Rivian’s cost–cutting measures have gotten it a lot closer to profitability, but the company is warning that 2025 could still be a challenging year – especially because of the whorl of uncertainty caused by the new Trump Administration.
The company announced Thursday its fourth quarter and full-year 2024 financial results, and along with it, shared plans to deliver between 46,000 and 51,000 EVs across 2025. Rivian cautioned that “changes to government policies and regulations, and a challenging demand environment” could affect those results, according to the shareholder letter the EV maker released alongside its results.
Rivian didn’t specify what those changes might be, but Trump said on the campaign trail that he was inclined to find a way to kill the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. Friend of the Trump administration Vivek Ramaswamy has also called for the $6.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy to be clawed back. That loan was finalized three days before Trump took office.
Rivian spent much of 2024 on a cost-cutting tear. It laid off 10% of its workforce in February, and rolled out simplified, cheaper-to-make versions of its flagship EVs – the R1T pickup and the R1S SUV – in June. The company ended up changing 600 parts on those vehicles to drive down manufacturing costs, while also revamping its electric architecture and software user interface.
Changes like those helped Rivian notch $170 million of positive gross profit in the final quarter of 2024 – though $60 million of that came from software and services.
Rivian reported $1.7 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, a 32% increase from the same period in 2023. The bulk of its Q4 revenue — about $1.5 billion — came from the sale of 14,183 vehicles as well as $299 million from the sale of zero-emissions regulatory credits to automakers. For the year, Rivian reported $325 million in revenues from the sale of regulatory credits.
Revenue from software is increasingly playing an important role. Rivian generated $214 million from software and services in the fourth quarter, double the amount from the same-year ago period. Rivian reported $484 million in revenue for 2024 from software and services.
Rivian may be in the business of building and selling EVs, but its future is also largely pinned to software, namely through a lucrative joint venture with Volkswagen Group.
Revenue from software was primarily driven by charging and subscriptions fees, repair and maintenance services, and new vehicle electrical architecture and software development services provided by the joint venture, according to Rivian.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Electric trucking startup Nikola is hoping to sell what remains of its whole business as early as April, lawyers for the company told a judge Thursday during the first hearing of its bankruptcy case in Delaware.
The lawyers claimed Nikola already has at least three interested buyers (who they did not name) and that the company hopes to solicit other bids, with a submission deadline likely in late March.
If Nikola can’t find a buyer willing to take on the whole business, the company will pivot to selling off its assets in pieces in an attempt to satisfy more than $1 billion in liabilities. (Nikola claims between $500 million and $1 billion in assets.)
The hearing was held just one day after Nikola filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it would no longer operate as a standalone business, bringing an end to a company that has been plagued with drama after its founder Trevor Milton was convicted on multiple counts of securities fraud.
Nikola had been trying to sell itself for months, some of the early bankruptcy filings and lawyers’ statements show.
In a sworn declaration, CEO Stephen Girsky said Nikola worked with Goldman Sachs and solicited 22 potential acquirers in the truck manufacturing and transportation logistics spaces. Two “international automotive
manufacturers expressed interest” in a transaction, according to Girsky. One dropped out. Nikola also exchanged “various term sheets” with the other until that party also walked away in late 2024.
After that failed, Nikola worked with law firm Houlihan Lokey to solicit 24 financial investors to “gauge potential interest in both a standalone investment and an investment alongside a potential strategic partner.” The feedback, though, was that it would require too much money to turn Nikola’s nascent business around, according to Girsky.
In December 2024, Nikola wound up in discussions with another “international vehicle manufacturing company” about a potential acquisition, going through what Girsky described as “substantial due diligence” over a four-week period. But the prospective buyer “ultimately walked away,” which Girsky noted was a “disappointing conclusion.”
Now in bankruptcy, Girsky told the court Nikola is in “active discussions with at least three” parties interested in buying the company outright, and that they’re also marketing some of its highest-value assets for possible sales, such as the factory in Coolidge, Arizona.
Chazz Coleman, a lawyer representing Nikola in the bankruptcy case, said he expects the case and the sale process to be “uneventful and smooth.”
Nikola will continue to solicit interest until around March 27, the first proposed date for a bid submission deadline, Joshua Morse, another lawyer representing Nikola, said Thursday. Depending on how that process goes, there could be an auction held around March 31. A hearing on any potential sale would likely happen in the second week of April, with the transaction closing shortly after.
Morse also said during the hearing that inbound interest from potential buyers has only escalated since the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
“It does tend to crystallize the market,” bankruptcy judge Thomas Horan replied.
There was minimal disagreement during the hearing, mostly around the speed of the bankruptcy case. Nikola wants it to move quickly because it only has around $47 million in cash. Timothy Fox, a trial attorney for the United States Trustee’s Office, which oversees bankruptcy proceedings, said he wants to make sure he has enough time to meet with Nikola’s creditors.
No decision was made during the hearing on timing, but Nikola found support for a speedy process from an odd party: a group of shareholders that sued the company more than four years ago.
The plaintiffs in that case were granted class action status just last month, and Nikola agreed to settle the lawsuit shortly before filing for bankruptcy. Those plaintiffs have the fourth-largest creditor claim in Nikola’s bankruptcy thanks to that settlement, totaling around $13 million.
Joe Barsalona, a lawyer representing the class action plaintiffs, said Thursday that, given Nikola’s dwindling cash balance, “it is imperative to our client that this case move rapidly.”
“We believe it is a melting ice cube,” Barsalona said.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch