Rivian surges over 20% on delivery guidance, R2 launch in Q2; CEO says 'key inflection' reached
The EV maker also posted a gross profit for Q4, driven by its software and services unit.
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Senior Reporter
Fri, February 13, 2026 at 9:39 AM EST
5 min read
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Rivian (RIVN) stock surged on Friday morning after the EV-maker reported strong delivery guidance for the year, as it ramps up for the release of its R2 vehicle which the company said is on track for the second quarter of this year.
The company expects vehicle deliveries for 2026 in a range of 62,000 to 67,000 units, meeting Wall Street estimates of around 63,400 units and suggesting the upcoming R2 will boost sales.
Crucially, the company said its upcoming R2 midsize vehicle is targeting customer deliveries for the second quarter, after early manufacturing validation builds rolled off the assembly line in January.
Rivian stock surged over 20% in early trade on Friday.
"This is for us a really key inflection here, where we're going to demonstrate the long term profitability of the business with R2, such an important program for us in terms of adding scale to business," CEO RJ Scaringe said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
That being said, Rivian sees its adjusted EBITDA loss for 2026 in a range of $1.80 billion to $2.10 billion versus a loss of $1.8 billion expected, with capital expenditures of $1.95 billion to $2.05 billion, meeting estimates of $2.05 billion.
"RIVN provided solid FY26 delivery guidance while providing EBITDA targets below the Street expectations as the company ramps its new and existing vehicle lines to generate stable revenue growth while investing strategically across the business," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients.
And for a second quarter in a row, the company posted a gross profit of $120 million, broken down between a loss of $59 million for the automotive segment and a $179 million gain from software and services. Rivian said the jump in software and services profit is due to "vehicle architecture and software development services" stemming from its joint venture with Volkswagen (VOW3.DE).
For the year, Rivian's adjusted EBITDA loss came in at $2.063 billion, wider than estimates of $1.8 billion but within the company's forecast. Capital expenditures for the year hit $1.710 billion, versus estimates of $2.05 billion.
Cash and cash equivalents tallied $6.082 billion at the end of the fourth quarter, around $1 billion less than last quarter. Rivian said it had $6.588 million in total liquidity — crucial as it ramps up R2 production.
"We will be opportunistic with regards to additional capital raises," Scaringe said, adding that Rivian anticipates another $2 billion in cash and debt from its joint venture with Volkswagen this year.
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Rivian's big R2's ramp up is not without risks, however.
"The biggest risk in our ramp up, and what we've experienced in the past, and built some skills around managing, is just the complexities of ramping a supply chain, some of the unknowns within the supply chain, and that can be as specific as memory or chip set, or it could be as broad as aluminum supply," Scaringe said.
For the quarter, Rivian reported revenue of $1.286 billion versus $1.26 billion, per Bloomberg consensus estimates, down around 27% from a year ago. Rivian attributed the revenue declines to the loss of regulatory emissions credit sales, the expiration of the federal EV tax credit, and lower average selling prices.
The company posted an adjusted loss per share of $0.59 versus $0.69 expected, with an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) loss of $465 million versus $568.2 million expected.
Last month, Rivian said it produced 10,974 vehicles at its manufacturing facility in Normal, Ill., and delivered 9,745 vehicles in Q4, with full-year tallies of 42,284 vehicles produced and 42,247 vehicles delivered, reaching the midpoint of its guidance range of 41,500 to 43,500 vehicles delivered. However, Rivian’s original 2025 delivery target was between 46,000 and 51,000.
As part of the R2 product initiative, the company plans to amp up its AI and tech development, which investors are keen to hear more about.
Last December, the company said software advancements from its new Autonomy platform and Large Driving Model (LDM), an autonomous model trained similarly to a large language model (LLM), will expand its Universal Hands-Free assisted driving to second-gen R1 vehicles, covering 3.5 million miles in the US.
Later this year, a point-to-point hands-free system will be released, followed by a hands-free and eyes-free self-driving product, with the ultimate goal of achieving "personal Level 4" autonomy, meaning the vehicle will be able to drive fully on its own without requiring the driver's attention.
Read more: Live coverage of corporate earnings
"We realized we wanted to do a clean-sheet approach to our Autonomy platform, and so we started the process on that, and that involved developing a camera platform, so a perception platform, redesigning the compute platform, and really architecting the whole system around an AI-centric approach, where the vehicles that are on the road are part of a large data flywheel, where we're collecting data and using that data to train the models," Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe told Yahoo Finance at the December event in Palo Alto, Calif.
Part of the company's AI-centric approach is to make its own chip, known as the Rivian Autonomy Processor, which will power Rivian EVs' self-driving capabilities. Previously, the company used Nvidia's (NVDA) Orin chip in its self-driving computer module.
Pras Subramanian is Lead Auto Reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram.
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