By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Rivian stock (NASDAQ:RIVN) plummeted 8% in Friday’s premarket trading after third-quarter loss rose more than four times and the company said it expected production to fall a few hundred vehicles short of its 2021 target of 1,200 units.
The EV-maker, touted as an emerging rival to Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), said it will spend $5 billion to set up a plant in Georgia, its second.
Net loss at the company soared to $1.2 billion, mostly due to higher R&D spend and losses on convertible debt.
Compounding the disappointment were the pre-orders for its pickup R1T and special utility vehicle R1S that at 71,000 units, according to Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) analyst Adam Jonas, as quoted by Reuters, were at the low end of expectations.
The company also said production will be "a few hundred vehicles short" of its 2021 target of 1,200 due to supply chain constraints.
The lack of chips has strangled production of vehicles at automakers, particularly tech-heavy vehicles built by startups like Rivian. The company made its public debut last month and commands a market cap of $97 billion even though it had booked no meaningful revenue.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) owns 20% of Rivian and Ford (NYSE:F) owns about 12%
Rivian also has a contract to deliver 100,000 electric delivery vans for Amazon by 2025.