Ford Backed Rivian Slightly Misses 25,000 Production Target

Rivian has faced its fair share of ups and downs since it began producing vehicles back in 2021, including enjoying one of the largest IPOs in history, which was followed by a number of supply chain constraints that prompted the automaker to halve its production target for 2022 from 50,000 vehicles to 25,000. After share prices tumbled amid this bad news, Ford sold several million of its shares in the company, though it still holds a sizable stake. However, even after laying off some employees and nixing a relationship with Mercedes-Benz, Rivian remained adamant that it would reach its production goal, and it very nearly did, according to Automotive News.

In total, Rivian wound up building 24,337 units of its R1T pickup, R1S SUV, and Amazon delivery van last year, missing its target by a mere 663 units – a development that the company blamed on ongoing supply chain issues and a slow production ramp up at its plant in Normal, Illinois. However, it did not specify how this number breaks down to individual models, so it’s unclear how many of each was built in 2022. Additionally, the company did get 25,051 vehicles off the assembly line, but 714 are still awaiting final validation.

Of that total, 20,332 of those vehicles were delivered to customers, which leaves roughly 4,000 in inventory. After adding a second shift and enjoying better parts availability in the fourth-quarter, things really ramped up, with the automaker churning out 10,020 units in Q4 alone, delivering 8,054 of them. However, it still faces a massive backlog of more than 100,000 outstanding orders for the R1T and R1S, as well as over 100,000 Amazon delivery vans.

“There were many headwinds in 2022,” said CEO RJ Scaringe. “Considering the supply chain issues that caused the plant to close for 20 days and shut down early on 50 days in the last 12 months – and the inclement weather that forced us to close for an additional five days – our team stayed focused and worked through the challenges together.”

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