Ford Backed Rivian Expects $1.3 Billion Quarterly Loss Amid R1T Launch

Production of EV upstart automaker Rivian’s very first vehicle – the R1T pickup – began just last month following a few supply chain-related delays. With that, the R1T became the very first all-electric pickup to market, beating out the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning and a host of other forthcoming rivals. Ford and Amazon are betting big on Rivian, financially speaking, with the former making a $500 million dollar investment back in 2019 and adding another $902 million earlier this year. With $10.5 billion accumulated through multiple fundraising rounds and an IPO coming that’s expected to raise another $8 billion, Rivian certainly isn’t lacking for cash, but it’s also spending quite heavily as well.

As Ford Authority reported early this month, the EV automaker recently revealed that it lost nearly one billion in Q1 of 2021 alone, which isn’t a surprise given the fact that it hadn’t yet delivered a single vehicle. Now, Bloomberg is reporting that the company expects to incur another net loss of around $1.3 billion in Q3 due to significant overhead and labor costs associated with operating its plant in Normal, Illinois.

“As we just started to ramp vehicle production at the site, the facility produced limited quantities of vehicles in the period,” the automaker said in a statement. The total net loss hasn’t been finalized yet but is expected to fall somewhere between $1.18 billion and $1.28 billion, with an operating loss of $725 million to $775 million.

Rivian previously said that it has received 48,390 preorders for its R1T – which has received universally positive reviews thus far – and its R1S SUV to date, on top of the 100,000 delivery vans that online retail giant Amazon has ordered.

Ford’s investments in the company were supposed to spawn a Lincoln SUV built on Rivian’s Skateboard platform, but last year, Ford canceled that project. However, as Ford Authority exclusively reported last October, the relationship between the two companies is still “going great,” and a Ford EV riding on that platform is currently in the works, though FoMoCo no longer has a representative on Rivian’s board of directors.

We’ll have more on Rivian soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for more Rivian news and non-stop Ford news coverage.