The Supply Chain Crisis Is Still Keeping Rivian Down

“The issue we have is that the supply constraint is, by far and away, the biggest constraint,” Chief Executive R.J. Scaringe said in a conference call with analysts.

“We wish we could have the components still to fully run the plant across all lines, across multiple shifts, but that’s not the case.”

Rivian said in a shareholder letter on Tuesday it expects supply chain challenges to persist into 2023.

The company said it aims to produce 50,000 cars this year, compared with analysts’ estimate of 67,170 units, according to Visible Alpha.

“We feel confident in the value proposition of what we’re delivering at our pricing levels today,” Scaringe said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday.

While the current climate of higher interest rates generally reduces consumer demand, Rivian has an order backlog that will take until 2024 to fulfill.

“The demand backlog we have is very robust,” Scaringe said. “It gives us a clear line of sight well into 2024.”

He also noted that Tesla’s price cuts came after increases last year. The cuts were also targeted in lower-priced segments where Rivian doesn’t yet compete.

Rivian no longer provides a number for its order backlog, but in November it reported 114,000 preorders in the U.S. and Canada. That number was for its consumer vehicles, the R1T pickup and R1S crossover. Rivian also has a long-term order for 100,000 EDV delivery vans.

Because Tesla uses a proprietary charging plug, the EV maker has modified its charging units to include an adapter for non-Tesla vehicles that use the CCS plug, which is significantly larger than Tesla’s plug. Most non-Teslas use the Combined Charging System standard, with the exception of a few EVs that use the CHAdeMO connector.

The Supercharger units that can accommodate non-Tesla EVs have a special dock that can either release a Tesla plug — or a Tesla plug with a CCS adapter on top of it. The type of plug is selected in the Tesla smartphone app.

The Tesla app shows a map of locations where the CCS adapters are present. For example, in Silicon Valley, the Tesla app shows “select” location in Scotts Valley, which is just south of San Jose, Calif., a major tech hub.

EV owners can download the Tesla app, create an account and choose “Charge Your Non-Tesla” from the menu. The app includes a “wallet” for payment using a credit card or Apple Pay.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said “the whole Tesla company” was coming to Mexico to build a “very big” automotive plant, noting that potential investment in batteries was still pending. He did not reveal what models it would produce.

One Mexican official said the plant would be a Tesla “gigafactory” that could produce the Semi truck, Roadster sports car, and potentially other vehicles. Another official said the plant could produce a kind of sport utility vehicle (SUV).

The Model Y is Tesla’s best-selling SUV. Tesla will likely give details of its plans on Wednesday, Mexico’s government said.

Lopez Obrador’s announcement of the plant in the Monterrey metropolitan area dispelled recent concerns that he could upend the investment by imposing conditions on the company due to problems over a lack of water in the arid border region.

The company on Wednesday forecast wholesale volumes of about 7,000 units for 2023, slightly below average market expectations of 7,134, but its outlook of for an adjusted core profit margin of about 20% came in ahead of analysts’ average view.

Shares in the company jumped 7% to their highest level since July last year by 0816 GMT. [...]

The company is seeking to become sustainably free cash flow positive from 2024, helped by a capital raising last year, through which Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) became its second-largest shareholder.

Revenue at the Gaydon-based group grew 26% to 1.38 billion pounds ($1.67 billion) last year, chiefly because of higher prices. Its core average selling price in 2022 rose 18% to 177,000 pounds.

The car will showcase Ford’s “rebellious, uncompromising, SUV heritage reimagined for the EV era,” Martin Sander, who leads Ford’s e business in Europe, said in posts on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sander hinted at the EV’s name by adding the hashtag #ExploringReinvented to his posts.

Ford has said it wants to reference its American roots more in the marketing and styling of European passenger cars, referring to the crossovers and pickups it sells in the U.S.

The new electric crossover is based on VW’s ID4 crossover. Its range will be about 500 km (310 miles). It will straddle the compact and midsize sectors and compete with electric cars such as the Toyota bZ4X, Nissan Ariya and Skoda Enyaq.

The second VW-based EV, due next year, is expected to be a coupe-styled model similar to the the VW ID5.

Venera 3, a Soviet probe launched from Kazakhstan on November 15, 1965, collides with Venus, the second planet from the sun. Although Venera 3 failed in its mission to measure the Venusian atmosphere, it was the first unmanned spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet. Four years earlier, the U.S. probe Mariner 2 was the first spacecraft to pass close enough to Venus to take scientific measurements of the planet, discovering surface temperatures in excess of 800 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface.

In 1967, Venera 4 succeeded where Venera 3 failed, successfully ejecting several scientific instruments, including a thermometer, a barometer, an atmospheric density gauge, and gas analyzers, into Venus’ atmosphere. Then, in 1970, Venera 7 became the first spacecraft created by humans to soft-land on Venus, successfully sending back images and data for 23 minutes before succumbing to the extremely high temperature and atmospheric pressure found on the planet’s surface.