Rivian beat Wall Street's third-quarter estimates. Revenue hit $2.155 billion against a $1.98 billion consensus. The stock rose after hours. Your calls expire Friday.
Look at the software line. $605 million, up 45%. Of that, $354 million came from the Volkswagen joint venture. Rivian's software business is mostly a German company paying a California company to build the thing a German company couldn't.
The car business, meanwhile, lost $80 million in gross profit. That's the part where they build cars. Software made $256 million in gross profit. The company is a software firm with a very expensive hobby in Normal, Illinois.
The R2 is now the best-selling Rivian by volume. In its first full quarter. It outsold the R1 and the Amazon van. This is like being named tallest in a family of three.
Rivian blames about $120 million of extra cost on ramping the R2. Costs always rise when you make something people want. Ask anyone who has ever opened a bakery.
Guidance went up. Deliveries now land at 67,000 to 70,000, up from 65,000 to 70,000. They raised the floor by 2,000 cars. That's not confidence. That's a man at the buffet moving his hat one seat closer.
Adjusted EBITDA guidance improved by $100 million at the midpoint. To a loss of $1.75 billion to $1.85 billion. Rivian is on track to lose slightly less money than it planned to lose. Frame that one.
Capex guidance fell by $300 million. Some of the earnings help came from regulatory credits and a tariff refund receivable. Those are not products. Those are paperwork with a pulse.
CEO RJ Scaringe said he could not be more excited about the opportunity ahead. The October software update added Gmail to the in-car assistant and a Halloween Mode. Your $2 billion annual loss now comes with spooky sounds.
Retail traders will see the beat and buy the open. Some will name their kids Point to Point. Rivian's automotive segment still loses money on every quarter's worth of cars, and you will hold it anyway, like a man defending a restaurant that gave him food poisoning.
Photo by Daniel Romero on Unsplash
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