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Investor's Corner

Rivian barely beats earnings expectations, bucking industry trend

Credit: Rivian

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Rivian has reported its first-quarter earnings, showing the company has slightly beat its earnings expectations, bucking the industry trend.

The EV startup segment has been going through the wringer this week. Fisker reported earnings earlier today, indicating that the business is suffering from weakening demand and a flimsy financial position, following a very similar report from Lucid on Monday. Now, Rivian has reported its Q1 earnings as well, showing that the company barely missed investor expectations.

According to Rivian’s Q1 earnings report, the automaker raked in $661 million in revenue, equating to a net loss of $1.349 billion. Rivian reported an earnings-per-share (EPS) loss of $1.77. According to Yahoo Finance, this contributed to slightly beating investor expectations, set at $657.7 million in total earnings, a $1.32 billion net loss, and an EPS loss of $1.58.

Rivian aims to improve its financial health dramatically over the coming two years, eventually resulting in profitability by the end of 2024. This year, the American automaker aims for a conservative loss of $4.2 billion, $1 billion less than in 2022. While this will likely prove to be a monumental task, Rivian’s CFO has made it clear that the company is dedicated to ramping production and deliveries while shrinking overhead costs.

This year alone, Rivian has laid off a substantial amount of employees and introduced product changes to reduce its production cost per unit. This is on top of opening all new production lines for new battery technology as well as the hotly anticipated dual motor “Enduro” drive units.

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Luckily, Rivian has plenty of cash reserves to help it achieve its profitability target. At the end of Q4 2022, Rivian reported total cash reserves at ~$12 billion, which has now dipped to $11.78 billion. Compared to its rivals, such as Lucid and Fisker, this is more than a ten-fold in cash liquidity, which should help ease investor concerns.

This isn’t to say that Rivian’s financial condition is fantastic. Specifically, its stock price has collapsed by just over 85% since its IPO, and the price targets set by institutional investors have followed in tow. According to MarketBeat, the average price target for the Rivain stock is $28.50, far from where it sat a year ago at $83.88.

Following its earnings report, Rivian’s stock price climbed in after-hours trading. Prior to the earnings report, the stock had been rebounding from its all-time low of just under $12 last month.

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Besides its enormous cash reserves, Rivian does have a couple of other positive indicators. Foremost, it is currently dramatically increasing its manufacturing footprint, with new facilities being constructed in Georgia and Kentucky. Second, with a planned production output of 50,000 units this year, it will dramatically reduce customer wait times, which is likely to stoke demand. Finally, with plenty of Amazon van orders to be fulfilled, Rivian can still count on at least one growing revenue stream.

William is a Rivian shareholder.

What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!

Will is an auto enthusiast, a gear head, and an EV enthusiast above all. From racing, to industry data, to the most advanced EV tech on earth, he now covers it at Teslarati.

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Elon Musk

Tesla analysts believe Musk and Trump feud will pass

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump’s feud shall pass, several bulls say.

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The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
President Donald J. Trump purchases a Tesla on the South Lawn, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

Tesla analysts are breaking down the current feud between CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump, as the two continue to disagree on the “Big Beautiful Bill” and its impact on the country’s national debt.

Musk, who headed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump Administration, left his post in May. Soon thereafter, he and President Trump entered a very public and verbal disagreement, where things turned sour. They reconciled to an extent, and things seemed to be in the past.

However, the second disagreement between the two started on Monday, as Musk continued to push back on the “Big Beautiful Bill” that the Trump administration is attempting to sign into law. It would, by Musk’s estimation, increase spending and reverse the work DOGE did to trim the deficit.

President Trump has hinted that DOGE could be “the monster” that “eats Elon,” threatening to end the subsidies that SpaceX and Tesla receive. Musk has not been opposed to ending government subsidies for companies, including his own, as long as they are all abolished.

How Tesla could benefit from the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that axes EV subsidies

Despite this contentious back-and-forth between the two, analysts are sharing their opinions now, and a few of the more bullish Tesla observers are convinced that this feud will pass, Trump and Musk will resolve their differences as they have before, and things will return to normal.

ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood said this morning that the feud between Musk and Trump is another example of “this too shall pass:”

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Additionally, Wedbush’s Dan Ives, in a note to investors this morning, said that the situation “will settle:”

“We believe this situation will settle and at the end of the day Musk needs Trump and Trump needs Musk given the AI Arms Race going on between the US and China. The jabs between Musk and Trump will continue as the Budget rolls through Congress but Tesla investors want Musk to focus on driving Tesla and stop this political angle…which has turned into a life of its own in a roller coaster ride since the November elections.”

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Tesla shares are down about 5 percent at 3:10 p.m. on the East Coast.

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Elon Musk

Tesla investors will be shocked by Jim Cramer’s latest assessment

Jim Cramer is now speaking positively about Tesla, especially in terms of its Robotaxi performance and its perception as a company.

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Credit: CNBC Television/YouTube

Tesla investors will be shocked by analyst Jim Cramer’s latest assessment of the company.

When it comes to Tesla analysts, many of them are consistent. The bulls usually stay the bulls, and the bears usually stay the bears. The notable analysts on each side are Dan Ives and Adam Jonas for the bulls, and Gordon Johnson for the bears.

Jim Cramer is one analyst who does not necessarily fit this mold. Cramer, who hosts CNBC’s Mad Money, has switched his opinion on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) many times.

He has been bullish, like he was when he said the stock was a “sleeping giant” two years ago, and he has been bearish, like he was when he said there was “nothing magnificent” about the company just a few months ago.

Now, he is back to being a bull.

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Cramer’s comments were related to two key points: how NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang describes Tesla after working closely with the Company through their transactions, and how it is not a car company, as well as the recent launch of the Robotaxi fleet.

Jensen Huang’s Tesla Narrative

Cramer says that the narrative on quarterly and annual deliveries is overblown, and those who continue to worry about Tesla’s performance on that metric are misled.

“It’s not a car company,” he said.

He went on to say that people like Huang speak highly of Tesla, and that should be enough to deter any true skepticism:

“I believe what Musk says cause Musk is working with Jensen and Jensen’s telling me what’s happening on the other side is pretty amazing.”

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Tesla self-driving development gets huge compliment from NVIDIA CEO

Robotaxi Launch

Many media outlets are being extremely negative regarding the early rollout of Tesla’s Robotaxi platform in Austin, Texas.

There have been a handful of small issues, but nothing significant. Cramer says that humans make mistakes in vehicles too, yet, when Tesla’s test phase of the Robotaxi does it, it’s front page news and needs to be magnified.

He said:

“Look, I mean, drivers make mistakes all the time. Why should we hold Tesla to a standard where there can be no mistakes?”

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It’s refreshing to hear Cramer speak logically about the Robotaxi fleet, as Tesla has taken every measure to ensure there are no mishaps. There are safety monitors in the passenger seat, and the area of travel is limited, confined to a small number of people.

Tesla is still improving and hopes to remove teleoperators and safety monitors slowly, as CEO Elon Musk said more freedom could be granted within one or two months.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets $475 price target from Benchmark amid initial Robotaxi rollout

Tesla’s limited rollout of its Robotaxi service in Austin is already catching the eye of Wall Street.

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Credit: Tesla

Venture capital firm Benchmark recently reiterated its “Buy” rating and raised its price target on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) from $350 to $475 per share, citing the company’s initial Robotaxi service deployment as a sign of future growth potential.

Benchmark analyst Mickey Legg praised the Robotaxi service pilot’s “controlled and safety-first approach,” adding that it could help Tesla earn the trust of regulators and the general public.

Confidence in camera-based autonomy

Legg reiterated Benchmark’s belief in Tesla’s vision-only approach to autonomous driving. “We are a believer in Tesla’s camera-focused approach that is not only cost effective but also scalable,” he noted. 

The analyst contrasted Tesla’s simple setup with the more expensive hardware stacks used by competitors like Waymo, which use various sophisticated sensors that hike up costs, as noted in an Investing.com report. Compared to Tesla’s Model Y Robotaxis, Waymo’s self-driving cars are significantly more expensive.

He also pointed to upcoming Texas regulations set to take effect in September, suggesting they could help create a regulatory framework favorable to autonomous services in other cities.

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“New regulations for autonomous vehicles are set to go into place on Sept. 1 in TX that we believe will further help win trust and pave the way for expansion to additional cities,” the analyst wrote.

https://twitter.com/herbertong/status/1938287117441855616?s=10

Tesla as a robotics powerhouse

Beyond robotaxis, Legg sees Tesla evolving beyond its roots as an electric vehicle maker. He noted that Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, could be a long-term growth driver alongside new vehicle programs and other future initiatives.

“In our view, the company is undergoing an evolution from a trailblazing vehicle OEM to a high-tech automation and robotics company with unmatched domestic manufacturing scale,” he wrote.

Benchmark noted that Tesla stock had rebounded over 50% from its April lows, driven in part by easing tariff concerns and growing momentum around autonomy. With its initial Robotaxi rollout now underway, the firm has returned to its previous $475 per share target and reaffirmed TSLA as a Benchmark Top Pick for 2025.

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