Rivian cost reduction measures have it much closer to profitability, but the company warns that 2025 could still be a difficult year – in particular because of the verticil of uncertainty caused by the new Trump administration.
Business announcement Thursday, its financial results of the fourth quarter and the whole year of the year 2024, and with it, shared plans to provide between 46,000 and 51,000 electric vehicles in 2025. Rivian warned that “modifications to policies and government regulations, and a difficult demand environment “could affect those results, according to the shareholder letter, the electric vehicle manufacturer has published in parallel with its results.
Rivian did not say what these changes might be, but Trump said on the campaign track that he was inclined to find a means of Kill the federal tax credit of $ 7,500. Friend of the Trump Vivek Ramas Administration also called For the recovery of a loan of $ 6.6 billion from the Ministry of Energy to build a factory in Georgia. This loan was finalized three days before Trump took up his duties.
“We are really impatient to work with the new administration and the Ministry of Energy on our loan, and we share the president’s desire to bring jobs to the United States,” Rivian’s financial director, Claire McDonough said on Thursday. , during a conference call, during a conference call, noting that the company plans to create 7,500 manufacturing jobs at the expected Georgia factory. She said later in the appeal that Rivian planned to take a blow as important as “hundreds of millions” of dollars linked to prices, to any loss of EV credits and other policy changes.
“We really believe, and we are very aligned with the administration on this subject, that the United States must continue to be a world leader in this regard, and our investment in electronics, in software, in the Autonomy and AI – These are the keys the areas for us as a country to continue to exercise a leadership position, “said CEO RJ Scargen, during the call.
The tear of the Rivian cost reduction
Rivian spent a large part of 2024 on cost tear. He dismissed 10% of his workforce in February and deployed simplified and cheaper versions to make his flagship electric vehicles – the R1T pick -up and the SUV R1S – in June. The company ended up modifying 600 parts on these vehicles to lower manufacturing costs, while reorganizing its electrical architecture and its software user interface.
Changes like those helped Rivian note $ 170 million in positive gross profits in the last quarter of 2024 – although $ 60 million came from software and services.
Rivian said $ 1.7 billion in revenues for the fourth quarter, an increase of 32% compared to the same period in 2023. The major part of its fourth quarter revenues – about 1.5 billion dollars – came From the sale of 14,183 vehicles as well as $ 299 million in the sale of zero -meditates regulatory credits to car manufacturers. For the year, Rivian reported $ 325 million in revenue thanks to the sale of regulatory credits.
Software income is increasingly playing an important role. Rivian generated $ 214 million from software and fourth quarters, double the amount of the same period. Rivian said $ 484 million in revenue for 2024 software and services.
Rivian is perhaps in the construction and sale of electric vehicles, but its future is also largely pinned to software, namely a lucrative joint venture with the Volkswagen group.
Software income has been mainly fired by charging and subscription costs, repair and maintenance services and new electrical architecture and software development services provided by joint venture, according to Rivian.
Gen Ai arrives in Rivian
The company turned to a generative AI as a tool to rationalize customer service and reduce costs. The idea is to use the AI to automate processes and “considerably reduce the general administrative costs on all not distributed tasks,” said the company in its shareholders’ letter.
What it looks like in practice is an AI assistant, or chatbot, integrated into the Rivian application. The company deployed a beta version in the Rivian mobile application for R1 customers last December.
The AI assistant was built using an internal AI agent agent infrastructure combination and third-language third-party models, according to a Rivian spokesperson, who added that the company had railings in place to limit conversation to the Rivian service and questions related to guides.
The AI assistant was designed to answer questions about service needs and general questions about the vehicle. A company spokesperson said that he can also make basic troubleshooting, collect the information necessary for the service and answer general questions about the vehicle.
This story has been updated with information from the Call of Rivian’s quarterly profits.
