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Rivian releases its Q4 and full-year 2024 financial results

Credit: Rivian

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Rivian reported its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 financial results last week, along with setting its delivery guidance for the year and highlighting its Department of Energy (DOE) loan that now appears to be up in the air.

On Thursday, Rivian announced its Q4 2024 and full-year financial results in a press release, highlighting that it achieved a gross profit of $170 million in the fourth quarter, along with posting a $729 million improvement year-over-year to adjusted EBITDA. The release also highlights the electric vehicle (EV) maker’s $6.6 billion loan for a planned factory in Georgia, though recent developments with U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have called the investment into question.

Rivian produced a total of 12,727 vehicles in Q4 and delivered 14,183, along with full-year results of 49,476 produced and 51,579 delivered. The company initially targeted a 57,000 production guidance for 2024, reducing that in October to just 47,000 to 49,000 due to supply and production issues.

Last year, Rivian and Volkswagen also announced plans to launch a closed joint venture and software-platform partnership, which the companies closed on in Q4 for about $5.8 billion. The automaker says $3.5 billion of the funding will go to Rivian over the next few years, while the first $1 billion was posted in Q2’s earnings in the form of a convertible note.

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“This quarter we achieved positive gross profit and removed $31,000 in automotive cost of goods sold per vehicle delivered in Q4 2024 relative to Q4 2023,” said RJ Scaringe, Rivian CEO. “Our focus on cost efficiency across the business is critical for the launch of our mass market product, R2. The R2 bill of materials is approximately 95% sourced and is expected to be approximately half that of the improved R1 bill of materials.

“I couldn’t be more excited about R2, and I believe the combination of capabilities and cost efficiencies along with the amazing level of excitement from customers will make R2 a truly transformational product for Rivian.”

You can see Rivian’s 2025 guidance below, along with its full financial results for Q4 and full-year 2024.

Credit: Rivian

Credit: Rivian

Credit: Rivian

Credit: Rivian

Credit: Rivian

READ MORE ABOUT RIVIAN: Rivian tech attracts other OEMs after VW joint venture

The news comes amidst uncertainty surrounding Rivian’s Georgia loan, due to the Trump administration’s freeze on federal loans and grants. According to statements from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp last week, it’s still not clear whether Rivian’s loan, granted under the Biden administration, will be targeted as part of the push.

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“You know, they [Rivian] secured that loan at the tail end of the Biden administration, and, you know, I think there’s no secret that the Trump administration is taking a look at all those things. So I don’t really know where that stands right now,” Kemp said in a statement to WSB-TV 2 Atlanta.

It also comes after Scaringe a few weeks ago said that he wasn’t nervous about Trump’s EV policies, adding that the DOE loan had already been granted through a “legally binding agreement with the DOE,” that had been “negotiated over the last couple years” and included a wide range of conditions the automaker must meet.

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Rivian launches sales of once-exclusive van: price, specs, features

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Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

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Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days

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Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.

Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.

On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.

The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.

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The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.

Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.

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Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.

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SpaceX’s Elon Musk relieves worries about orbital data centers

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Rendering of Elon Musk overlooking a Starship fleet (Credit: Grok)
Rendering of Elon Musk overlooking a Starship fleet (Credit: Grok)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confronted worries about orbital data centers and launching satellites in mass quantities in space, as some voiced concerns about crowding.

Musk’s SpaceX plans to combat the issue of needing data centers by launching them into space instead of taking up valuable real estate on Earth. It has been a major point of SpaceX’s future, including its looming IPO, which could be the largest ever.

In a recent interview filmed at SpaceX’s Starlink terminal factory in Bastrop, Texas, Elon Musk directly addressed concerns that deploying large numbers of AI satellites for orbital data centers could crowd Earth’s orbit. His message was straightforward and reassuring: space is vast beyond human intuition.

“Space is really big,” Musk said. “It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the Earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” He emphasized that even zooming in makes a satellite appear large, but from a planetary perspective, they are minuscule specks.

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Musk pointed to SpaceX’s real-world experience operating roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites as evidence that large constellations can be managed safely. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to operate just really large constellations and do it safely,” he noted. SpaceX remains the only operator with meaningful experience at this scale, giving the company unique insight into tight orbital packing without compromising safety

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The discussion highlighted SpaceX’s plans for “AI1” satellites—essentially orbiting racks of AI compute powered by massive solar arrays and cooled via radiative panels in space’s vacuum.

These satellites leverage proven Starlink V3 technology, making them simpler to design than communications satellites. A first-generation unit targets around 150 kW peak power, with a 70-meter wingspan for solar panels and radiators. Laser links will connect them to each other and the Starlink network, delivering low-latency access (on the order of a few milliseconds from low-Earth orbit).

FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan

Musk framed orbital data centers as a practical solution to Earth’s constraints on AI growth. Ground-based facilities face power shortages, water demands for cooling, and grid limitations. In space, constant sunlight (no day-night cycle), vacuum radiative cooling, and abundant solar energy offer clear advantages.

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Production will ramp up at an expanded “Gigasat” factory in Bastrop, with solar manufacturing already underway and full AI satellite output expected at reasonable volume by the end of 2027. Starship’s rapid, high-volume launch capability, aiming for multiple flights per hour, will make massive deployment feasible.

Critics sometimes raise risks like space debris or Kessler syndrome, but Musk’s response underscores scale: even a million satellites would represent an imperceptible fraction of available orbital volume when viewed against Earth’s size. SpaceX’s automated collision avoidance and deorbiting designs for Starlink further mitigate concerns.

This vision ties into broader ambitions. Musk sees orbital AI compute as a step toward harnessing more of the Sun’s energy, advancing humanity on the Kardashev scale from a Type 0 civilization toward Type 1 and eventually Type 2. By moving power-hungry data centers off-planet, SpaceX aims to unlock orders-of-magnitude more compute while preserving Earth’s resources.

Musk’s comments should ease public anxiety. With proven operational expertise, incremental engineering, and the immensity of space itself, orbital data centers represent not overcrowding, but smart expansion into the final frontier.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla Full Self-Driving hits Level 4? One analyst says yes

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is currently listed as a Level 2 suite in terms of its passenger cars. As its Robotaxi platform continues to move quickly, it has been recognized as a Level 4 ride-sharing program by the State of Texas, as Tesla recently self-certified itself.

However, a Wall Street analyst is arguing that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy in most conditions in all of its vehicles, drawing on personal experience and data released by the company.

Alex Potter of Piper Sandler said in a note to investors on Wednesday that “Tesla has solved the self-driving puzzle,” pointing to decisions to offer insurance discounts for FSD-enabled policies as a signal of confidence, which is backed up by stellar safety records compared to human driving.

Investing.com initially reported on Potter’s new note.

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Additionally, Potter looks at the recent start of Cybercab production at Giga Texas as a potential indication that Tesla is ready to offer some level of unsupervised driving at least in the near future. The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, completely eliminating the ability for human input.

He also sees Tesla’s allocation of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” as confidence internally, seeing as it would be tough to set aside that amount of capital toward a project that the company does not see as relatively near-term.

Forward thinking, especially as Cybercab has no human controls, it would make sense that Tesla is at least close to self-driving. How close is another question.

Tesla has routinely teased that unsupervised FSD is close, but there are still a lot of things it feels as if the company has to roll out some more capability, including unsupervised parking features, known as “Banish,” better operation with regional self-driving performance, and other improvements.

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That is not to say that Tesla FSD is super impressive already. It has already completed coast-to-coast drives across the United States and Canada, it routinely takes the stress out of driving for most people, and it has proven through Tesla Safety Reports that it is safer and involved in accidents less frequently than humans.

Even Potter believes it is capable, as he used it to go from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in April.

“There’s no substitute for personal experience,” he wrote.

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