Electric cars

Joe Lancaster | 10.7.2024 3:30 PM

An upstart electric vehicle manufacturer that has struggled despite generous taxpayer-funded incentives is now asking for a federal loan.

Rivian, builder of luxury electric trucks and SUVs, operates out of a single factory in Illinois. But it announced in December 2021 that it would build a second factory in Georgia; state and local governments, in turn, offered the company a number of incentives worth as much as $1.5 billion.

In the years since, the company's fortunes have dipped. When Rivian went public in November 2021, investors valued the company at $90 billion, higher than Ford or General Motors. Less than two years later, however, the company's stock price, and cash on hand, had plummeted. Bloomberg reported in May 2023 that the company's valuation "now stands at less than $12 billion after a 93% stock wipeout, reflecting almost no value beyond the company's cash hoard." By the third quarter of that year, the company was losing more than $43,000 on each vehicle it sold.

Bloomberg cited multiple analysts who were skeptical of Rivian's ability to compete in an increasingly crowded market. One analyst said it would need to raise at least $4 billion to fund its growth beyond 2025, even though its incentive agreement........

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