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Rivian\u2019s cost-cutting measures have gotten it a lot closer to profitability, but the company is warning that 2025 could still be a challenging year \u2014 especially because of the whorl of uncertainty caused by the new Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The company announced<\/a> 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 \u201cchanges to government policies and regulations, and a challenging demand environment\u201d could affect those results, according to the shareholder letter the EV maker released alongside its results.<\/p>\n Rivian didn\u2019t 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<\/a>. Friend of the Trump administration Vivek Ramaswamy has also called<\/a> for the clawback of a $6.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy to build a plant in Georgia. That loan was finalized three days before Trump took office<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really looking forward to working with the new administration and Department of Energy on our loan, and we share in the President\u2019s desire to bring jobs back to the US,\u201d Rivian\u2019s chief financial officer Claire McDonough said on a conference call Thursday, noting that the company plans to create 7,500 manufacturing jobs at the planned Georgia plant. She said later in the call that Rivian is planning to take a hit as big as \u201chundreds of millions\u201d of dollars related to tariffs, any loss of EV credits, and other policy changes. <\/p>\n \u201cWe really believe, and we\u2019re very aligned with the administration on this, that the U.S. needs to continue to be a world leader in this regard, and our investment into electronics, into software, into autonomy and AI \u2014 these are really key areas for us as a country to continue to exercise a leadership position in,\u201d CEO RJ Scaringe said on the call.<\/p>\n Rivian spent much of 2024 on a cost-cutting tear. It laid off 10% of its workforce<\/a> in February, and rolled out simplified, cheaper-to-make<\/a> versions of its flagship EVs \u2014 the R1T pickup and the R1S SUV \u2014 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.<\/p>\n Changes like those helped Rivian notch $170 million of positive gross profit in the final quarter of 2024 \u2013 though $60 million of that came from software and services.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 about $1.5 billion \u2014 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.<\/p>\n Revenue from software is increasingly playing an important role.\u00a0Rivian 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The company has turned to generative AI as one tool to streamline customer service and reduce costs. The idea is to use AI to automate processes and \u201cgreatly reduce administrative overhead on all non-repair tasks,\u201d the company said in its shareholder letter.<\/p>\n What that looks like in practice is an AI assistant, or chatbot, integrated into the Rivian app. The company rolled out a beta version in the Rivian mobile app for R1 customers this past December.<\/p>\n The AI assistant was built using a combination of in-house AI agent infrastructure and a third-party large language models, according to a Rivian spokesperson, who added the company has guardrails in place to limit the conversation to Rivian service and guide-related questions. <\/p>\n The AI assistant was designed to answer questions about service needs and general questions about the vehicle. A company spokesperson said it can also do basic troubleshooting, collect necessary information for service, and answer general questions about the vehicle.<\/p>\nRivian\u2019s cost-cutting tear<\/h2>\n
Gen AI comes to Rivian<\/h2>\n