The electric automaker Rivian said Thursday it has recorded its first quarterly gross profit even as the company braces for potential U.S. policy changes on incentives, tariffs and regulations that could bring “hundreds of million of dollars” in financial impact.
Rivian said it recorded a $170 million positive gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2024 — a $776 million improvement from this time a year ago. That was driven by spending less money to make each vehicle, more revenue from sales of software and services, and higher average selling prices for the R1 model.
The company, which makes its electric vehicles in Normal, also expects a modest gross profit for 2025 as a whole.
But weighing on Rivian is a “very fluid” U.S. policy landscape one month after Donald Trump returned to office with full Republican control of Congress, company officials said Thursday. Trump has moved quickly on enacting new tariffs and threatening others, with other changes possible on tax incentives for EV purchases and regulations.
In a call with investors on Thursday, Rivian executives repeatedly said they were “aligned” with the Trump administration on the importance of creating jobs in the U.S. Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe noted the country’s leadership role at a moment of significant change in the transportation and energy sectors.
“We really believe, and we’re 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, software, autonomy, A.I. — these are really key areas for us as a country to continue to exercise a leadership position in, and it’s important that we as a country have many different companies that are successful in entering these spaces and complementary towards one another,” Scaringe said.
Rivian chief financial officer Claire McDonough said U.S. policy uncertainty lingers over incentives, regulations, and tariff structures, though she declined to expand on what direction the company expects each to go. She said, in the aggregate, it’s “hundreds of millions of dollars of impact to Rivian’s EBITDA.” EBITDA is used to assess a company’s profitability and financial performance. It’s short for “earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.”
“This is a very fluid environment. But we felt it was important to provide guidance that reflected our current assessment of the policy outlook,” McDonough said.
Rivian did little in Thursday’s call to clarify the status of its $6.6 billion federal loan to help build a new plant in Georgia.
Rivian finalized its loan agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy days before Trump took office, leading to speculation the administration may try to claw the deal back. Even the governor of Georgia appears unclear if the loan is still on track.
“We’re looking forward to working with the new administration and Department of Energy on our loan,” said McDonough. “And we share in the president’s desire to bring jobs back to the U.S. Our loan would enable 7,500 new manufacturing jobs [in Georgia], in addition to the 10,000 that we’ve created over the past four years.”
Rivian is now Bloomington-Normal’s second-largest employer, with around 8,000 workers. The company is currently making electric pickups, SUVs and commercial delivery vans at the Normal plant.
Work is underway in Normal on another expansion — more than 1 million square feet of new space to support Rivian’s new R2 model. It will house R2's general assembly and body shop. Walls are going up, parts are being tooled, and equipment is being built, Scaringe said.
“Over the course of the next several months, we’re going to see the completion of that building expansion and the beginning of the installation of equipment. Which will all lead into, through the end of the year, launching our manufacturing validation builds in that expanded portion of the facility,” he said.
To prepare for the R2, Rivian plans to shut down its R1 [pickups and SUVs] and van production lines for about a month in the second half of 2025. That will allow the existing plant's paint shop and stamping operations to be retooled to handle R1, R2 and delivery vans, Scaringe said. The company plans to deliver between 46,000 and 51,000 vehicles in 2025.
The R2 is then expected to launch to customers in the first half of 2026. Rivian is expected to employ a single shift of workers for the R2 in Normal in 2026 as it gradually ramps up production, McDonough said.
