Nice logo, nice vehicles – but that doesn’t justify a $ 100 billion valuation.
(Photo: Reuters)
Dusseldorf The stock market prospectus already shows a lot: on the first seven pages you can see color photos with lots of backlighting, laughing people and electric vehicles from Rivian – an impression that should perhaps dazzle investors. Only then do you come across balance sheet figures that are less cheerful. The electric vehicle manufacturer expects sales of less than one million dollars for the current quarter. The loss, on the other hand, can run up to $ 1.28 billion.
Nevertheless, investors are currently valuing the start-up at well over $ 100 billion. A record in the history of the stock market, even in times of exuberance, the valuation makes you rub your eyes in amazement. For comparison: BMW comes to almost 70 billion dollars.
How can that be? Two things speak for Rivian. The Californian company launched an electric pickup truck earlier than any other manufacturer. Although it has only delivered a few R1Ts so far, it is faster than Ford with the F-150 Lightning or Tesla with the Cybertruck on the market.
The R1T is met with enthusiasm among car experts. However, the high acceleration is typical of electric vehicles and not an outstanding performance from Rivian. Similar euphoric praise was heard after test drives with the F-150 Lighting, for example. The pick-up from Ford will not come until 2022, but will in all likelihood win large market shares as the undisputed market leader in the segment.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
You can also be practically certain: Ford’s production figures will skyrocket quickly. You can’t really count on that with the newcomer Rivian. Only 156 R1T have been delivered so far, by the end of the year there should be a thousand. Anyone who is familiar with car manufacturing knows that problems in production – such as those that plagued Tesla for a long time – are inevitable for newcomers.
Complaint from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
Another reason for the high stock market valuation is the online mail order company Amazon, which holds more than a fifth of Rivian shares. Rivian wants to give out around 100,000 delivery vehicles to the e-commerce giant by 2030, and it should be 10,000 in the coming year.
But can Rivian meet the deadline? There are doubts. “It has to prove itself, without question,” said former Amazon boss Jeff Bezos a few weeks ago. Rivian boss RJ Scaringe is “one of the greatest entrepreneurs I have ever met”. Bezos then limited the praise: “Well, RJ, where are our delivery vehicles ?!” A sentence that should make investors think.
More: “German carmakers are watching this very closely”: Rivian starts with a hefty price increase on the stock exchange