Why did Rivian Automotive (RIVN) crash in pre-market trading?

Highlights

• Rivian made its debut on the US market in November, raising US$12 billion.
• The firm will build its new manufacturing facility in Georgia.
• The construction of the EV plant would cost about US$5 billion.

The stocks of Rivian Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIVN) were trending on Wall Street Friday, December 17, a day after reporting its third-quarter financial results for fiscal 2021. Meanwhile, the firm said that it may miss its annual production target.

Rivian is an electric vehicle maker firm based in Irvine, California. It made its debut on the US market last month while raising US$12 billion in its initial public offering, marking it as the biggest listing of the year.

The firm expects to fall “a few hundred vehicles short” of its target to manufacture 1,200 vehicles by the end of fiscal 2021, the firm stated in its release Thursday. The CEO of the EV maker, R.J. Scaringe, said that boosting the output of the marquee pickup has been "harder than expected". However, there are no long-term or operating hurdles related to the supply chain, he added.

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The stocks of RIVN tumbled over 9% in pre-market trading Friday, following a slump of over 5% the prior day. Meanwhile, the Amazon-backed EV maker announced Thursday that it would build a second factory in Georgia, where it will assemble around 400,000 EVs every year.

Notably, the firm expects to start building its manufacturing facility in the summer of next year, and anticipates starting manufacturing the vehicles in 2024. The cost of the EV plant will be around US$5 billion.

The EV startup has already started manufacturing its first electric pickup trucks at an erstwhile facility of Mitsubishi in Normal, Illinois. On December 16, the firm said that it has already shipped two of its first SUVs.

It also intends to fulfill its commitment of manufacturing 100,000 delivery vans for Amazon, and thus it was looking for a place to build a manufacturing facility to boost its production rate.

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Stock performance & highlights of Rivian Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIVN)

The RIVN stock was priced at US$98.20 at 6:04 am ET, down by 9.80% in pre-market trading Friday, after closing at US$108.87 Thursday. The firm has a market cap of US$97.02 billion. Its stock saw the highest price of US$179.47 and lowest price of US$95.20 in the last 52 weeks.

The trading volume of RIVN was 13,627,640 on December 16. Its stock value decreased by 11.48% since it started trading on Nasdaq on November 10.

The firm reported an operating loss of US$776 million in Q3, FY21, as compared to a loss of US$288 million in the same quarter of the previous year. For the period, it reported a net loss of US$1.23 billion, against a loss of US$288 million in the comparable quarter of the previous year.

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Bottom line:

The EV sector has gained attention from investors in recent months as global leaders have shifted their focus towards the industry. The EV sector is considered a key part in fighting climate change. However, the sector also faced supply hurdles caused by the Covid-19 pandemic but is expected to rebound as the economy is recovering.