Rivian's Misstep Might Have Hampered Its Full Year Output But Its EV Adventure Continues

Last week, Rivian Automotive RIVN drastically slashed its 2024 outpout goal over yet another supply chain disrution. Bloomberg reported that a communication blunder left the EV maker without critical supplies. With this big blow to its supply chain, growth is in for a major setback this year as this supply chain fumble will cost Rivian 18% of this year’s annual production.

Rivian Has Been Having A Hard Time

During the third quarter that ended on September 30th, Rivian made 13,157 EVs and delivered 10,018 of them, which was short of FactSEt’s estimate of 13,000.

Due to a shortage of a component for its R1 vehicles and commercial van, Rivian lowered its 2024 target output of 57,000 units to a range between 47,000 and 49,000 vehicles. However, Rivian reaffirmed its annual delivery outlook, with low single-digit YoY growth despite the disruption, with the range being between 50,500 to 52,000 EVs.

Worksport Ltd NASDAQ: WKSP) has some good news for Rivian R1T.

Worksport Ltd just announced its existing lineup of premium tonneau cover models will be made compatible for Rivian, more precisely, its R1T. Rivian’s electric pickup is the world’s first of its kind to have hit the road, beating even the EV king, Tesla Inc TSLA. Worksport continues to expand into the EV market with its existing tonneau cover lineup being the first products compatible with the Rivian R1T whose fleet on the road is made of almost 100,00 vehicles. Worksport revealed today that initial product engineering nearing completion, which will serve as a foundation to also integrate its revolutionary solar-powered tonneau cover SOLIS and portable battery system COR with the Rivian R1T platform. 

Making EVs nor entering the business is certainly not for the faint of heart. 

For Rivian, being the first to bring an electric pickup to the road wasn’t enough to make it in the EV world as there’s plenty of work ahead. Even a legacy automaker like General Motor GM had its share of EV missteps. Like its peers, GM is rethinking and adjusting its EV strategy. This week, GM revealed it’s ditching the ‘Ultium’ name for EV batteries and supporting technologies after spending years and millions of dollars on promoting it. However, the batteries and the technologies that GM spent billions of dollars to develop in house will remain, just not under that brand name. GM continues to expand its EV business, reaffirming its 2024 output target about 200,000 EVs for North America, promising to reach profitability on a production, or contribution-margin basis before the year comes to an end. While EV sales are growing, it is not the pace GM aimed for as EVs still made only 4.9% of the automaker’s third quarter sales. But, GM is also aware of the importance of embracing emerging technologies, having signed a $3 billion deal with LG rival, Samsung SDI, to make hard-can batteries, known as prismatic cells. EV demand is faltering amid a weakened macroeconomic climate, but EV makers are learning from their mistakes while innovative developments keep on coming.

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