The first trade under the new Nasdaq brand for a company name first acknowledged more than two years ago will be made today. Rivian, an electric, seven-passenger personal mobility vehicle, which will manufacture its own lithium-ion batteries from cells that have been recycled from today’s smartphones, will start trading under the trade symbol RIV. NV, the name of the company itself, will not take effect until a more aggressive and long-anticipated round of selling starts in March 2019.
Read more on the history of Rivian here.
Rivian will be the first manufacturer of electric cars that’s starting up under the new name. It will also be the world’s first battery-first company, in that Rivian says it will start selling its sedans early next year with the battery-electric drivetrain replaced by a conventional gas engine in reverse when needed. Rivian will not sell its electric rear-wheel-drive variants because Rivian has only decided to enter the SUV market with those models.
California’s high-speed rail project is expected to take five to six years and cost $88 billion to complete.
“Rivian is completely non-conventional,” stated Rivian CEO and co-founder Daniel Kirchert in an interview. “Rivian is a pure battery company that just happens to produce electric vehicles and batteries.”
At peak electric vehicle production, Rivian will provide power to 500,000 cars a year. “Rivian will be mostly available in California first,” Mr. Kirchert said.
Before Rivian starts shipping vehicles, the company will scale up production to 1000 cars a month.
“We will be selling our cars as both 3-wheel cargo cars as well as as autonomous personal mobility vehicles in California and then we’ll be creating a network to offer them in other parts of the world,” Mr. Kirchert said.
The vehicle line up will be: Rivian Seven SE and Rivian Seven S that starts at $62,600 and will go about 310 miles before its gas engine can be used in reverse; Rivian 400 SE and Rivian 400 S, which have a 110-mile range, will be sold as cargo and mobility vehicles only. While the Rivian Seven SE has Wi-Fi hotspots, the Rivian Seven S, with more power, will offer far more.