Electric vehicle truck and SUV startup Rivian just beat the odds.
Ahead of its earnings call with investors later this afternoon, the California-based automaker announced an important milestone: its first-ever positive gross quarterly profit. The fourth quarter of 2024 brought in $170 million in gross profits, a significant turnaround from $600 million in losses during the same period in 2023.
"We delivered record revenues in the fourth quarter of 2024 driven by the sale of regulatory credits and software and services revenue growth, as well as increasing R1 average selling prices with the increased availability of our Tri-Motor offering," the automaker said in a letter to shareholders. "We also made meaningful progress implementing greater operational efficiencies in our Normal plant."
Rivian made $299 million in fourth-quarter revenue from selling regulatory credits to other automakers, the company said. The same system netted Tesla $2.8 billion in all of 2024.
Rivian reaffirmed that it does expect 2025 to have "modest" profitability, which would be another major milestone. However, the automaker is also warning investors about big potential headwinds this year.
Gallery: Rivian California Dune Edition For R1S And R1T EVs
Rivian sold 51,579 units in 2024, compared to 50,122 units in 2023. However, in 2025 it's predicting sales will stay relatively flat or potentially decrease to 46,000 to 51,000 EVs. It also expects capital expenditures in 2025 to be between $1.6 billion and $1.7 billion, up from $1.41 billion in 2024, as it prepares to ramp up the more affordably priced R2 model in 2026. That SUV, if successful, could be what takes Rivian across the "Valley of Death"—the point where a startup is consuming huge amounts of capital and when it can build and sell its products at scale, and profitably.
Rivian also alludes to the potentially harmful effects that tariffs and the end of the EV tax credits could have on car prices: "We believe external factors could impact our 2025 expectations, including changes to government policies and regulations, and a challenging demand environment."
The R2 is expected to have a starting price of around $45,000, which would make it a huge volume-seller compared to the company's current R1S and R1T. Those often run well into the $80,000 and $90,000 range and beyond. Until Rivian can get that EV ramped up for 2026 (and barring any delays) it will need to subsist on new variants and special editions of the R1 models for some time. Moreover, a $6.6 billion federal loan seen as instrumental to the R2's new Georgia factory now seems up in the air, as it's said to be under investigation by the new Trump administration.
Nonetheless, Rivian said it capped off a very successful 2024. It inked a $5.8 billion deal to develop future software and electrical architectures for the Volkswagen Group, sold a record number of vehicles and worked through development issues on its revamped 2025 R1 models.
This is a developing story. It will be updated momentarily.
