Rivian will not cave in to market pressure and will not cut prices to boost sales, CEO RJ Scaringe said on the company's second-quarter earnings call on August 8.
Scaringe said Rivian sees continued strong demand for its electric R1T pickup and R1S SUV and will not join Tesla and Lucid in cutting prices, Automotive News reported.
Asked by an analyst about price-cutting, the executive said R1 products have a broad price band, pointing to vehicle configurations that can significantly raise or lower the price.
"We take a very methodical and thoughtful approach to how we look at our vehicle pricing. As we think about the positioning of the product, the capabilities of the product – on-road, off-road, dynamically – and the feature set that's in the vehicles, we feel quite comfortable with the positioning of what we've done."
The base dual-motor Rivian R1T is priced from $74,800 while the base dual-motor R1S starts at $79,800 (both prices including shipping). Higher trims with larger battery packs, four motors, and other features can get near $100,000.
It's worth noting that both the R1T and R1S dual-motor models qualify for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits, as they are both made in the US with locally sourced battery materials and their starting MSRPs are under the $80,000 limit.
RJ Scaringe added that Rivian has plenty of orders that will take many months to fulfill at current production rates. The company no longer provides the exact number of its order backlog, though.
"We feel very confident in the continued backlog we have. We have deep visibility into 2024 with the backlog that's established," the executive said in response to a question about demand, which has dwindled at some EV rivals. He added that residual values for its used vehicles on the market are a sign of Rivian's healthy demand.
"The R1 products within the truck and SUV segments are among the best residual values of any product in those categories, regardless of electric or combustion. Our vehicles are maintaining their value extremely well."
Rivian raised its production guidance for 2023 to 52,000 vehicles from 50,000 previously amid easing supply-chain constraints. The EV maker delivered 12,640 vehicles in the April-June period, beating analysts' estimates of 11,000.
Scaringe said Rivian remains focused on continuing to ramp production at its plant in Normal, Illinois, and "driving costs down across the business on our path to profitability."
As part of its second-quarter financial report, the EV startup posted a $1.2 billion net loss compared with $1.7 billion during the same quarter last year, while revenue tripled to $1.1 billion. The company also said it expects a smaller operating loss in 2023.
