“EV start-ups have raised money, floated and set up factories; all they need to do now is make the vehicles,” wrote a Financial Times reporter in a recent deep dive into the challenges facing new firms looking to seize the opportunities of electrification and its seemingly lower entry costs than for ICE car making.

Few exemplify the point like Rivian, the American electric truck maker that has been backed by Amazon and at one point had a stock-market valuation double that of Ford (another early investor); yet has made so far fewer than 1500 vehicles and warned recently that it’s unlikely to have made more than 25,000 by year’s end.

That’s some way short of the 50,000 originally forecast, hampered, it said, by supply shortages in the wake of the pandemic. Bad news for a company burning through $2.5 billion per quarter. As a result of that mega-flotation, it’s more than cash-rich enough to weather the situation for now, but the grim reality of moving from promising start-up to bona fide vehicle manufacturer is providing the sternest of challenges.

Related articles

As with Tesla before it, the hype that earned Rivian a mega-valuation has also brought greater scrutiny.

Surprise has come in the form of Amazon ordering tens of thousands of trucks from Stellantis parallel to its existing order from Rivian – hardly a ringing endorsement, especially given its insider knowledge.

For Autocar Business webinars and podcasts, visit Autocar Business Live

Scandal is exemplified by ongoing arbitration with highly regarded former sales and marketing boss Laura Schwab, ex of Aston Martin and Land Rover, who left publicly alleging that a “toxic bro culture” made her position at Rivian untenable.

But most damaging of all was a recent price increase, initially backdated onto customers sitting in line for a vehicle. With an estimated 70,000 buyers having paid a deposit based on an agreed price, Rivian announced a 17% hike for its pick-up and 20% for its SUV, blaming rising supply-chain costs. Just a few days later, the outcry made it backtrack.

Public seesawing has never done much for any company’s reputation, and today Rivian is valued at almost a third of its peak.

So it is that a company that has enough deposits to keep production running to the end of 2023 already; has won awards for the quality of its products; has already earmarked new production facilities to take its capacity beyond 500,000 per year; and which has the jump on the likes of Tesla and Ford in bringing large electrified trucks to market; is on the ropes, if not financially then certainly reputationally.