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7500 employees, raised $10.5B, filing for an IPO with a valuation that would place them as 6th most valuable car manufacturer - 0 vehicles sold.. this doesn’t s

7500 employees, raised $10.5B, filing for an IPO with a valuation that would place them as 6th most valuable car manufacturer - 0 vehicles sold.. this doesn’t seem right. Some would call this a scam, for some its a bubble, but it’s definitely out of any reasonable bounds of how the game should be played.

siruncledrew 5y ago
It just doesn’t make any sense in the context that the stock market is supposed to be efficient. This kind of “going public” setup seems ridiculous. It’s like there’s a room behind the curtain with some kind of money laundering or backhanded deals being brokered and the company itself is just a ‘front’ to look busy.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  The stock market is theoretically supposed to be efficient, but these days plenty of individual investors are about "the mission" of companies like Tesla, throwing money at shares regardless of any fundamental analysis. I'd imagine Rivian will attract plenty of similar investors, and it'd be kind of silly for Rivian not to take advantage of that opportunity to raise easy money.
  - ianai 5y ago
    Agree. There’s so much money floating around that companies can be brought public with essentially all future possible growth priced into the offering at a very high success. It’s as though everyone assumes every bet is going to come out the most profitable way. No room for error nor even learning process in the valuation.
    - l33tbro 5y ago
      Why do you think it is? I feel like investors are pretty smart and surely understand that these companies are not worth all this. I see what you mean about money floating around. But does it ever reach a point where there is a common sense counter-weight that maybe the latest pets.com is not worth the GDP of a small country.
      - ytdytvhxgydvhh 5y ago
        I know a couple that retired to Miami recently. They know that climate change is real. They think Miami will be decimated by rising oceans at some point. They just don’t think it’ll be while they’re still around, so what do they care? I think Tesla’s stock is overvalued but I’ve momentum traded it a couple of times (especially when Elon’s tweets seem upbeat a couple of days before earnings are announced). Sure I think I’m buying at inflated prices but I’m guessing I can sell at even more inflated prices.
        l33tbro 5y ago
        > They just don’t think it’ll be while they’re still around, so what do they care? Ah yes .. the oblivion>reality optimisation the modern world has been gifted. Never ceases to create interesting use cases. You're smarter than me with trading/finance. I cannot educe much sense from any of it these days - and don't have the kahunas to trade on vibe. Weirdly, my only finance buddy (buys shares for super companies) actually cautiously observes a company's history and their management before investing in stocks. Maybe that'll become the move again once the asset bubble collpases.
- Seanambers 5y ago
  The car market is quite a interesting place nowadays, according to the old lore - the streets would be filled with Tesla killers long ago and Tesla would if possible be bankrupt several times over by now. -This was the general market sentiment only 3-4 years ago, and had at that time prevailed for quite some time. With the latest estimated Q3 production numbers for Tesla they will now have a 1 million annualized rate of car production and it will be growing annually at around 50% for many years to come. (FYI : The numbers came out, real number is 950' annualized.) I'm sure there is a place for Rivian if they can execute,- I will not argue that the price of Rivian is right, but I would interject that the marketplace is shifting and dramatically so. The most reasonable argument is that the stock market does not view the automotive incumbents as competitive against new electric car companies and this shows in the valuation. The old auto companies have not innovated, and now they are being out innovated. Their market share are in free fall and there is a lot of possibility for startups to grab a share of the market. Here's the latest from Germany; Translated quote from VW Brand CEO Ralf Brandstätter; 'It is urgently necessary that a new course is set in Wolfsburg. Future competition with Tesla's new Gigafactory will be brutal. The electric car pioneer sets new standards in car production.. ..For example, a Model 3 is built in 10 hours, more than 3 times as fast as a VW ID.3 in Zwickau. This puts Tesla in another dimension in terms of productivity and profitability' (The ID series of cars were the supposedly Tesla Killers from VW) From ; https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/kampf-gegen-gruenheide-vw-chefs-wollen-wolfsburger-stammwerk-radikal-umbauen-um-gegen-tesla-und-china-cars-zu-bestehen-a/ https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/kampf-gegen-gruenh... some more context; https://twitter.com/alex_avoigt/status/1443993103329857549 https://twitter.com/alex_avoigt/status/1443993103329857549
  - paganel 5y ago
    > For example, a Model 3 is built in 10 hours, more than 3 times as fast as a VW ID.3 in Zwickau. That would explain the panel gaps. On a more serious note, where I think Tesla is way above the other (old) manufacturers is in software, the Germans especially have treated the software as something extrinsic to building a car until now (for good reason, given the circumstances) but this has changed once EVs came into play, you have to have top-notch software developers and top-notch software execution in order to get everything out of a car battery.
nojito 5y ago
>0 vehicles sold This is incorrect, they should hit 10k+ deliveries by the end of the year. The S1 only has data until 9/30/21.
- reciprocity 5y ago
  Is that a speculative or declarative claim you are making? The word "should" in your post implies... that it hasn't happened yet. Do you have a source?
  - nojito 5y ago
    Their public statements. First deliveries have been made to employees, first "real" customers will be in november and they are required to hit their initial Amazon requirement by December. The idea that they have sold 0 is wrong.
    - sgrove 5y ago
      I think the concern is that they've delivered zero vehicles (but even then as you say, with the caveat that they've delivered to employees). I haven't been following Rivian closely, but I was quite impressed by their PR event with Youtube folks recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo - it definitely seems like a real, capable vehicle. Add to that their orders from Amazon (and presumably others at some point), and it seems like a plausible company. Now, whether they have the margins and cash reserves to handle volatile markets / logistical concerns to survive long enough to become a long-term player, I'm not sure.
      - nojito 5y ago
        They spend 1B per year and have 3B cash on hand. They can survive for 3 years and sell zero cars.
jcfrei 5y ago
In this case we are just witnessing the dot-com period of electric vehicles. Everbody and their grandma wants to place bold bets on a few companies. It's (hopefully) clear to investors that most of these bets will fail but then again a few might pay off really well.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Lordstown: Fraud Nikola: Big time Fraud Lucid: Producing cars, no charging network, can they scale? Rivian: Producing cars, no charging network can they scale? Big Auto: Producing cars, no charging network, have scale for everything but batteries. Tesla: Producing cars, scaling including battery production, MAY be able to live up to their valuation, have charging network So the EV IPOs are IPO'ing to be inferior peers to Big Auto. And waiting in the wings are the chinese EV manufacturers. At some point they'll invade the US, especially if LFP chemistry hits 200 wh/kg which they have in labs but not in production. Remember that for cheaper cars, Big auto loses money. The ICE drivetrain is already unprofitable for Big Auto for the historical consumer format, which is why everything is SUV these days. EVs have the potential to deliver a car whose drivetrain is half the cost of an ICE, once batteries get cheap enough. LFP 200 wh/kg basically guarantees a substantial cost advantage of a consumer EV platform over ICEs that ICEs can't overcome, especially given the low-end torque advantages of the driving experience. The 200 wh/kg enables a profitable small EV car. Big Auto won't fight that, and the startups won't either, because they are obsessed with SUVs. The Chinese are basically all-in on LFP, because their market is super small cheap LFP cars. Once the density scales the practical use of LFP to US sized cars (Tesla Model 3s, which are small sedans and not really US-SUV platforms are already LFP) then there will be invasions. At least Rivian has Bezos as a backstop, in Bezos's strange quixotic quest to produce companies that are close to but fundamentally inferior to Musk's, and Amazon as a vendor for the van platform. To me, the big future in automotive is the mobile home. With housing costs exploding due to constrained supply, and a generation fundamentally economically disenfranchised, and with the convergence of broadband 5G/starlink, solar, batteries, and self-driving (at least on highways), the value proposition to young people for a mobile apartment is strong. I think it will start replacing the apartment as the preferred choice out of college. I mean, why cohabitate with four people in a cramped apartment when you can have your own mobile van that drives you to work if you have to, or drives you anywhere else you want to if you don't have to? Drops you off in an urban area and drives off to a cheap/free place to park, picks you up when you need it? Plus with the e-bike revolution for super flexible urbun and suburban mobility...
- postpawl 5y ago
  Saying big automakers don’t have a charging network is false? What about?: https://www.electrifyamerica.com/ https://www.electrifyamerica.com/
kensai 5y ago
Tesla sales already cars, sure, but they also oversell a future that at the moment cannot deliver (Semi, Cybertruck, Roadster, robotaxis). The whole point of jumping early in an IPO is to sell this future promise. Neither Tesla, nor Rivian are doing something wrong if people believe their narrative and invest in such a future.
- tyleo 5y ago
  The difference is that the future Tesla promised came just not on the timeline Tesla promised. I have high confidence that Semi, Cybertruck, Roadster, and Robotaxis will be here as promised, just not on the promised time. Rivian, on the other hand, has not met the promised future on any timeline yet. Perhaps they will, but their past experience does not leave me with such high confidence.
  - e-clinton 5y ago
    Well then you’d agree that Tesla’s current stock price is completely fine, just that the timing is off and should be what it is today in 20 years time when all cars sold on earth are Teslas
ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
I think theres something else going on here, it's a bet that traditional car manufacturers cannot make the full shift to electronic vehicles. Tesla should not have been able to capture the market like they did.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  They haven't captured the market. It's a highly competitive market even if one currently has a shrinking majority headed toward a plurality. Other manufactures are collectively catching up in sales.

siruncledrew 5y ago

It just doesn’t make any sense in the context that the stock market is supposed to be efficient. This kind of “going public” setup seems ridiculous. It’s like there’s a room behind the curtain with some kind of money laundering or backhanded deals being brokered and the company itself is just a ‘front’ to look busy.

lastofthemojito 5y ago
The stock market is theoretically supposed to be efficient, but these days plenty of individual investors are about "the mission" of companies like Tesla, throwing money at shares regardless of any fundamental analysis. I'd imagine Rivian will attract plenty of similar investors, and it'd be kind of silly for Rivian not to take advantage of that opportunity to raise easy money.
- ianai 5y ago
  Agree. There’s so much money floating around that companies can be brought public with essentially all future possible growth priced into the offering at a very high success. It’s as though everyone assumes every bet is going to come out the most profitable way. No room for error nor even learning process in the valuation.
  - l33tbro 5y ago
    Why do you think it is? I feel like investors are pretty smart and surely understand that these companies are not worth all this. I see what you mean about money floating around. But does it ever reach a point where there is a common sense counter-weight that maybe the latest pets.com is not worth the GDP of a small country.
    - ytdytvhxgydvhh 5y ago
      I know a couple that retired to Miami recently. They know that climate change is real. They think Miami will be decimated by rising oceans at some point. They just don’t think it’ll be while they’re still around, so what do they care? I think Tesla’s stock is overvalued but I’ve momentum traded it a couple of times (especially when Elon’s tweets seem upbeat a couple of days before earnings are announced). Sure I think I’m buying at inflated prices but I’m guessing I can sell at even more inflated prices.
      - l33tbro 5y ago
        > They just don’t think it’ll be while they’re still around, so what do they care? Ah yes .. the oblivion>reality optimisation the modern world has been gifted. Never ceases to create interesting use cases. You're smarter than me with trading/finance. I cannot educe much sense from any of it these days - and don't have the kahunas to trade on vibe. Weirdly, my only finance buddy (buys shares for super companies) actually cautiously observes a company's history and their management before investing in stocks. Maybe that'll become the move again once the asset bubble collpases.
Seanambers 5y ago
The car market is quite a interesting place nowadays, according to the old lore - the streets would be filled with Tesla killers long ago and Tesla would if possible be bankrupt several times over by now. -This was the general market sentiment only 3-4 years ago, and had at that time prevailed for quite some time. With the latest estimated Q3 production numbers for Tesla they will now have a 1 million annualized rate of car production and it will be growing annually at around 50% for many years to come. (FYI : The numbers came out, real number is 950' annualized.) I'm sure there is a place for Rivian if they can execute,- I will not argue that the price of Rivian is right, but I would interject that the marketplace is shifting and dramatically so. The most reasonable argument is that the stock market does not view the automotive incumbents as competitive against new electric car companies and this shows in the valuation. The old auto companies have not innovated, and now they are being out innovated. Their market share are in free fall and there is a lot of possibility for startups to grab a share of the market. Here's the latest from Germany; Translated quote from VW Brand CEO Ralf Brandstätter; 'It is urgently necessary that a new course is set in Wolfsburg. Future competition with Tesla's new Gigafactory will be brutal. The electric car pioneer sets new standards in car production.. ..For example, a Model 3 is built in 10 hours, more than 3 times as fast as a VW ID.3 in Zwickau. This puts Tesla in another dimension in terms of productivity and profitability' (The ID series of cars were the supposedly Tesla Killers from VW) From ; https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/kampf-gegen-gruenheide-vw-chefs-wollen-wolfsburger-stammwerk-radikal-umbauen-um-gegen-tesla-und-china-cars-zu-bestehen-a/ https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/kampf-gegen-gruenh... some more context; https://twitter.com/alex_avoigt/status/1443993103329857549 https://twitter.com/alex_avoigt/status/1443993103329857549
- paganel 5y ago
  > For example, a Model 3 is built in 10 hours, more than 3 times as fast as a VW ID.3 in Zwickau. That would explain the panel gaps. On a more serious note, where I think Tesla is way above the other (old) manufacturers is in software, the Germans especially have treated the software as something extrinsic to building a car until now (for good reason, given the circumstances) but this has changed once EVs came into play, you have to have top-notch software developers and top-notch software execution in order to get everything out of a car battery.

nojito 5y ago

>0 vehicles sold This is incorrect, they should hit 10k+ deliveries by the end of the year. The S1 only has data until 9/30/21.

reciprocity 5y ago
Is that a speculative or declarative claim you are making? The word "should" in your post implies... that it hasn't happened yet. Do you have a source?
- nojito 5y ago
  Their public statements. First deliveries have been made to employees, first "real" customers will be in november and they are required to hit their initial Amazon requirement by December. The idea that they have sold 0 is wrong.
  - sgrove 5y ago
    I think the concern is that they've delivered zero vehicles (but even then as you say, with the caveat that they've delivered to employees). I haven't been following Rivian closely, but I was quite impressed by their PR event with Youtube folks recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo - it definitely seems like a real, capable vehicle. Add to that their orders from Amazon (and presumably others at some point), and it seems like a plausible company. Now, whether they have the margins and cash reserves to handle volatile markets / logistical concerns to survive long enough to become a long-term player, I'm not sure.
    - nojito 5y ago
      They spend 1B per year and have 3B cash on hand. They can survive for 3 years and sell zero cars.

jcfrei 5y ago

In this case we are just witnessing the dot-com period of electric vehicles. Everbody and their grandma wants to place bold bets on a few companies. It's (hopefully) clear to investors that most of these bets will fail but then again a few might pay off really well.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Lordstown: Fraud Nikola: Big time Fraud Lucid: Producing cars, no charging network, can they scale? Rivian: Producing cars, no charging network can they scale? Big Auto: Producing cars, no charging network, have scale for everything but batteries. Tesla: Producing cars, scaling including battery production, MAY be able to live up to their valuation, have charging network So the EV IPOs are IPO'ing to be inferior peers to Big Auto. And waiting in the wings are the chinese EV manufacturers. At some point they'll invade the US, especially if LFP chemistry hits 200 wh/kg which they have in labs but not in production. Remember that for cheaper cars, Big auto loses money. The ICE drivetrain is already unprofitable for Big Auto for the historical consumer format, which is why everything is SUV these days. EVs have the potential to deliver a car whose drivetrain is half the cost of an ICE, once batteries get cheap enough. LFP 200 wh/kg basically guarantees a substantial cost advantage of a consumer EV platform over ICEs that ICEs can't overcome, especially given the low-end torque advantages of the driving experience. The 200 wh/kg enables a profitable small EV car. Big Auto won't fight that, and the startups won't either, because they are obsessed with SUVs. The Chinese are basically all-in on LFP, because their market is super small cheap LFP cars. Once the density scales the practical use of LFP to US sized cars (Tesla Model 3s, which are small sedans and not really US-SUV platforms are already LFP) then there will be invasions. At least Rivian has Bezos as a backstop, in Bezos's strange quixotic quest to produce companies that are close to but fundamentally inferior to Musk's, and Amazon as a vendor for the van platform. To me, the big future in automotive is the mobile home. With housing costs exploding due to constrained supply, and a generation fundamentally economically disenfranchised, and with the convergence of broadband 5G/starlink, solar, batteries, and self-driving (at least on highways), the value proposition to young people for a mobile apartment is strong. I think it will start replacing the apartment as the preferred choice out of college. I mean, why cohabitate with four people in a cramped apartment when you can have your own mobile van that drives you to work if you have to, or drives you anywhere else you want to if you don't have to? Drops you off in an urban area and drives off to a cheap/free place to park, picks you up when you need it? Plus with the e-bike revolution for super flexible urbun and suburban mobility...

postpawl 5y ago
Saying big automakers don’t have a charging network is false? What about?: https://www.electrifyamerica.com/ https://www.electrifyamerica.com/

kensai 5y ago

Tesla sales already cars, sure, but they also oversell a future that at the moment cannot deliver (Semi, Cybertruck, Roadster, robotaxis). The whole point of jumping early in an IPO is to sell this future promise. Neither Tesla, nor Rivian are doing something wrong if people believe their narrative and invest in such a future.

tyleo 5y ago
The difference is that the future Tesla promised came just not on the timeline Tesla promised. I have high confidence that Semi, Cybertruck, Roadster, and Robotaxis will be here as promised, just not on the promised time. Rivian, on the other hand, has not met the promised future on any timeline yet. Perhaps they will, but their past experience does not leave me with such high confidence.
- e-clinton 5y ago
  Well then you’d agree that Tesla’s current stock price is completely fine, just that the timing is off and should be what it is today in 20 years time when all cars sold on earth are Teslas

ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago

I think theres something else going on here, it's a bet that traditional car manufacturers cannot make the full shift to electronic vehicles. Tesla should not have been able to capture the market like they did.

mkr-hn 5y ago
They haven't captured the market. It's a highly competitive market even if one currently has a shrinking majority headed toward a plurality. Other manufactures are collectively catching up in sales.