge interest in the Tesla Cybertruck will only increase store traffic and orders for Rivian.

“EV truck adoption is accelerating,” he added.

Black has previously said that the huge interest in the Cybertruck coupled with the long wait time on new orders will take people to Rivian as they are the closest competitor in the EV truck segment.

Photo by Mike Mareen on Shutterstock

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