(Bloomberg) — Eleven years after Tesla Inc. went public with a market value of less than $2 billion, one of its most closely watched competitors is following in its tire treads with a much richer valuation. Electric-truckmaker Rivian Automotive Inc. will price its initial public offering on Tuesday, seeking to raise as much as $10 billion in a listing that could give it a fully diluted valuation of more than $70 billion. If shares are sold at the top of their marketed range, it’ll be the seventh-biggest U.S. IPO on record, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
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Investors will be buying into the promise of a class of EVs that mirror the gas-powered vehicles that dominate the passenger market: larger, bulkier vans and pickup trucks that are a sharp contrast to Tesla’s sleeker sedans. The company also has Amazon.com Inc.’s backing – the internet giant owns a 20% stake in Rivian and has placed an order for 100,000 of its delivery vans.
As is the case with many richly valued startups, they’ll also be buying into ambitious growth plans. Rivian delivered its first vehicles just a couple of months ago and will only produce about 1,200 units by year-end at its plant in Normal, Illinois. The company estimates that annual production will hit 150,000 vehicles at its main facility by late 2023.
While demand for Rivian’s products will likely outweigh supply for a number of years, the company faces a “natural ceiling” of 300,000 to 400,000 units per year, New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu wrote in a note Monday. That’s partly down to price: Rivian’s R1T truck starts at $67,500 for the most basic model, while its upcoming sport utility model is $70,000.
“Above $70,000, the global addressable market for Rivian’s SUV and pickup is less than 1.5 million units, and it will be a crowded space,” Ferragu wrote.
Stealth Mode
Though it’s a newcomer to the public market, Irvine, California-based Rivian’s entry into the world of consumer electric vehicles has been more than a decade in the making.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer R.J. Scaringe set-up the first iteration of what would become Rivian in 2009 in his home state of Florida.
Early work centered around a smaller sports car, which was later shelved in favor of a rugged pickup at the direction of early investor Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel.
The company remained in stealth mode for almost 10 years, until the Los Angeles Auto Show in 2018 where Scaringe, who holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed his battery-electric pickup and SUV to the public for the first time.
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