What happened
Shares of Rivian Automotive fell on Friday, following the release of the electric vehicle (EV) upstart's first quarterly results as a public company.
As of 1:50 p.m. ET, Rivian's stock price was down more than 10%.
The EV maker delivered the first of its R1T pickup trucks and R1S sport utility vehicles in September and December, respectively. Demand for Rivian's electric vehicles has been strong. Preorders for the R1T climbed to 71,000 as of Dec. 15, up from roughly 48,000 on Sept. 30.
"We continue to observe a lot of excitement for our brand," the company said in a letter to shareholders.
However, Rivian is dealing with some supply chain challenges. Management, in turn, expects to fall "a few hundred vehicles short" of its production target of 1,200 vehicles in 2021.
Moreover, Rivian's losses are mounting as it spends aggressively to ramp up its manufacturing capacity. The company generated an operating loss of $776 million in the third quarter.
Now what
CEO RJ Scaringe said Rivian's supply chain bottlenecks are "solvable problems" and unlikely to persist. The EV maker plans to invest $5 billion to develop a manufacturing facility in Georgia. Construction is slated to start in mid-2022, while production is targeted to begin in 2024. The new plant is expected to produce up to 400,000 vehicles per year once it's fully operational.
"We're happy to partner with Georgia on our new manufacturing site, which will build our next generation of products that are important for scaling our business," Rivian Chief People Officer Helen Russell said in a statement.