“At this time limit, we consider specializing in our shopper enterprise, in addition to our present industrial enterprise, signify essentially the most engaging near-term alternatives to maximise worth,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said in a press launch. Each Mercedes-Benz and Rivian had signed a memorandum of understanding in September for a three way partnership to construct massive industrial electrical vans.
The businesses had been going to construct the autos collectively at a producing web site in Poland, however the German automaker isn’t going to pause its personal plans. “The ramp-up plan for our new EV manufacturing web site in Jawor, Poland shouldn’t be affected,” Mercedes-Benz head of vans Mathias Geisen mentioned in a press release. “We are going to proceed with full velocity and dedication to scale up electrical car manufacturing in our first devoted electrical van plant.”
It will have been Rivian’s first entry into the European market and one of many first offers to promote vans to an organization aside from Amazon. The EV firm would have had the chance to study from Mercedes-Benz’s two-decade-plus expertise in constructing industrial vans in trade for its electrical platform experience.
This comes on the heels of Rivian reporting a $1.71 billion loss within the second quarter of 2022. The corporate mentioned it could burn via $700 million in money towards its objective of manufacturing 25,000 autos by the tip of the 12 months, of which it’s nonetheless 7,000 EVs brief. Rivian additionally laid off 800 workers in an try to chop prices and stanch the bleeding of extra money. The automaker says it at the moment has 98,000 buyer reservations for its R1T electrical vans and R1S SUVs.
On the time of the partnership announcement, Mercedes-Benz had an curiosity in retaining its place as “the one” automaker making massive vans in Germany, based on Geisen. The unique information jumped Rivian’s inventory 10 %, however that has now dropped with the deal on pause. Rivian remains to be on the hook to ship 100,000 supply EVs for Amazon, which had its projected success by date pushed from 2024 to 2030.