Rivian (RIVN) is outpacing other EV startups in registrations
Electric vehicle sales continue breaking records as automakers ramp production. Compared to other EV startups like Lucid (LCID) and VinFast (VFS), Rivian (RIVN) is outpacing the pack as registrations continue rising.
Rivian’s EV registrations rise through July
Rivian placed eighth in terms of US registrations from January through July, with 2.8% of the overall EV market, according to recent Experian data (via Automotive News).
The EV maker recorded 2,750 registrations in July for its R1T and R1S electric SUV, a slight improvement over its monthly average of 2,596 through the first half of the year.
From January to July, Rivian’s new registrations reached 18,359 (not including EDVs). Rivian’s R1T electric truck had 7,611 of those registrations, while the R1S had 10,748. The company is transitioning to produce more R1S models to meet the higher backlog. R1S models represented 70% of units of R1 series models built in Q2.
After crushing second-quarter estimates with production rising 50% from Q1 (13,992 units), Rivian raised its guidance for the year to 52,000. According to CEO RJ Scaringe, ramping up its in-house Eduro drive units is a “key enabler” to near-term production performance.
Speaking at Morgan Stanley’s 11th annual Laguna Conference Thursday, Scaringe says the company has “rounded the corner.”
As the EV maker utilizes its Normal, Ill production facility more efficiently, Rivian’s margins are improving. Gross profit per vehicle delivered improved by $35,000 in the most recent quarter.
Despite the progress, the R1T was beat out by Ford’s F-150 Lightning with 11,883 registrations through July. Ford slashed prices in July by up to $10,000, which the automaker says is helping to drive up demand.
Ford’s lowest-priced F-150 Lightning Pro model now starts at $51,990 (with shipping) with 240 miles EPA range. Meanwhile, the Rivian R1T starts at $74,800 (including shipping) with an estimated 270 miles of range.
Outpacing other startups
Despite the strong growth in EV sales in the US, many startups like Lucid, VinFast, and Fisker are struggling to find their market.
Lucid had 348 registrations for its luxury Air EV in July, bringing its yearly total to 3,789 through July. The luxury EV maker dropped prices by up to $12,400 last month, with the 2023 Air electric sedan starting at $82,400.
Production has slipped after peaking in the fourth quarter of 2022, with 4,487 EVs built through the first half of the year. Lucid fell behind Porsche, Cadillac, and Subaru in July’s EV rankings, placing 18th.
Porsche’s sole electric vehicle, the Taycan, recorded 3,935 registrations from January through July, surpassing the Lucid Air.
Analysts point to Lucid’s competition with Tesla, which has slashed prices all year, as the reason for the struggles. Tesla’s Model S now starts at $74,990 with a 405-mile estimated range.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese newcomer VinFast had 19 new VF 8 electric SUV registrations in July, bringing the seven-month total to 170.
VinFast debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange last month, with its value quickly surpassing that of Ford and GM. However, the EV maker’s value has fallen significantly over the past month, with share prices down over 80% from their peak.
After delivering its first EV in the US in June, Fisker’s Ocean had 30 new registrations in July, bringing the total to 37 for the year. Due to its recent launch, Fisker ranked last among the 26 brands in July.
With Rivian outpacing the group, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said he sees the company as “one of the core EV players over the next decade” last month. He added, “Demand looks strong” and “visibility is improving into 2024.”
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The US battery energy storage market added 5,597 megawatt hours (MWh) in the second quarter of 2023, a new quarterly record.
The grid-scale segment of the industry drove the market with a record-breaking 5,109 MWh in Q2, beating the previous record in Q4 2021 by 5%, according to Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association’s (ACP) latest US Energy Storage Monitor report.
The grid-scale segment achieved 172% growth quarter-over-quarter. California was No. 1 among states with the most grid-scale energy storage installations, with 738 MW and a 49% share of installed capacity.
Wood Mackenzie projects the grid-scale segment to be the main driver of the market in its five-year forecast from 2023-27, accounting for 83% of total installations, or 55 gigawatts (GW).
ACP’s VP of research and analytics, John Hensley, said:
The energy storage market is on pace for a record year, as utilities and larger power users increasingly turn to storage to enhance the grid and improve reliability.
The market is on pace to nearly double annual installations despite supply chain challenges and interconnection delays, and will continue to grow quickly in coming years.
Community, commercial, and industrial (CCI) installations, at 107 MWh, were higher than any quarter in 2022 but couldn’t keep pace with the huge spike in Q1 installations, resulting in a 53% quarterly decline. However, the segment is still up 25% year-over-year.
Residential storage saw its second-straight quarter of decline at 381.2 MWh, behind Q1’s 388.2 MWh. California saw the biggest decline, decreasing 17% quarter-over-quarter and 37% year-over-year.
Vanessa Witte, senior analyst with Wood Mackenzie’s energy storage team, said, “We still project strong growth for the residential segment in our five-year outlook, reaching a total of 8 GW in 2027. However, the CCI segment continues to fail to meet growth projections and we have downgraded its five-year growth forecast by 28% to 3 GW.”
On Friday, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $325 million for 15 projects across 17 states and one tribal nation to accelerate the development of long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies. The DOE has set a goal to reduce the cost of LDES by 90% by 2030.
Read more: Volvo is going to turn used EV batteries into new battery storage
Photo: Jupiter Power; Graphs: US Energy Storage Monitor Q3 2023 | American Clean Power Association, Wood Mackenzie
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Tesla has released an update with progress on its Optimus humanoid robot with a video that almost looks like CGI.
Optimus, also known as Tesla Bot, has not been taken seriously by many outside of the more hardcore Tesla fans, and for good reasons.
When it was first announced, it seemed to be a half-baked idea from CEO Elon Musk with a dancer disguised as a robot for visual aid. It also didn’t help that the demo at Tesla AI Day last year was less than impressive.
At the time, Tesla had a very early prototype that didn’t look like much. It was barely able to walk around and wave at the crowd. That was about it.
But we did note that the project was gaining credibility with the latest update at Tesla’s 2023 shareholders meeting earlier this year.
At the time, Tesla showed several more prototypes that all looked more advanced and started to perform actually useful tasks.
Tesla has now released a new update on Optimus with a video showcasing the ability of the robot to sort objects autonomously:
Like the latest versions of Full Self-Driving, Tesla also notes that Optimus is now being trained with neural nets end-to-end.
The video shows that Tesla is again making progress with the Tesla bot, which looks more refined in this update. The mechanics look more stable with a prototype balancing on one foot.
The video even looks CGI at times, but everything points to Tesla actually having those working prototypes around its offices.
In a previous update on Optimus, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that the “Optimus stuff is extremely underrated.” The CEO said that the demand could be as high as 10 to 20 billion units.
He went as far as “confidently predicting” that Optimus will account for “a majority of Tesla’s long-term value.”
There’s no clear timeline for bringing the product to market, but Tesla is expected to first use it in its own operations.
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