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They will build/sell 1000 cars this year! They should be doing that every day for this kind of evaluation. The truck is nice, but they are playing in the luxur

They will build/sell 1000 cars this year! They should be doing that every day for this kind of evaluation. The truck is nice, but they are playing in the luxury market, which is more limited, and the haven't scaled yet to mass production, which is the hardest part. Right now, everything is build by few batches, and most given to employees. Soo... I think this is a dicey evaluation (it is assuming things can't, wont go wrong). But this market is so crazy, so who knows. Here are the potential pitfalls: 1. The company fails to scale, and has production issues 2. The truck's margin are not good, and operates on a loss for too long 3. The luxury truck market (70k+), which they are currently aiming is small and can't support a large evaluation 4. Competition from current automakers (F-150 Lightening), and GM trucks, which start at 45-60k well equipped, squeezes them from below). Again, there are risks with this kind of evaluation, and while any one of the above risks it not a company killer by itself, two of them will kill this evaluation.

mataug 5y ago
Wasn't Tesla in the same position 10 yrs ago ? You're correct in your observation that $100B is overvalued, but a lot of people are betting big on EVs, no wonder tesla's valuation is much higher than other auto makers
- fastball 5y ago
  Yes but TSLA's market cap 10 years ago was $3B. TSLA didn't pass $100B til last year, when they produced ~510,000 cars.
  - mataug 5y ago
    That's a good point, could it be that in the last couple of years enthusiasm, and potential of EVs have grown so much that the market is okay with the large valuation of EV manufacturers ? Plus we're witnessing more and more of the consequences of our carbon emissions that most people believe EVs are the future ? On a side note, I think EVs are merely a small piece of the puzzle for solving the climate crisis, wholistic solutions must include public transport, walkable neighborhoods, mixed use zoning and a whole lot more, but that's neither here nor there.
  - xboxnolifes 5y ago
    If I were to guess, Rivian's valuation is in large part because of Tesla's success. Tesla proved the path is possible.
    - fastball 5y ago
      Right, but possible =/= probable. Like just because Unity is doing well doesn't mean I should invest in every video game company on the stock market. But I guess the market isn't rational.
- semi-extrinsic 5y ago
  Tesla is still in that position today though, when it comes to valuation? They have a larger valuation than Toyota, even though Toyota has 10x higher revenue at similar profit margin. Toyota produces almost 3x as many cars as Tesla per employee. Sure, they are still growing, but it's unclear how that growth will continue. Especially for Model S and X, there are objectively better options on the market today from the traditional manufacturers (BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Jaguar, Polestar/Volvo, Hyundai) and from new Chinese brands. Just look at deliveries by model, Model S + Model X peaked at 30 k deliveries per quarter way back in 2018, and has been dropping since. They were the first mover, but apparently have not been able to capitalize on that. Of course the stock market today has moved wholeheartedly to embrace the post-fact meme stocks like Gamestop and Tesla, so I'm not stupid enough to bet on the share price dropping.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    > Especially for Model S and X, there are objectively better options There are non technically better then the new S/X. S literally is only beaten by 2.4 million $ super cars. Compare vehicles priced the same from other manufactures and technically the Tesla will beat them. Tesla was busy going down market and payed little attention to S/X and that was good strategy. The new generation of S/X will likely reach the peak of those products and more, but again this is tiny part of the story. Tesla valuation might be high, but they are proven manufacturer, who have delivered strong growth for a decade, have many new factories and products in the pipeline and have proven they can execute. Tesla took a long time before they reached what Rivian is now, and had to prove way more. Comparing them is not quite far. Rivian is surfing on what made Tesla possible.
- asdff 5y ago
  Once auto manufacturers spool up EV production and buyers start buying more EVs, companies like tesla are just screwed. So screwed. They kick started a trend but I don't think they are in a position to hold their market share for very long. A company like Ford has manufacturing facilities around the globe. Tesla makes their cars in a tent, and Rivian is delaying their first order until 2023 despite securing all this funding. Manufacturing is a huge challenge, probably a harder problem to solve than actually designing the EV. To even get the manufacturing capacity that ford has today would cost these companies probably an order of magnitude if not more than what Ford paid to build out this capacity decades ago, given the increases in costs of land, labor, and construction globally over those decades. Best case would be for Tesla or Rivian to lease manufacturing space from an automaker, at which point they always lose out in a price war vs a company that owns their own manufacturing space and doesn't have to lease it from a competitor.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Your opinion on Tesla is built based on twitter hot takes. > spool up EV production and buyers start buying more EVs, companies like tesla are just screwed. That's what people have been saying since 2016. Yet Tesla sells almost 3 times as many BEV as the second best. More then basically all other non-China companies combined. Other manufactures have announced their scaling plans publicly, turns out they can't magically make EVs. You severly underestimate how difficult it is to suddenly build something totally different that depends on different suppliers and supply chains. If it was so easy, why are they not doing it. Why are their plans by 2025 still below what Tesla is doing now in many cases? If its so easy according to you. > Tesla makes their cars in a tent They built 1 final assembly line in 'tent' that was actually a pretty stable fixed structure that pratically is almost no difference to a traditional factory building. The guy who did that was well respected manufacturing engineer that since built the factory for Lucid. The CEO of VW just had an emergency meeting saying that Tesla is doing better in manufacturing then them. I bet you have heard 1000 times about the 'tent' and nothing about the CEO of VW point out that they need to do better to keep up with Tesla. Tesla is doing fantastic at manufacturing and scaling manufacturing, this is a simple fact. Tesla next generation factories are even a significant step beyond what they have done in China, and that factory is doing amazing. Tesla is vertically integrating battery and car manufacture into the same buildings, nobody else is close to that outside of maybe BYD, they have actually made innovations in body manufacture that is beyond what anybody else has, and its not close. Tesla electronics is way beyond any other companies. You seem to have built your opinion of Tesla in 2017 and not adjusted to what actually going on since then. A 'lease manufacturing company' simply doesn't exist that could help Tesla. The best one is Magna Steyr and they couldn't come close to building what Tesla can.
poniko 5y ago
It's amazing they are almost at the same market value as the makers of Porsche ... And that company also happens to do millions of VW, Audi, Skoda, Cupra, Seat, Lamborghini, Ducati, Bently and now own a chunk of the new Bugatti/Rimac I'm having a hard time grasping the valuation..
- nrb 5y ago
  Hard to read it as anything other than epic FOMO on the next Tesla.
bigyellow 5y ago
Yeah! You go and tell that global market what the true valuation is! I'm sure they will listen to the reasonable, diligent analysis put forth and adjust accordingly!
eigenspace 5y ago
> They will build/sell 1000 cars this year! They should be doing that every day for this kind of evaluation. This sort of statement doesn't really make sense. Investors don't invest based on how a company is operating today. At that point, it's basically too late. They invest based on how they believe the company will be doing in the future. Personally, I'm agnostic about the future of Rivian, and suspect this valuation is probably way too high, but I definitely don't think that because of their current production numbers.
- mym1990 5y ago
  Don't you need to take into account current conditions to forecast into the future? Unless there is some silver bullet information or wild speculation, predicting future financial states needs some basis to stand on.
  - eigenspace 5y ago
    Sure it plays a role, but mostly only in mature businesses. But that's clearly not a factor in many other investments. If you truly believe that an immature business like Rivian will explosively grow, then you'd be an idiot to wait for that growth to happen before investing. You'd just be leaving money on the table. Of course, we don't know for sure what'll happen with Rivian, but clearly some people with money have some strong beliefs.
    - kgwgk 5y ago
      Some people with money are buying cryptographic keys with a tenuous connection to digital images of rocks and whatnot. What a time to be alive.
chemeng 5y ago
Valuation is on potential, but I agree with sentiment. They will get mass production up and running over the next 2 years. Whether there will be demand then or not is unclear to me. I think people are underestimating the extent to which the electric F-150 will eat up the demand in the market for Rivian mass market products. So to me, it feels like the bet is their commercial fleet business (Amazon) will grow rapidly and be highly valuable, which given Amazon's 20% stake, seems like a reasonable bet. I don't personally think that's 100Bn mkt cap, but that's why I won't be buying in unless the outlook changes.

mataug 5y ago

Wasn't Tesla in the same position 10 yrs ago ? You're correct in your observation that $100B is overvalued, but a lot of people are betting big on EVs, no wonder tesla's valuation is much higher than other auto makers

fastball 5y ago
Yes but TSLA's market cap 10 years ago was $3B. TSLA didn't pass $100B til last year, when they produced ~510,000 cars.
- mataug 5y ago
  That's a good point, could it be that in the last couple of years enthusiasm, and potential of EVs have grown so much that the market is okay with the large valuation of EV manufacturers ? Plus we're witnessing more and more of the consequences of our carbon emissions that most people believe EVs are the future ? On a side note, I think EVs are merely a small piece of the puzzle for solving the climate crisis, wholistic solutions must include public transport, walkable neighborhoods, mixed use zoning and a whole lot more, but that's neither here nor there.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  If I were to guess, Rivian's valuation is in large part because of Tesla's success. Tesla proved the path is possible.
  - fastball 5y ago
    Right, but possible =/= probable. Like just because Unity is doing well doesn't mean I should invest in every video game company on the stock market. But I guess the market isn't rational.
semi-extrinsic 5y ago
Tesla is still in that position today though, when it comes to valuation? They have a larger valuation than Toyota, even though Toyota has 10x higher revenue at similar profit margin. Toyota produces almost 3x as many cars as Tesla per employee. Sure, they are still growing, but it's unclear how that growth will continue. Especially for Model S and X, there are objectively better options on the market today from the traditional manufacturers (BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Jaguar, Polestar/Volvo, Hyundai) and from new Chinese brands. Just look at deliveries by model, Model S + Model X peaked at 30 k deliveries per quarter way back in 2018, and has been dropping since. They were the first mover, but apparently have not been able to capitalize on that. Of course the stock market today has moved wholeheartedly to embrace the post-fact meme stocks like Gamestop and Tesla, so I'm not stupid enough to bet on the share price dropping.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  > Especially for Model S and X, there are objectively better options There are non technically better then the new S/X. S literally is only beaten by 2.4 million $ super cars. Compare vehicles priced the same from other manufactures and technically the Tesla will beat them. Tesla was busy going down market and payed little attention to S/X and that was good strategy. The new generation of S/X will likely reach the peak of those products and more, but again this is tiny part of the story. Tesla valuation might be high, but they are proven manufacturer, who have delivered strong growth for a decade, have many new factories and products in the pipeline and have proven they can execute. Tesla took a long time before they reached what Rivian is now, and had to prove way more. Comparing them is not quite far. Rivian is surfing on what made Tesla possible.
asdff 5y ago
Once auto manufacturers spool up EV production and buyers start buying more EVs, companies like tesla are just screwed. So screwed. They kick started a trend but I don't think they are in a position to hold their market share for very long. A company like Ford has manufacturing facilities around the globe. Tesla makes their cars in a tent, and Rivian is delaying their first order until 2023 despite securing all this funding. Manufacturing is a huge challenge, probably a harder problem to solve than actually designing the EV. To even get the manufacturing capacity that ford has today would cost these companies probably an order of magnitude if not more than what Ford paid to build out this capacity decades ago, given the increases in costs of land, labor, and construction globally over those decades. Best case would be for Tesla or Rivian to lease manufacturing space from an automaker, at which point they always lose out in a price war vs a company that owns their own manufacturing space and doesn't have to lease it from a competitor.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Your opinion on Tesla is built based on twitter hot takes. > spool up EV production and buyers start buying more EVs, companies like tesla are just screwed. That's what people have been saying since 2016. Yet Tesla sells almost 3 times as many BEV as the second best. More then basically all other non-China companies combined. Other manufactures have announced their scaling plans publicly, turns out they can't magically make EVs. You severly underestimate how difficult it is to suddenly build something totally different that depends on different suppliers and supply chains. If it was so easy, why are they not doing it. Why are their plans by 2025 still below what Tesla is doing now in many cases? If its so easy according to you. > Tesla makes their cars in a tent They built 1 final assembly line in 'tent' that was actually a pretty stable fixed structure that pratically is almost no difference to a traditional factory building. The guy who did that was well respected manufacturing engineer that since built the factory for Lucid. The CEO of VW just had an emergency meeting saying that Tesla is doing better in manufacturing then them. I bet you have heard 1000 times about the 'tent' and nothing about the CEO of VW point out that they need to do better to keep up with Tesla. Tesla is doing fantastic at manufacturing and scaling manufacturing, this is a simple fact. Tesla next generation factories are even a significant step beyond what they have done in China, and that factory is doing amazing. Tesla is vertically integrating battery and car manufacture into the same buildings, nobody else is close to that outside of maybe BYD, they have actually made innovations in body manufacture that is beyond what anybody else has, and its not close. Tesla electronics is way beyond any other companies. You seem to have built your opinion of Tesla in 2017 and not adjusted to what actually going on since then. A 'lease manufacturing company' simply doesn't exist that could help Tesla. The best one is Magna Steyr and they couldn't come close to building what Tesla can.

poniko 5y ago

It's amazing they are almost at the same market value as the makers of Porsche ... And that company also happens to do millions of VW, Audi, Skoda, Cupra, Seat, Lamborghini, Ducati, Bently and now own a chunk of the new Bugatti/Rimac I'm having a hard time grasping the valuation..

nrb 5y ago
Hard to read it as anything other than epic FOMO on the next Tesla.

bigyellow 5y ago

Yeah! You go and tell that global market what the true valuation is! I'm sure they will listen to the reasonable, diligent analysis put forth and adjust accordingly!

eigenspace 5y ago

> They will build/sell 1000 cars this year! They should be doing that every day for this kind of evaluation. This sort of statement doesn't really make sense. Investors don't invest based on how a company is operating today. At that point, it's basically too late. They invest based on how they believe the company will be doing in the future. Personally, I'm agnostic about the future of Rivian, and suspect this valuation is probably way too high, but I definitely don't think that because of their current production numbers.

mym1990 5y ago
Don't you need to take into account current conditions to forecast into the future? Unless there is some silver bullet information or wild speculation, predicting future financial states needs some basis to stand on.
- eigenspace 5y ago
  Sure it plays a role, but mostly only in mature businesses. But that's clearly not a factor in many other investments. If you truly believe that an immature business like Rivian will explosively grow, then you'd be an idiot to wait for that growth to happen before investing. You'd just be leaving money on the table. Of course, we don't know for sure what'll happen with Rivian, but clearly some people with money have some strong beliefs.
  - kgwgk 5y ago
    Some people with money are buying cryptographic keys with a tenuous connection to digital images of rocks and whatnot. What a time to be alive.

chemeng 5y ago

Valuation is on potential, but I agree with sentiment. They will get mass production up and running over the next 2 years. Whether there will be demand then or not is unclear to me. I think people are underestimating the extent to which the electric F-150 will eat up the demand in the market for Rivian mass market products. So to me, it feels like the bet is their commercial fleet business (Amazon) will grow rapidly and be highly valuable, which given Amazon's 20% stake, seems like a reasonable bet. I don't personally think that's 100Bn mkt cap, but that's why I won't be buying in unless the outlook changes.