Rivian Automotive, Inc. ($RIVN)

Energy mobility, my partner, Davis Sunderland here. I'm very happy to have Rivian and Claire McDonough, the CFO. Joining us. Thank you, Claire. I appreciate it. I know it's a busy time for you guys.

Maybe if we could just level set, just I think everyone knows who Rivian is. If we could just level set maybe where you guys are right now, like what are the big things that you're focused on?

First off, Ben, thanks for having us. It's a really exciting time at Rivian. So next week on June 9, we'll start external deliveries, test drives of the R2. So if you go across North America to our sales showrooms to our service centers, you'll be -- have the opportunity to experience the product directly. We've been, over the course of the last handful of months going on and hosting R2 block parties at a number of sites across the country. We've seen thousands of people come wait 45 minutes an hour just to sit in the vehicle and experience it but not yet drive it. And so we're really excited to have people and our future potential customers behind the wheel of R2. And this is just a tremendous amount of effort, energy that went into the engineering design of the product, the design of the technologies that feed the R2. And importantly, now the ongoing operations and scaling of our R2 production in normal Illinois.

Maybe just another context question, I guess, just to guide our conversation just about the broader EV landscape. And where Rivian kind of sits within that because we went through a period of excitement and then we kind of peeled back and had tariffs and losing tax credits, and now we're somewhere in between. And I wonder if you could just talk a bit about what you're seeing in the broad market, whether it be from the perspective of supply chain or consumer demand or however you'd like to take it?

Sure, as you take a step back, we always had the intention of building the best product. So RJ, our Founder and CEO, he wasn't out to create the best electric vehicle. He was ready to create the best vehicle full stop. And that was the mentality and approach that we took as we designed and developed the R1T and the R1S and our launch products. And it certainly testament as we think about the opportunity to significantly reduce the cost of the R2, but create a vehicle that is incredibly fun to drive. I can't wait for many of you to get behind the wheel of an R2 to experience the thoughtfulness and intentionality that goes into thousands, if not millions of decisions in which we can design a product that keeps what makes Rivian essentially a Rivian, which is the adventurous spirit, the capability, utility and performance that customers have known to expect when they think about a Rivian, but doing that through a lot of underlying design and technology efficiencies that the R2 is now leveraging in market as well.

So maybe in normal, can you talk about just what production will be like there just from the R1, the EDV and R2 to start out and then we go from there.

Sure. Within our normal Illinois manufacturing facility, we have 215,000 units of total potential capacity split between three vehicle programs. So we've engineered the new body shop and general assembly for R2 support 155,000 units of annual capacity and then have a level of flexibility as we think about the R1 as well as the commercial van production that can complement the volume that we anticipate building at scale with R2. We're starting first with just a single shift of operations. And we're starting with our launch products. So we have a more limited assortment of vehicles that we'll be building out of the gate that helps us streamline the supply base, streamline the efficiency as we continue to increase our volumes each week and ultimately scale up to full production.

I want to ask about Georgia capacity, too, but you brought up an interesting point about supply base and streamlining that. And wondering if you could just talk a bit about similar parts or similar technology or I guess, similar things that you can leverage in the R2 that were, I guess, preexisting from the R1 already?

One of the core foundations for R2 was Rivian's transition from our Gen 1 R1 to our Gen 2. And as you think about the core technology foundations of R2 in our electrical architecture, our software stack, our autonomous capabilities in the vehicle or even our propulsion with our drive units, again, all of them are foundational based off of the Gen 2 R1. They just take another step in terms of the efficiency and development from that point in time. So we often talk about the technology evolution from Gen 1 to Gen 2 as being even greater than the shift or leak that as we go from the Gen 2 R1 to the R2.

So one thing that I think investors are focused on is the R1 not being profitable. Can you talk about what R2 in the platform and how that changes?

Sure. For R2, we focused on both commercial negotiations with the supply base where we had a very different starting off point than we had when we started out with R1 and we're a preproduction company negotiating with suppliers. We also had the advantage of having just recently announced the Volkswagen $5.8 billion joint venture at the time when we started sourcing parts for R2. And so that was a real complement of validation for Rivian's future in the space and the opportunity for us to jointly source and procure with the Volkswagen Group, the electronic control units and common parts that come out of our joint venture together that ultimately drives another step change in terms of affordability and sourcing leverage for Rivian as well. And then beyond the sourcing side, a lot of it is driven by engineering design efficiencies in the vehicle. So a couple of good examples are the suspension in R2, which is 72% less than -- or sorry, 72% of the cost of -- sorry, less than the R1. And that's driven by us evolving from an electrohydraulic dampening -- active dampening system to the MacPherson strut potential. So we still have tremendous off-road driving dynamics with the current suspension system in the R2, but are doing it in a much more cost-efficient manner as we think about the vehicle's execution. For another great example that I love is as you look at the rear door frame of the R2. In the R1, we have a division bar. So you have multiple parts of glass in the vehicle. The R2 is able to design the door frame with no [ div ] bar included. It's actually aesthetically even more appealing with just a seamless single piece of glass in that door. And again, we're able to reduce 50% of the cost of the rear door as part of that specific example as well.

You mentioned in there, the partnership with Volkswagen in the $5.8 billion JV. One of many important relationships you guys have announced company life to date. I'm sure we'll dig more into each of them. But maybe just to level set on Amazon, now Uber most recently and then the Volkswagen partnership. If you could just give an overview on where those stand, that would be helpful.

Sure. Rivian has always wanted to be seen as a great partner for the industry. And our first partnership was with Amazon and centered around our electric delivery van. And it's been great to see Amazon scaling out their infrastructure from charging at their sites. That they're now in a position to increase the volume of EDVs that they're purchasing from Rivian, which is a key tailwind that we talked a little bit about on our prior earnings call as well that we'll continue to see over the course of of 2026. As we think about the Volkswagen, joint venture was fantastic to execute and complete our winter test milestone, which was testing the electrical architecture and software across Volkswagen Group products, Audi and Scout products, and this past winter in Sweden and seeing the ongoing development and now commercialization, just about 1.5 years following the closing of the JV, which really demonstrates the extensibility of the technology that we're building and its application to many form factors in the future as well. And then finally, our most recent partnership with Uber, which is centered around robotaxi deployments, the investments from Uber are allowing us to accelerate the development of our L4 capabilities as an organization that we see not only opening up new business models, such as the robotaxi deployment, where Uber is purchasing 10,000 units initially and up to 50,000 units in totality and each of those units with an associated software subscription for the autonomous driving from Rivian. We also see it as a key catalyst for the end state of consumers where autonomy is going to be a more and more important part of the decision-making process that each of you make as you think about your next vehicle, the headroom, the performance, the capabilities that it can provide and the convenience that it can give each and every one of us our most valuable asset, which is our time back.

Just maybe going back to the VW partnership. I think that when you guys did it, at least I looked at as a way to monetize technology -- but I think there's probably more to that than that. Can you just talk about how it can benefit you from the P&L? You talked about from cost, but how it else?

So there's multiple vectors of savings and efficiencies as we think about the Volkswagen partnership. First and foremost, as we talked about the technology development, it allows Rivian to become a more global player faster with a broader R&D budget associated with localization efforts across the world and especially as we think about Volkswagen's position in Europe. And so first and foremost, we think about it as the R&D pool of investments that can help Rivian continue to be at the leading edge of technology advancement and deployment within the vehicles. The shared development work is also split. 75% Volkswagen is paying for it and 25% Rivian is paying for it. And so there's inherent and out of the gates through 2028 R&D savings to Rivian where previously we're putting 100% of the bill of our team, whereas now they're focused on development for both parent companies as part of the joint venture. We've talked a little bit about the sourcing leverage and opportunity, and we see there being potential to have additional adjacencies of sourcing leverage in the future together with them as well. And then the capital as a whole as we think about the $5.8 billion of total consideration.

And just as an offshoot from that, you recently got another one of those milestones of that capital stack that you guys will benefit from. What are the remaining steps to unlock the remainder of that?

So we anticipate receiving another $1 billion of nonrecourse debt in October. There's no milestone associated with the nonrecourse debt. And then there's an additional $460 million that will be paid when the very first Volkswagen Group programs are out in the wild commercially as well. So that will be the next payment, which we anticipate happening in '27.

So maybe let's talk about Uber and how that relationship started and the details about it.

Sure. As you all know, we've had autonomous ambitions for quite some time now as an organization. And we are working through the right cadence and timing and trade-offs as we thought about our own accelerated development towards L3 and then ultimately, L4 capabilities. We spoke a little bit about this at our AI Day in December of this year. And as we continue to explore the importance of autonomous driving and the potential value creation, margin expansion and the fact that we see Rivian as one of just a few players that has the core ingredients of being able to be quite successful in this arena. We made the election to say let's go faster towards this future. But let's find a partner, as we found in Uber, who can help with some of the demand aggregation can help with some of the fleet management capabilities while we can really focus our efforts on building what we think is the most important part of the equation, which is the driver.

Maybe going back to that AI Day and talking a bit about that Rivian driver. And when you guys unveiled the Rivian autonomous processor, could you just talk a bit about the decision of why to make your own chip, what the competitive advantages may be? And then obviously, that's a supply chain that's very tight right now. If you could just talk about the relationships you have there to manufacture, that would be helpful, too.

In December, we revealed what we call RAP1, which is our very first Rivian Autonomous Processor. That will go into our R2s end of this year. And the core advantage for building a chip like this in-house was both speed. So our ability for our software teams to work on early releases of the product as we've seen over the course of the last year in the future development of the software stack and middleware that sits on top of the in-house chip. It also allows us to really distill down to what matters most. And so if you think about an off-the-shelf offering, the shelf offering needs to suffice and build capabilities for a broad set of use cases beyond just the determinant of the physical AI in a camera-based application, which Rivian is clearly focused on. And so you get to a higher level of utilization of the core technology that you're developing because you're designing it to be a bespoke to your end use case. And the last piece is cost. The semiconductor universe of players certainly has great margins associated with it as well. And so the combination of speed, performance and cost really comes together as we think about the opportunity set for us on a go-forward basis.

I guess you get this question, we can go back to that. But are there other pieces that you want to monetize of your technology? Because it seems like people ask you that after VW and now you have Uber and is there anything else?

There certainly is a number of ways that we could continue to monetize the hardware and software for autonomous driving with other OEMs. Certainly, that is also true as we think about the electrical architecture and software that we've designed, developed in the JV and the proof point of having it situated in a number of different Volkswagen Group brands and products in market allows it to be a lighter lift as you think about what does it take to put it into an incremental vehicle program with another OEM as well. So we certainly have designed our technology stack for sizable scale in Rivian's long term, but certainly also see opportunities for partnership via licensing or monetization as well.

Continuing the Uber piece. And I guess going back to what you were talking about with Volkswagen and sharing some of the development expenses, could you just talk a bit about maybe some shared autonomy expenses or, I guess, ultimately, robotaxi expenses and how they might be split between you and Uber in the partnership?

So within the Uber partnership, Rivian is responsible for the development of the core technologies. Uber is investing in Rivian. And the way I think about it is we sort of shoehorn those Uber investments in Rivian to help offset the acceleration of our efforts in our L4 development road map within the business. But they are not sharing in the cost and the development directly.

So R2 next week, I'm coming out to California. One great thing from my personal perspective is that you kept the brand similar. How big do you think the market is for the R2?

We think the market is enormous for R2. So if you look at the broader market across U.S., EMEA, the 5-passenger SUV and crossover space is the largest, fastest-growing and most attractive space to play in and R2 really sits at the epicenter of it as well. So we see this as being a product that we hope a lot of customers that may have been on the edge of buying their very first EV now have the opportunity, a form factor that shares the adventurous spirit of the Rivian brand for them to delve into their first EV as well.

I echo Ben's sentiment. I think the R2 is very cool. And I was very surprised at the R2 unveil event when you also unveiled R3. Could you also talk about R3, how that fits into the platform and when that might be coming after R2?

Sure. We get questions about all the time. And part of the reveal was when you're building vehicles that will be situated on the same common platform. You want to make sure that the design elements are done at a similar point in time. So for our Georgia facility, we'll be building units across the midsized platform. So that will house R2, R2 robotaxi for Uber, for example, we'll house R3 and additional variants in the future as well. So we're right now in the process of digging the foundations of our stamping press building in Georgia and are excited about the continued progress on the creation and erection of that site.

So maybe you could give us the sizing of Georgia. You have a loan guarantee you guys upped the size of it, I think. So just maybe if you could level set us on that.

Sure. So we recently increased the initial first phase of Georgia to be 300,000 units. And associated with that initial phase, have a $4.5 billion Department of Energy loan. We did modify from an original plan that was going to have two phases of 200,000 units and a slightly larger DOE loan associated with it. But what was the advantage for Rivian was we were actually able to increase the size of the initial loan and are able to create 300,000 units of capacity alongside it that is more cost effective for Rivian as you think about what is the CapEx deployment per unit of capacity that we're achieving and then having it up to 80% loan to value to help finance it with U.S. treasury rate capital, which is fantastic for Rivian's cost of capital.

Going back to the profitability discussion around the R1 and on the R2, broadly speaking, could you just talk through some of the biggest buckets for margin improvement in either of the vehicle platforms?

In R1 or R2?

Either, yes.

In R1 or R2. Either, yes. The areas of margin improvement are -- we gave a couple of examples on R2 with the suspension system, the door. Another couple of examples there are the battery pack that we're using, which is also -- it's a structural pack. So it's also the floor of the vehicle. We've also moved to some large die castings in the vehicle as well that again, simplifies the manufacturing process for R2 and also reduces cost as well. R2 is also about 2,000 pounds lighter than R1. So that helps us drive range and efficiency. And then we've designed and developed what we call our Maximus drive unit, which again removes significant cost from the program while also creating a really fun 660-horsepower driving experience that I think will make most of you smile as you hit the accelerator as well.

When I -- when I said how big is the market, you said EMEA and you guys haven't talked about selling too much into Europe or the Middle East. So what's the strategy there?

So we definitely designed R2 to be a global platform. And so we do anticipate in the future, we'll start here in North America, where we have a robust service infrastructure, sales infrastructure. But as we scale a product over time, we certainly have ambitions to take it more global as well.

And you guys have your stores or spaces. Will you do that in Europe? Is that the thought?

Yes. Spaces in Europe as well.

So maybe thinking about other just potential hurdles, not to the R2 but to EV adoption one that comes up frequently is charging. Could you talk just a bit about the Rivian adventure network, where this stands and what the investment plan is for charging infrastructure going forward?

The Rivian Adventure network today has just under 1,000 chargers across about 145 locations in North America. We've continued to grow the network over time. It's also a network that we've opened up. So it's going to be in the evolution of now being more NAX native as a network, but having CCS capabilities for vehicles as well. And in opening up the network, we're actually seeing broad adoption from all different types of EV owner. So it's a great touch point for new potential customers to have into the Rivian brand and ecosystem, and they really appreciate the high level of uptime and reliability that we have in the network as well. We've definitely been more modest in terms of the funding road map and have relied heavily to date on government grants and funding this helped augment the capital investments that we've made in the site, but certainly have large ambitions to continue to grow out the network over time.

And I think the Amazon relationship doesn't get talked about a lot. Could you just give us an update there and how they think about is it EDV and/or anything bigger than that?

With Amazon, we've designed from the ground up with their use case in mind for last mile delivery. And the great thing about the van is the total cost of ownership advantage that it provides Amazon. And as they think about the efficiency of not just the ownership experience, but the efficiency of utilization for their drivers and the execution of the deliveries that they have. We also are introducing a larger pack variant of the vehicle and an all-wheel drive variant as well so that they can start to use the EDV for more rural routes within their network, which is a big area of growth for Amazon. So we're excited about the road map for the future and to continue to scale and grow the bands for them.

I know we'll get to one on capital allocation and balance sheet before we close, but I want to separate this question on strategic priorities separate from capital priorities, just in thinking about R2 being front and center, recently announcing an autonomy partnership with Uber and seemingly so many things going on all at once. How do we think about what is the focus or what is the most near-term, I guess, obstacle for Rivian to tackle?

So I see them as very intertwined in that you can't have the R2 without the foundational technologies that power it. And you can't just have R2. R2 would not be the same vehicle that it is without those foundational technologies. And so as we think about the prioritization, it's really centered around the operational issuance of scaling R2, being able to get more customers behind the wheel, deliver on the ribbing experience at scale. While, at the same time, continuing to progress our technology road map, which is foundational to current products as well as the future products that we'll be bringing to market.

We can do one before capital allocation. You guys have invested in the robotics company. I think. Could you just talk about that?

Sure. So we saw -- and this sort of dovetails into the question on capital allocation and how do we think about prioritization. With the advent and growth that we're seeing in physical AI, we saw a huge opportunity to invest in robotics for industrial and manufacturing environments. And we recognize that as we think about the uses of capital in our core business that it was important for us to incubate and fund Mind Robotics, which we started last year with outside capital. And so RJ has been highly successful in raising additional capital for Mind Robotics, and we're really excited about the development road map and opportunity for Mind to partner back with Rivian as we think about the future of manufacturing.

And last one, just as we think about your cash runway and how we think about capital as you progress and ramp up the R2 and get to Georgia, how do we think about that?

Sure. As you think about the cash runway, we have a number of sources of capital. So we ended last quarter at Q1 with $5.4 billion of overall liquidity. As we look at this year, we anticipate receiving another $2.55 billion of capital between Uber and Volkswagen. $1.3 billion we already received sort of right after earnings time frame. And then beyond that, there's another $700 million from Uber, another $460 million from VW and the $4.5 billion DOE loan, which puts us at sort of a total pro forma capital and liquidity of $13.6 billion. And beyond the capital that we've secured from these strategic partners in DOE, Rivian will continue to be opportunistic as we think about our road map for the future and ensuring that we're always maintaining a strong balance sheet.

Great. Thank you, Claire.

Thank you.