Rivian (RIVN) hit its gross profit goal in Q4, now what?
Rivian (RIVN) hit its goal of achieving a positive gross profit in the fourth quarter. The EV maker released its fourth-quarter earnings after the market closed on Thursday. Here’s a full breakdown of Rivian’s Q4 2024 financials.
Rivian achieves first gross profit in Q4 2024 earnings
Yesterday, in our Q4 earnings preview, we noted that the biggest thing investors will be looking for is if Rivian will achieve a positive gross profit as it has guided all year.
Rivian hit its goal, posting a gross profit of $170 million in the fourth quarter, a $776 million improvement from Q4 2023. Of which, $100 million was from auto sales, and the other $60 million was from software and services.
Lower costs, including per vehicle delivered, drove the achievement. In addition to plant upgrades, Rivian saw a noticeable cost improvement after launching its second-generation R1 models.
Rivian posted total fourth-quarter revenue of $1.73 billion, easily topping Wall St expectations of $1.4 billion. Total automotive revenue was $1.52 billion, primarily from the 14,183 vehicles Rivian sold in the quarter. Rivian also generated $299 million from the sale of regulatory credits and $484 million from software and services.
- Rivian Q4 2024 Revenue: $1.73 billion vs $1.4 billion expected
- Rivian Q4 EPS loss: 0.46 loss per share vs 0.68 loss per share expected
CEO RJ Scaringe said, “This quarter, we achieved positive gross profit and removed $31,000 in automotive cost of goods sold per vehicle delivered in Q4 2024 relative to Q4 2023.”
Rivian generated $110 million in automotive gross profit in the quarter compared to a loss of $611 million in Q4 2023. For the full year, Rivian generated a negative automotive gross profit of $7 million, an improvement from the $12 million loss in 2023.
The EV maker produced 49,476 vehicles at its Normal, IL plant last year and delivered 51,579. That includes the R1S SUV, R1T pickup, and electric delivery van (EDV) for Amazon. Earlier this month, Rivian also opened orders for its Commercial Van for customers outside Amazon.
Rivian posted a net loss of $743 million in the fourth quarter, down from an over $1.5 billion loss in Q4 2023. For the full year, Rivian posted a net loss of $4.75 billion, down from $5.43 billion in 2023.
The next growth stage
During the fourth quarter, Rivian also closed its EV joint venture with Volkswagen. The deal is worth up to $5.8 billion, of which Rivian says $3.5 billion is expected to be received over the next few years. Rivian will supply its EV architecture and software for Volkswagen’s next-gen models.
The first will be Rivian’s midsize R2, a smaller, more affordable electric SUV. It will start at around $45,000, or nearly half the current R1S ($77,700) and R1T ($71,700).
Rivian plans to begin R2 production in Normal early next year, but it expects to significantly scale up with its new manufacturing plant in Georgia.
Although it closed its loan agreement with the US DOE for up to $6.6 billion right before Trump took office last month, Georgia Gov Brian Kemp said this week he’s unsure where the funding stands.
Rivian is still confident the funds will be available when they draw on them next year. The plans include building the plant in two stages, each adding 200,000 units of capacity. Rivian’s upcoming R2 and even smaller R3 are “critical drivers in the company’s long-term growth and profitability.”
The company said on Thursday that the DOE loan and capital from the VW partnership, in addition to its current cash and equivalents, “is expected to provide the capital resources to fund operations through the ramp of R2 in Normal, as well as the midsize platform in Georgia—enabling a path to positive free cash flow and meaningful scale.”
Rivian remains focused on cutting costs, improving efficiency, and launching its mass-market R2 electric SUV. The first R2 development vehicles recently completed winter testing. Meanwhile, Rivian is currently expanding its Normal manufacturing plant to prepare for the R2 launch in the first half of 2026.
Scaringe said, “I couldn’t be more excited about R2, and I believe the combination of capabilities and cost efficiencies, along with the amazing level of excitement from customers, will make R2 a truly transformational product for Rivian.”
| Q1 2024 | Q2 2024 | Q3 2024 | Q4 2024 | Full-Year 2024 | 2025 guidance | |
| Deliveries | 13,588 | 13,790 | 10,018 | 14,183 | 51,579 | 46,000 – 51,000 |
| Production | 13,980 | 9,612 | 13,157 | 12,727 | 49,476 | N/A |
Despite this, Rivian expects lower deliveries of between 46,000 and 51,000 in 2025 due to external factors, including changes in government policies and regulations. After delivering more EDVs to Amazon in Q4, Rivian expects lower volume in 2025
The company expects an adjusted EBITDA loss between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion, with Capital Expenditures of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion.
With “meaningful” improvements, including operational efficiencies and reduced variable costs, in addition to higher selling prices with its Tri-Motor model hitting the market, Rivian expects to achieve a modest gross profit in 2025.
Rivian ended the quarter with $7.7 billion in cash and equivalents. Including other capital, the company ended the year with slightly over $9 billion in liquidity.
Check back for more updates from Rivian’s fourth-quarter earnings call. We’ll post updates below.
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Ford’s electric pickup truck is back at the top. The F-150 Lightning is once again the best-selling electric pickup in the US after overtaking the Tesla Cybertruck in the first quarter.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup
After launching in 2023, Tesla’s Cybertruck quickly outpaced the Lightning to become America’s top-selling EV pickup last year.
Since Tesla doesn’t break down regional sales, registration data gives us our best estimate. The latest registration data from S&P Global Mobility (via Automotive News) shows that the F-150 Lightning retook the title in March and the first quarter of 2025.
Ford’s electric pickup notched 2,598 registrations in March, topping the Tesla Cybertruck with 2,170. In the first quarter, the F-150 Lightning remained ahead with 7,913 registrations, compared to the Cybertruck’s 7,126.
Although the Cybertruck was the fifth top-selling EV in the US last year, it didn’t even crack the top ten in March. It placed ninth through the first three months of 2025, behind the Volkswagen ID.4.
While Tesla and Ford remained the leaders in the electric pickup market, several new models are gaining momentum. According to the most recent numbers from Cox Automotive, GM sold 2,383 Chevy Silverado EVs and 1,249 GMC Sierra EV models in Q1. Meanwhile, Rivian sold 1,727 R1Ts during the quarter.
Earlier today, Electrek reported that new models, including the Honda Prologue and Chevy Blazer EV, helped drive EV registrations up 20% in the US in March.
Although the Lightning reclaimed the crown from Tesla, Ford’s electric pickup isn’t exactly flying off the lot. Ford reported Lightning sales fell 16% to just 1,740 units in April. Through April 2025, Ford has sold 8,927 electric trucks, down 9% from the 9,833 it handed over last year.
Electrek’s Take
To be fair, Tesla is still ahead by a wide margin in the US. The S&P numbers show Tesla had over 51,000 registrations in March, up 1% after two months of lower YOY growth.
GM’s Chevy surpassed Ford to become the second-best-selling EV brand with nearly 8,500 registrations, an increase of 274% from last year. Ford dropped to third with 7,361 registrations.
Although it’s just one quarter, it’s starting to show how Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s political antics are likely impacting sales. After the Cybertruck’s initial hype, it appears many buyers are opting for traditional pickups, like the F-150 Lighting.
Meanwhile, Ram is delaying its first electric pickup, the 1500 REV, again. Ram is pushing production back until summer 2027, saying it’s “extending the quality validation period.” The plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Ramcharger will also be delayed until the first quarter of 2026.
After pulling the Ramcharger ahead of the fully electric version last year, Stellantis blamed weak demand for EV pickups in the US.
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Environment
Podcast: EV tax credit on chopping block, Tesla’s China problem, Slate gets interest, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss how the GOP plans to kill the EV tax credit, Tesla’s China problem, Slate getting some interest, and more.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):
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Tesla’s Austin robotaxi fleet will be powered by ‘plenty of teleoperation’ as it “can’t screw up”, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley after meeting with Tesla.
You won’t hear anything negative about Tesla from Morgan Stanley very often.
Morgan Stanley’s Tesla analyst, Adam Jonas, has often been described as a ‘Tesla cheerleader’ on Wall Street for his extremely rosy view of the company. He generally believes whatever Elon Musk claims and adds a slight delay to the CEO’s timeline.
Recently, Jonas met with Tesla with some clients and released a new note that he hinted to be based on what he learned from Tesla during the meeting.
He claims that the planned “robotaxi” rollout in Austin next month is going to use “plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels”:
Austin’s a ‘go’ but fleet size will be low. Think 10 to 20 cars. Public roads. Invite only. Plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels (“we can’t screw up”). Still waiting for a date.
‘Tele ops’ stands for teleoperations, meaning that Tesla employees will be able to remotely access Tesla’s vehicles and operate them in some capacity.
Last year, Electrek reported that Tesla started hiring for this teleoperation team before the Robotaxi launch in Austin.
We have been extensively reporting on how much Tesla’s planned robotaxi fleet in Austin diverges from its previously disclosed plans of deploying “unsupervised Full Self-Driving” in its consumer vehicles.
Tesla plans to deploy “10-20” Model Y vehicles to offer ride-hailling services in a geo-fenced area of Austin, Texas using a version of its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ (FSD), but instead of being supervised by a driver inside the vehicle, like the current product in consumer vehicles, Tesla is going to used employees to remotely supervise the vehicles.
The service is supposed to launch in June.
Electrek’s Take
I seriously don’t get why anyone could get excited about this. It is going to be a bit better than the current FSD, which has stalled for months as Tesla focuses on optimizing the system for Austin, but it will still basically be supervised – just remotely.
There’s a chance that it won’t even be remote as some believe Tesla will even fumble that timeline and use safety drivers, but I don’t know. I’m about 50/50 on that prediction right now.
Remote supervisors make more sense as Tesla can claim a little victory even though it would be less impressive than what Waymo has been doing for years.
The real goal that Tesla sold to consumers is that their privately owned vehicles would become self-driving without supervision and we are still so far from that. It’s clear that this project is mainly to distract them from that fact.
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