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Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

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Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#101
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like their cars, but they’re not practical replacements for a full size pickup truck (as the F-150 Lightning is). Anyway, they’re competing more with range rover and jeep than trucks, which is fine (and also a mostly-unaddressed segment).

> they’re not practical replacements for a full size pickup truck (as the F-150 Lightning is). Why not? I’ve done “truck stuff” in a Rivian, like towing a 5 ton car trailer over the Sierra Nevadas. They have the same towing capacity and the Rivian has better battery range. They also cost the same similarly equipped. What’s the issue?

Probably bed size.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#102

How does this company — or any company, for that matter — continue operating in the long term with that much significant (i.e. 1B) gross loss?

The gross loss is driven by $920M in losses on firm purchase commitments. As I understand it, Rivian has entered into contracts with suppliers to buy some components needed to manufacture its vehicles at fixed prices over some future period of time, likely several years. If the market prices of those components decrease, the value of those contracts also decreases. In some sense this isn't a "real" loss - Rivian will still be buying the same components, at the same prices, on the same dates that it expected to at the start of the quarter. But the market prices of the components went down, which creates a paper loss, which they have to mark to market.

That also creates a timing mismatch - Rivian's revenue in Q4 was $663M and its cost of revenue was $1663M, but most of the $1663M is associated with vehicles that they haven't delivered or even manufactured yet, so they'll recognize that revenue in future quarters. I don't know what it actually costs them to manufacture one vehicle, but I bet it's a lot less than 2.5x the revenue they get from that vehicle.

Leaving aside the accounting and addressing your real question: From a quick search it looks like Rivian has raised a total of $23B of capital between VC rounds and its IPO, and it has $13B of current assets (mostly cash + inventory) as of 12/31, so that gives it a fairly long runway even at its current burn rate. But its burn rate - loosely, revenue minus expenses - is expected to slow over time, assuming that (1) its revenue grows faster than expenses (it's expecting deliveries to ~double this year, which should increase revenue at a similar rate) and (2) its unit economics work out, i.e., its "true" cost of revenue is less than its revenue.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#103
post #97
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla makes better software right now. But the profit-margins argument seems to be a misconception [1]. Until Tesla distances itself from Musk, I also don't think the brand will stay 'cool' for that long. [1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins...

I don’t think those are fully like to like comparisons though. You have to run those numbers just for electric. Nobody I know would cross shop a Tesla and a Rav 4. They can have their margins on their ICE catalog but they don’t have it on their electric yet even with the dealer network numbers added in.

This we can agree on, but just as an example VW will have those margins within this year and electric sales are about a third of Teslas: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#104

How does this company — or any company, for that matter — continue operating in the long term with that much significant (i.e. 1B) gross loss?

The point of taking investment is to use it to grow the business faster than it can grow organically.

(It's pretty much impossible to start a car company without outside investment. Just look at its factory.)

They will probably run at a loss until they can figure out how to lower their costs, and then make more volume. Pretty typical stuff, really.

I also suspect they will need outside investment. Given their relationship with Amazon, I could see Amazon supporting them until they're profitable.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#105
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the F-150 Lightning isn’t a good replacement for any pickup truck use cases that require towing or going far off the beaten path outside the reach of charging stations. There’s still no EV equivalent of just throwing a couple gas cans in the bed to extend the range. It’s good for typical suburban pickup truck uses though and could be a good farm truck since you could just charge it at home.

Electricity is everywhere. Like. Everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before the charging network expands.

Electricity assuredly is NOT everywhere. There are large swaths of the US where you will be very far from a plug. Also, it takes an impractical amount of time to charge an EV pickup truck on anything other than a fast charger.

We are not anywhere near where the infrastructure is ready for EV pickup trucks to be practical for a large number of people that currently need them. We may get there some day, but not for decades without a huge breakthrough in battery charging technology or manhattan project level investment in charging infrastructure.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#106
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rivian is a full-size truck and performs as good or better than the Lightning for similar tasks.

What's the price comparison?

Ford has been rapidly raising their prices (so it’s hard to keep track) but last I saw starting prices were $73k for the Rivian and $56k for the Lightning.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#107
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That bed length disadvantage is pretty significant if you're coming to it from the "truck user" market vs the "weekend camper" or "soccer mom" market. I was interested in a Rivian until I saw one in person and saw how short that bed was. It wasn't the first spec I'd looked at on paper, but jumped out in-person. In that size I'd probably go cheap with a Maverick hybrid for now until there are more full-EV competitors.

I wouldn't count on Maverick to be available. All 2023 Mavericks were ordered in September 2022. I'll probably wait until 2025 to get one.

Rivian's aren't exactly available either.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#108
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hear this all the time. There is no such thing as a huge lead in automaking. It’s an incredibly clonable product, and each company has huge teams taking apart each others products. It’s also not really the product that matters. It’s service centers, parts, repairs, manufacturing capacity. The traditional companies have entrenched supply chains to get parts, and cars, across the country and into hands. All the new…

Think of it from the perspective of disruption. Large, incumbent businesses get disrupted all the time. A major indicator of a David beating a Goliath is when the rules of the business change. And, with EVs, the rules of the business have changed, pretty much overnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma IMO: Rivian is ripe for a major investment from an outsider with a lot of cash, (like Amazon,…

If I recall correctly, Rivian is hugely invested into by Cox (specifically Cox Automotive started with a 350M investment), Amazon (750M in 2019 alone), and even Ford (around 500M investment in 2019).

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#109
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we're talking solely about cities here; suburban and rural areas can never be sustainably and cost-effectively served by public transit, at least not the kind of areas with densities you'll find in the US. Certainly US cities are very weak on the public transit front, and there's a lot of improvement that can be made there. Even then, though, there are a lot of municipalities in the US that technically…

Switzerland has villages with only hundreds of people that regularly receive train service. There are states with similar GDP, size and density as Switzerland that do not have any train service. Sprawling suburbs are a giant scam - the cost of providing urban amenities (power, internet, sewage) to these neighborhoods is much higher than it appears. The lines of pipes and power lines in sprawling burbs cost wayyyy mor…

The US has counties with larger land areas than the entire country of Switzerland. Also, we largely don't want to live in townhomes and condos.

Update: San Bernardino County is 33% larger than Switzerland with 25% of the population. America is a big place.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#110
post #87
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But their owners love them and the kids love them. If you adjust the market to be just for what they do, electric cars and not all cars, they are indeed wrecking them. It was a segment the ICE car manufacturers mostly ignored and now they have profitable competition where it didn’t exist before. Maybe not wrecked but definitely lold.

Lightly dented? Like I said, their lead means almost nothing. I don’t know what being loved really has to do with production. It won’t take long for a bunch of companies to have equally loved products, and in 30 years, Tesla’s “lead” will be a footnote. Unless they do, future tense, wreck everybody. It’s a weird response to to my claim that everything but the product matters just as much, if not more. I’m not at all…

I guess I could agree to disagree? For the market as a whole maybe it is dented. But that quarter panel that got dented is straight wrecked.

Nobody likes car dealerships anyway so nobody misses that. The new trend amongst the kids these days is buying cars without even test driving them.

My point is that Rivian could easily find a crack that would allow them to be profitable and it wouldn’t even need to be as big as Teslas.

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