Rivian Automotive (RIVN 6.10%) investors had a traumatic Thursday, as news of rival Fisker's probable restructuring sent electric car investors scurrying for cover. However, no sooner had markets closed for the day (with Rivian stock trading down 8%) than a miracle happened:

Riding in like a banker in bright shining armor, Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter announced he's upgrading Rivian to "overweight" -- and raising his price target to $21, implying this EV stock could nearly double in price over the next 12 months.

Is Rivian stock a buy?

Defending his thesis, Potter presented the same arguments investors heard during Rivian's last stock price rally: Rivian is postponing construction of a new factory in Georgia, delaying billions of dollars of planned capital spending. Rivian will build its R2 electric SUV at its Illinois plant instead -- and even before it's started, the R2 has already attracted 68,000 preorders. What's more, Rivian's surprise announcement of an upcoming R3 electric hatchback "could be one of the most compelling designs on the market when it is released."

But hold just one second there, Tex. What do you mean by "when it is released?"

The R2 itself won't be available for delivery before the first half of 2026 at the earliest. And not even Rivian has a release date for the R3. All Rivian says is that R3 will come "soon after" R2 -- and even that prediction is conditioned on the need to first "launch" and then "ramp" production of R2.

It's also going to get mighty cramped up there in Illinois, if Rivian tries to build all three chassis in one single factory -- which means that somewhere along the way, Georgia is going to have to get built, again requiring spending billions in cash that Rivian probably doesn't have.

When you consider further that Rivian will be trying to do all these things without any hope of earning profit -- most analysts agree Rivian won't turn profitable before 2030 -- it seems highly unlikely that Rivian stock would double long before it's shown progress on any of these fronts, i.e. within the next year.