Rivian’s cost-cutting measures have gotten it quite a bit nearer to profitability, however the firm is warning that 2025 may nonetheless be a difficult 12 months — particularly due to the whorl of uncertainty brought on by the brand new Trump administration.
The corporate introduced Thursday its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 monetary outcomes, and together with it, shared plans to ship between 46,000 and 51,000 EVs throughout 2025. Rivian cautioned that “adjustments to authorities insurance policies and laws, and a difficult demand setting” may have an effect on these outcomes, in line with the shareholder letter the EV maker launched alongside its outcomes.
Rivian didn’t specify what these adjustments could be, however Trump stated on the marketing campaign path that he was inclined to discover a method to kill the $7,500 federal EV tax credit score. Buddy of the Trump administration Vivek Ramaswamy has additionally referred to as for the clawback of a $6.6 billion mortgage from the Division of Vitality to construct a plant in Georgia. That mortgage was finalized three days earlier than Trump took workplace.
“We’re actually wanting ahead to working with the brand new administration and Division of Vitality on our mortgage, and we share within the President’s need to deliver jobs again to the US,” Rivian’s chief monetary officer Claire McDonough stated on a convention name Thursday, noting that the corporate plans to create 7,500 manufacturing jobs on the deliberate Georgia plant. She stated later within the name that Rivian is planning to take a success as massive as “lots of of tens of millions” of {dollars} associated to tariffs, any lack of EV credit, and different coverage adjustments.
“We actually imagine, and we’re very aligned with the administration on this, that the U.S. must proceed to be a world chief on this regard, and our funding into electronics, into software program, into autonomy and AI — these are actually key areas for us as a rustic to proceed to train a management place in,” CEO RJ Scaringe stated on the decision.
Rivian’s cost-cutting tear
Rivian spent a lot of 2024 on a cost-cutting tear. It laid off 10% of its workforce in February, and rolled out simplified, cheaper-to-make variations of its flagship EVs — the R1T pickup and the R1S SUV — in June. The corporate ended up altering 600 components on these automobiles to drive down manufacturing prices, whereas additionally revamping its electrical structure and software program consumer interface.
Modifications like these helped Rivian notch $170 million of constructive gross revenue within the last quarter of 2024 – although $60 million of that got here from software program and providers.
Rivian reported $1.7 billion in income for the fourth quarter, a 32% enhance from the identical interval in 2023. The majority of its This fall income — about $1.5 billion — got here from the sale of 14,183 automobiles in addition to $299 million from the sale of zero-emissions regulatory credit to automakers. For the 12 months, Rivian reported $325 million in revenues from the sale of regulatory credit.
Income from software program is more and more enjoying an necessary function. Rivian generated $214 million from software program and providers within the fourth quarter, double the quantity from the same-year in the past interval. Rivian reported $484 million in income for 2024 from software program and providers.
Rivian could also be within the enterprise of constructing and promoting EVs, however its future can be largely pinned to software program, specifically by a profitable three way partnership with Volkswagen Group.
Income from software program was primarily pushed by charging and subscriptions charges, restore and upkeep providers, and new automobile electrical structure and software program growth providers supplied by the three way partnership, in line with Rivian.
Gen AI involves Rivian
The corporate has turned to generative AI as one software to streamline customer support and scale back prices. The thought is to make use of AI to automate processes and “drastically scale back administrative overhead on all non-repair duties,” the corporate stated in its shareholder letter.
What that appears like in follow is an AI assistant, or chatbot, built-in into the Rivian app. The corporate rolled out a beta model within the Rivian cell app for R1 prospects this previous December.
The AI assistant was constructed utilizing a mixture of in-house AI agent infrastructure and a third-party massive language fashions, in line with a Rivian spokesperson, who added the corporate has guardrails in place to restrict the dialog to Rivian service and guide-related questions.
The AI assistant was designed to reply questions on service wants and common questions concerning the automobile. An organization spokesperson stated it may possibly additionally do primary troubleshooting, accumulate essential data for service, and reply common questions concerning the automobile.
This story has been up to date with data from Rivian’s quarterly earnings name.
