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Ford recently sold its stake in Rivian, according to sec filings. Ford currently owns just 1.15 percent of Rivian, or about 10.5 million shares. It is worth noting that this is not the first time Ford has reduced its stake in Rivian, which Ford sold 91 million shares last year.

Rivian was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Irvine, California. Its founder RJ Scaringe graduated from Rensselaer Institute of Technology in the United States and received a doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT. After graduating in 2009, RJ Scaringe founded Mainstream Motors, a car manufacturer specializing in sports cars. In 2010, Mainstream Motors changed its name to Rivian and moved from sports cars to pure electric pickups. In 2018, Rivian launched the pure electric pickup R1T and pure electric SUV R1S. As the United States favored pickup trucks, its pure electric pickup R1T was widely favored by the market, and the capital market also gave high valuations, and the stock rose all the way.

In addition, it has also received investment from well-known enterprises such as Ford and Amazon. However, after the hustle and bustle, it will eventually have to be delivered. According to relevant data, in 2021, Rivian produced 1015 vehicles and delivered only 920 vehicles. Rivian plans to produce 50,000 cars in 2022, then reduce it to 25000, but ultimately fails to meet its target. According to data released by Rivian, a total of 24337 new cars will be produced and 20332 new cars will be delivered in 2022.

In fact, it is easy to understand why Ford keeps selling Rivian shares, which has something to do with Rivian's situation and Ford's own revenue. In recent years, Rivian is still in a state of loss and losses continue to expand, relevant data show that in the third quarter of 2022 Rivian total revenue of 536 million US dollars, net loss of 1.72 billion US dollars. During the reporting period, Rivian produced 7363 units and delivered 6584 units. Rivian loses $230,000 for every car it produces.

In addition, Rivian in addition to losses, but also faced capacity bottlenecks, recalls, price increases and a series of negative effects, so that its secondary market once fell. On March 2 last year, Rivian announced that due to semiconductor shortages, rising material costs and inflation, it decided to raise the price of pure electric pickup R1T and pure electric SUV R1S by 17% and 20% respectively. After the price increase, the R1T starts at $79,500, while the R1S starts at $84,500. The move immediately caused a strong protest from car owners, because Rivian price increases not only affected consumers who ordered cars later, but even owners who had previously ordered cars had to "make up the difference", which also triggered customers to cancel orders. In the face of accusations from car owners, Rivian has no choice but to announce again that customers who book before the price increase will maintain the original price.

Rivian announced a recall in October last year, which almost reached its full number of deliveries, after the price increase caused dissatisfaction among users and the possibility that the steering knuckle fasteners might separate and cause the vehicle to lose control. Waves of bad news also caused Rivian stock prices to fall continuously. Rivian shares closed at $18.850 a share at press time, down more than 95% from an all-time high of nearly $180 a share at the start of the listing.

This was undoubtedly a huge loss for Ford, who owned Rivian shares. Ford lost $3.1 billion in net losses in the first quarter of 2022 and $5.4 billion in the value of Rivian shares as its stake in electric car company Rivian continued to shrink, according to data.

Of course, Ford's reduction of Rivian shares has something to do with its poor performance, with data showing net revenue of $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, down $11 billion from the same period in 2021. Officials said the main reason for the losses was supply chain and production instability, which led to higher vehicle costs and lower output than expected. Ford's sell-off of Rivian shares is undoubtedly worse for Rivian at this stage. For Ford, it also acts as a stop-loss. After all, Ford's poor performance in 2022 also forced Ford to cut executive bonuses and layoffs to save costs.

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