RIVN valuation is fair (not overvalued) at current levels; DCF value $13 matches price; maintain neutral/no-upgrade due to sector headwinds.

Rivian announced production and delivery figures for the third quarter of 2026, which were significantly higher than those recorded in the same quarter of last year. Of course, I have been warning investors against buying Rivian stock for several years now, and those predictions and recommendations have proven remarkably correct, as Rivian shares have fallen by more than 90% from their all-time high several years ago.

But is it finally time to buy Rivian stock with rising production and delivery figures, the start of manufacturing the lower-priced R2 model, and the availability of new, more affordable models next year and beyond?

Rivian produced 19,700 vehicles and delivered 19,200 in the third quarter. Production and delivery figures were in line with the company’s expectations, and the management team reaffirmed their forecast for the full year 2026, expecting to deliver between 65,000 and 70,000 vehicles, a significant increase compared to last year when they delivered less than 50,000 vehicles.

However, this year's delivery figures will come with lower average selling prices because Rivian introduced the R2 model, which starts at around $60,000 and may drop to $50,000 for some versions, but is mostly closer to $60,000.

Whereas last year’s models, when Rivian did not have the R2 model and only sold the R1T and R1S, those models were priced at over $70,000, approaching $100,000, and even $120,000 for some models.

So, you get lower average selling prices despite increased unit sales. In the same quarter last year, when Rivian did not have the R2 model, it produced 10,700 vehicles and delivered 13,200.

So, with regard to deliveries, which are an indicator of sales, they have increased by about 6,000 vehicles, which is slightly less than 50%.

I attribute almost all of this growth —when we get the final figures— to the R2 model and the lower-priced models. The reason I was pessimistic about Rivian stock for many years was that I had a more realistic view of the electric vehicle market compared to most analysts' predictions.

I was pessimistic about Rivian, Lucid, Chargepoint, Fisker, and many other electric vehicle companies, and it turned out to be very true.

You can see here that Rivian once had more than $17.5 billion in cash on its balance sheet, and that amount has shrunk down to $5.3 billion, despite the fact that the company has raised capital several times in billions of dollars.

Therefore, they have lost a lot of money in their net profits and continue to lose a lot because they need to produce on a larger scale in order to become self-sustaining.

They need to produce and sell more vehicles, thousands more vehicles, in order not to lose money in their net profits. To put this in perspective, Rivian's manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois, has the capacity to produce more than 215,000 units.

I've seen estimates as high as 240,000 units, but as you've seen before, they expect to sell only between 65,000 and 70,000 units this year, and that will be their best year ever.

So, even in their best year ever with the launch of the lowest-priced model, they will only produce and sell about a third of their manufacturing capacity. Thus, when you have this type of situation, your costs are unjustifiably higher.

You need to fill as much of that production capacity as possible so that you can reduce the unit cost because you are still paying for those overheads. You are still paying for the maintenance of that facility, and for the operation of that facility.

All those costs are included in your overall operating expenses, and if you are not utilizing that facility, the unit cost is higher than it should be. So, if Rivian can reach the point where it can produce and sell approximately 200,000 units, that is when the business can be self-sustaining.

I believe this is the time when the company will be neutral, or at least break even in terms of cash flow, and possibly positive in terms of operating cash flow, depending, of course, on the mix of units produced.

If the majority of those 200,000 units sold are lower-priced models that may not add much in terms of contribution profit or contribution cash flow per unit, then the cash flow may not be positive.

Or, if they are selling more units that contribute more to net profits, the results may be more positive. Of course, they are also planning, and they have a second manufacturing facility ready, but they have temporarily halted work on it.

Intelligently and wisely, of course, they have no need for that at the moment. They are not even selling a third of their current production capacity.

Why might you need another manufacturing facility? The reason is that when this company started in 2020 and 2021, amid the electric car craze, investors were pouring money into any company that showed them just a presentation or a picture of an electric car.

So it was hard to ignore that enthusiasm. And so Rivian drifted with that current and planned to open a second manufacturing facility that could produce a million units or more.

They planned this business as if sales would be much larger than they actually are.

I wouldn't be surprised if their internal projections for electric vehicle sales in 2025 or 2026 were 10 or 25 times higher than the actual figures being achieved in the market today.

That was the initial mistake, or perhaps you can't even call it a mistake because retrospective vision is always clear, isn't it?

Looking back, it is understandable that Rivian's management team and the management teams of electric car companies were excited because they received a lot of pre-orders, and there was a lot of investor enthusiasm.

It is understandable that they overestimated the demand. And of course, that helped them raise capital as well. Therefore, they were exaggerating their expectations because that helped them raise capital in addition to that.

But since then, I have felt that the management team has made wise decisions based on our current situation and what we have been through over the past several years, where demand for electric vehicles has been much lower than initially estimated.

So the ratings have become much cheaper, more sensible, and much closer to the levels I think they should be at, and should have been at in my opinion, to be honest, 5 years ago.

I was saying that these were the points where the valuations should have reached, warning investors not to get into these companies at those moments because they seemed greatly overvalued.

It is now trading at a forward price-to-sales multiple of 1.7, which makes a bit more sense compared to Lucid. Lucid is much smaller and not as advanced as Rivian in terms of profitability.

Therefore, it deserves a price premium compared to Lucid.

I agree with this much. Today I updated my estimate of Rivian's discounted cash flows and calculated a value of $13. So, it's exactly at my safety margin.

I like to have a safety margin of between 5 and 10%. Thus, Rivian is finally approaching a level at which I can say that it is no longer overvalued.

It seems to be fairly priced. Much of that bad news, negative cash flow forecasts, and profitability debates are finally fully integrated into the valuation, and looking ahead, it looks a little more attractive.

I will not upgrade the stock rating at this time because I believe the challenges remain, and the automotive and electric vehicle industries are among my least favored sectors, but the situation is certainly much closer than it was the last time I evaluated the company.