Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe poses for a portrait after unveiling the Rivian R1T electric truck at an event at the Griffith Observatory on Nov. 26, 2018, in Los Angeles. Rivian Automotive Inc. emerged as a darling of investors — a brand with promise of bringing the “cool” factor to the once-red-hot market for electric vehicles.
“We’ve been living in this wave of ‘Oh, EVs are great, they’re going to continue the accelerated growth and only going to get better,’ and now it seems like they’re hitting this reality point,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds. “Mass-market buyers have less income and a lot more questions.”
“It’s not always easy to set up a charger where you live,” she said. “At the end of the day, for EVs to take off and become mass market, there needs to be major growth in infrastructure.” “Cutting costs and headcount to reflect a softer environment and production issues,” he wrote in an email. “Rivian went from a Cinderella story to a horror show.”
The company attributed the lower expectations for 2024 to “economic and geopolitical uncertainties,” and highlighted the effect of higher interest rates on new car loans. Rivian said it would continue its “company-wide cost transformation program,” which it said helped reduce the price for the company’s electric pickup truck, SUV and delivery van.