Rivian IPO could raise $67 billion

The 2022 Rivian R1T pickup has a motor on each wheel

Rivian, the US-based electric pickup and SUV OEM, is to list its stock in New York. According to pre-listing valuations the company could reach a value of $67 billion, which would position the truck maker above both Honda and Hyundai and at about 80% of the value of Ford Motor, one of the company’s largest backers.

This, for a company which only started manufacturing vehicles just one month previously and is expecting to deliver 1,000 vehicles by the end of 2021.

On the other end of that scale, Amazon has already placed an order for 100,000 Rivian vehicles.

The IPO is expected to be the largest since Facebook was listed in 2012. The company could collect about $10 billion from investors, which will likely be used to ramp up production at its plant in Normal, Illinois.

Rivian was founded in 2009 by RJ Scaringe. The company originally planned to produce small electric cars but switched to pickups after realising the car path would only echo what Tesla had already done.

The R1T pickup and R1S SUV were previewed at the LA Auto Show in 2018.

The production version of the R1T BEV pickup is a crew cab model which, with an overall length of 215.6 inches (5,470 mm), placing it between the smaller Ford Ranger and the Ram 1500.

The model is offered with two battery pack sizes, 135 kWh and 180 kWh, returning respectively a 300- and 400-mile range (482 and 643 km).

Instead of a traditional BEV powertrain which has a motor on one or both axles, the R1T features a motor on each wheel, giving it four-wheel drive. The motors combine to deliver 800 hp. The vehicle can also perform what Rivian describes as a ‘tank turn’, where the inside wheels can reverse as the outside wheels go forward, allowing the truck to almost turn within its own length.