Rivian raises electric vehicle sales forecasts with increased production in the second quarter

Rivian is telling investors that it may see better sales than it expected, despite the many headwinds working against electric vehicles in the U.S. right now.

Rivian previously said it would ship between 62,000 and 67,000 vehicles this year, but the company now expects to deliver between 65,000 and 70,000 vehicles, the company said Thursday.

It’s a small bump but potentially meaningful for the company, which shipped just 42,247 electric vehicles last year. The new forecast comes as growth in electric vehicle sales in the United States has slowed, driven in part by Congress’ repeal of the $7,500 federal tax credit and the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations that encouraged the production and purchase of electric vehicles.

The new forecast could be a sign that the company’s high expectations for its new full-size electric vehicle, the R2 SUV, are justified.

Rivian didn’t provide a specific reason for this newfound confidence, saying only that it beat its expectations in the second quarter thanks to “strong QoQ growth in EDV and R1, coupled with the delivery of R2 deliveries.” (EDV is the name Rivian uses for its electric commercial van.)

Rivian said Thursday that it built 12,613 vehicles in the fourth quarter and delivered 12,194 vehicles. It expected to ship only between 9,000 and 11,000.

Rivian has high hopes for the new R2 SUV, which it began selling last month, with a starting price of about $58,000. The company has expanded its factory in Normal, Illinois, for production, and is also building a brand-new production facility in Georgia where it is manufacturing hundreds of thousands of R2s annually.

Rivian hasn’t explicitly said how many R2 units it expects to sell this year, but the company’s CFO Claire McDonough has cited a range of 20,000 to 25,000 units. It’s unclear if that number has now increased along with the new forecast, or if the company expects the excess deliveries to come from its commercial trucks and more expensive R1 line of trucks and SUVs.

Either way, more deliveries this year would be good news for Rivian, as the company is still working to dig its way out of a multi-billion-dollar hole. The company has said it may finally turn a regular profit in 2027, but it recently pushed back that goal to invest in developing self-driving software, mostly because it now has a deal to supply self-driving R2 SUVs to Uber.