Rivian, the investment

[Random1]

What you are buying right now with Rivian is speculation, not actually and investment. It actually doesn't have any revenue so the PE is close to infinity and beyond. Right now it is priced like it is going to be the next Telsa. Whether this materializes or not , no one really knows. Buying now and going on for a quick ride until there are real earnings may be profitable. Soon as these companies hit the first road block , prices start to become more realistic of the future market expections. No one really know right now, VW, Kia, Hynduai or the whole Chinese EVs may totally change the market. Since patents lifted on battery technology China can start flooding the US in the EV market. Especially in the somewhat affordable range of the average consumer.

[Tim]

Impressive to see this IPO go up, valuation is crazy.... waiting for the fall...

Couple thoughts
1. Whats going to happen when Ford says it can't deliver on most orders of lightning for 2-3 years
2. Rivian had ~50k open reservations at IPO (maybe more now), if it could pull off delivery by end of 2022 it would put it as the top truck EV manufacturer
3. Thing is essentially an electric tacoma with more luxury interior
4. Clearly EV market is pricing/factoring in 10 year speculation

My friend who test drove one said its a game changer...

F150 EV does not involve Rivian. That is built exclusively by Ford in Dearborn Mi.
The Ford deal was for the Lincoln nameplate EV. That was cancelled. That leaves number 4 only in your analysis. Not sure if there is confusion between the Rivian truck and Ford F150. What did your friend drive and which order backlog. I may be confused but Ford as of now is only a shareholder that made a ton of money pre IPO. They resigned their board seat as well. That was a governance move, not investment related.

[CordMcNally]

Impressive to see this IPO go up, valuation is crazy.... waiting for the fall...

Couple thoughts
1. Whats going to happen when Ford says it can't deliver on most orders of lightning for 2-3 years

Judging by other EV manufacturers, the less vehicles they can deliver then the higher their stock will go. If Ford is unable to deliver any vehicles then I see no reason why their stock won't go up 100x.

[Tim]

Judging by other EV manufacturers, the less vehicles they can deliver then the higher their stock will go. If Ford is unable to deliver any vehicles then I see no reason why their stock won't go up 100x.

This the challenge, picking the individual winners and losers. The whole auto industry is migrating. Make no mistake, if it was more profitable Ford would be an completely EV manufacturer within one year. Pluses and minuses on every strategy. The rate of change in total is uncertain as well as each EV manufacturer. Uncertainty is risk.

[Nysoz]

Ford couldn’t be a pure EV in a year especially at any significant volume. It takes time to redesign the lines, get the supply chains in place, but also significant difficulties in getting enough batteries at a reasonable price.

They also likely have multi year supply chain agreements with all their current suppliers for their ice cars.

[Zaphod]

F150 EV does not involve Rivian. That is built exclusively by Ford in Dearborn Mi.
The Ford deal was for the Lincoln nameplate EV. That was cancelled. That leaves number 4 only in your analysis. Not sure if there is confusion between the Rivian truck and Ford F150. What did your friend drive and which order backlog. I may be confused but Ford as of now is only a shareholder that made a ton of money pre IPO. They resigned their board seat as well. That was a governance move, not investment related.

Ford owns 12 percent of Rivian maybe thats the confusion.

[Tangler]

I did not read all the responses but i wonder if we are seeing a stock market / crypto / nonsense bubble? Like the .com bubble but with some differences.
companies that don’t really make $

Money/currency = crypto that is difficult to value and goes up due “the greater fool”

”green” technology that is not really all that green nor all that reliable.

I bought a used 2013 honda civic in 2016 for 13k.

13k cash and done.

This civic gets amazing gas mileage and costs 13k.

Someone who buys an EV for 70-100k could have bought a civic and used the difference to help the environment. 70-13= 57k

57k used intelligently can have an impact.

When there is an electric civic that costs 20k and goes 300 miles on a charge, I might buy one, but a 100k truck?

Aside from the environmental concerns, buying IPOs is not intelligent behavior.

Crypto / EV stocks / meme stocks……….yeah, VTSAX and get off my lawn.

[Tim]

Ford owns 12 percent of Rivian maybe thats the confusion.

Post #36.

[Tim]

Ford couldn’t be a pure EV in a year especially at any significant volume. It takes time to redesign the lines, get the supply chains in place, but also significant difficulties in getting enough batteries at a reasonable price.

They also likely have multi year supply chain agreements with all their current suppliers for their ice cars.

It takes 3 years to bring a model online.
They have the truck and vehicle platforms and their product roadmap.
Same platform and different tooling for body styling. It is amazing how quickly vendors fall in line when survival is at stake. The dealer network has already been trimmed back. For sure parts would be in short supply and allocated. Necessity is the mother of invention. In year two you would see a huge acceleration of the ev cars available. They are slow walking what is possible. Market acceptance and recharging capacity are the critical path items. It is not an accident that the best selling truck and potentially car were chosen for the first models. If those pan out, very feasible to ramp up.

[Otolith]

I agree with scaling and I am in no way convinced rivian can do it. What I am saying is ford has 150k reservations but from what I can tell they are saying they are able to produce 20k in 2022. The ford lighting is essentially Rivians only competition. The cyber truck isn't a "truck" while Rivian and Lighting still look like trucks.

All I am saying is if rivian can produce it's reservations 2022 while ford cant even get its prototype lightning to customers for 2-3 years, you have Rivian as first to market.

While I would love to have one of their trucks and the stock interests me, I'm certainly sitting this one out for awhile

[Tim]

Rivian does have Amazon’s commitment for the fleet vehicles. A big plus, but a different truck.
Every manufacturer has the same issues.
High volume efficient manufacturing with high fixed capital costs. The market will decide which vehicles have sustained high volume demand. ICE cars are a commodity to produce. EV’s are immature prototypes from a manufacturing perspective. EVs will eventually mature the process. Quite honestly, Tesla’s design has gotten a little stale. That by no means they will fail. Just another step in the process, customer demand. Exciting times with high stakes.

[Lordosis]

Isn't Ford invested into rivian? Seems odd they would invest on their most likely competitor.

[Tim]

Isn't Ford invested into rivian? Seems odd they would invest on their most likely competitor.

Ford was/is an investor and had a contract for Rivian to produce an EV for the Lincoln brand. It had a purpose and seat on the board. Very common with a supply chain. That deal (for whatever reason) has been terminated. Ford has voluntarily resigned from the board. The business need may rekindle with contracts or joint ventures. From a governance perspective, they can compete or establish vendor relations at arms length. Free to harvest huge returns on the investment or retain it. Avoids public shareholder conflicts. The same conflicts will exist with Amazon.
Significant shareholder being customers always raise issues of related party influence. Ford invested in a supplier that also was a competitor in other segments.
Very profitably right now.

[CordMcNally]

Isn't Ford invested into rivian? Seems odd they would invest on their most likely competitor.

I'm guessing Ford probably saw it as a way to make some easy money. I thought I had read the Ford, Amazon, and another popular brand that I can't remember had ownership stake.

[Panscan]

I did not read all the responses but i wonder if we are seeing a stock market / crypto / nonsense bubble? Like the .com bubble but with some differences.
companies that don’t really make $

Money/currency = crypto that is difficult to value and goes up due “the greater fool”

”green” technology that is not really all that green nor all that reliable.

I bought a used 2013 honda civic in 2016 for 13k.

13k cash and done.

This civic gets amazing gas mileage and costs 13k.

Someone who buys an EV for 70-100k could have bought a civic and used the difference to help the environment. 70-13= 57k

57k used intelligently can have an impact.

When there is an electric civic that costs 20k and goes 300 miles on a charge, I might buy one, but a 100k truck?

Aside from the environmental concerns, buying IPOs is not intelligent behavior.

Crypto / EV stocks / meme stocks……….yeah, VTSAX and get off my lawn.

Yes almost certainly a bubble just tough to know when it will pop and lots of profits can be made on way up.