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Rivian Automotive is having a promising debut on the stock market, with shares of the electric vehicle maker soaring more than 50%.
The opening trade of $106.75 gave Rivian a market value of about $91 billion, greater than that of Ford and General Motors. That’s noteworthy because Rivian has so far delivered about 150 of its electric pickup trucks to customers, mostly employees, whereas Ford and GM sell millions of cars globally each year.
Ford is one of Rivian’s high-profile backers, having invested a half-billion dollars into the company in 2019. The other is Amazon, which held a 20% stake in Rivian ahead of the IPO.
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Rivian is aiming to take advantage of a growing appetite among consumers and investors for electric vehicles. It joins what’s becoming a long line of companies trying to peel away market share from Tesla, which has dominated the market for EVs.
Rivian priced the offering of 153 million shares at $78, giving it proceeds of nearly $12 billion. The company said it will use the proceeds from the IPO to ramp up production of its trucks, vans and SUVs.
Read More: Everything to Know About Rivian, the Next Electric Vehicle Darling
Automakers big and small, new and old, are chasing Tesla, which has largely dominated the electric vehicle market for years, amassing a market value of more than $1 trillion along the way. So far this year, Tesla has sold around 627,300 vehicles.
Craig Irwin, an analyst who covers electric vehicle and EV charging companies for Roth Capital, says that even with more companies entering the EV market, there is still plenty of room for newcomers.
“EVs are inevitable, and it’s a good thing for the markets to have another credible EV competitor come public,” Roth said. “Rivian’s IPO marks a point of incremental maturation for the industry and shows that billions in capital is available for credible players.”
Rivian has a contract with Amazon to build 100,000 electric delivery vans at its factory, a…
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Source : time
