At long last, Rivian is on the verge of going public. It hasn’t yet delivered a single customer car (or truck), but it is aiming to start its public market life with a whopping $80 billion valuation when it has an IPO (initial public offering) later this year.
That might seem like a big IPO target. Well, it is. Nonetheless, Rivian is heavily backed by Amazon, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you see Amazon delivery vans all over the place. No doubt about it, no matter how well Rivian does on the private consumer vehicle market, Amazon should have vehicle needs Rivian could serve for years to come. Well, that’s basically the biggest thing that might justify an $80 billion IPO target for me.
Image courtesy of Rivian.
Another notable thing, though, is that Ford is also a sizable Rivian shareholder. Ford combined with a talented smart EV startup (Rivian) seems like a potentially kick-butt combo. Also, you know that Ford must have conducted a strong evaluation of Rivian’s vehicle design and manufacturing chops before investing a big chunk of money into the startup — at least, as much as can be conducted before a company is actually producing vehicles.
Rivian has a factory in Illinois, and is reportedly considering one in the UK and one in Texas, but production of its R1T electric pickup truck was supposed to begin in the first half of 2021 and has been delayed. It’s said that production should start soon on the electric pickup, and I’m sure Rivian wants to see that smoothly underway by the time it has an IPO. The R1S electric SUV is delayed indefinitely, but I would cautiously expect its production to begin in 2022.
Rivian is expected to IPO on or around November 25.
Neither the R1T or R1S are supposed to be sold to Amazon, but Rivian also committed to delivering 10,000 electric delivery vans to Amazon by the end of next year and 100,000 by the end of 2030.
The R1T electric pickup truck was a 2021 CleanTechnica Car of the Year finalist, but the Volkswagen ID.3 came away with the gold and, technically, the Ford Mustang Mach-E got the silver.
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