Tesla (TSLA +1.16%) has been on a tough path the last few years. It keeps losing share in its key markets around the globe, especially in the United States, a trend that looks set to continue even though it has slashed prices on its best-selling electric vehicles (EVs).
Now, CEO Elon Musk has started publicly debating with President Donald Trump, and it is unclear whether this feud will truly affect Tesla's business. But it will definitely not be a positive development since taking political sides will inevitably alieniate a large customer cohort. It's a sceario that can cut both ways.
Regardless, the company has already experienced much financial pain the last few years. At the same time, other EV stocks, such as Rivian Automotive (RIVN +3.13%), have stayed stuck in the mud. Its shares are down over 90% from all-time highs and trade below $15.
Is Tesla's pain going to be Rivian's gain, making the stock a buy right now?
Rivian's bold bets are falling flat
Rivian made its debut on the stock market with a lot of excitement. It raised over $10 billion in its initial public offering and shot up to a market cap of over $100 billion.
Investors were optimistic about the company -- which at the time generated zero revenue -- and its EV product pipeline and its deal with Amazon to build its new delivery vans.
Since then, Rivian has started to produce cars for customers, but at a much smaller scale than initially thought. It still has a large 100,000 order to make electric vans for Amazon, and you can now see its vehicles regularly on roads in the United States.
However, with the high price points of its trucks and SUVs, deliveries to customers have begun to flatten out. In 2025, the company is guiding for 40,000 to 46,000 deliveries. In 2024, it delivered over 50,000 vehicles.
For reference, Tesla delivers close to 2 million cars globally each year, and while that figure has begun to fall, it is still significantly larger than Rivian's numbers.
Selling cars that push a $100,000 price point is going to make your product unaffordable for most people in the U.S. This is why Rivian's share of EV sales has not grown significantly in reaction to Tesla's market share losses. Musk's customers have gone to legacy brands that can sell more affordable EVs.
Image source: Getty Images.
Can Rivian's sales grow again?
To reinvigorate delivery growth, Rivian plans to bring a more affordable EV to market in 2026 called the R2. The SUV will cost around $45,000 before upgrades, which will open up a much larger addressable market. The company still needs to execute and start up production, but this is the right path if it wants to achieve greater market share in EVs and get to profitability.
Scale will be important. Right now, the company is losing a ton of money -- it had a $655 million operating loss just in the first quarter of 2025 -- because it does not have the sales to support its fixed manufacturing costs. Automakers either have to be a niche luxury player selling at high price points or an automaker with large volumes -- nothing in between.
The R2 could give Rivian a path to get to hundreds of thousands of vehicle deliveries a year, a capacity the company is in the process of building. It will be an expensive investment, but one it has the cash and liquidity to make.
The company had $8.5 billion in cash on its balance sheet at the end of its last quarter, a $3.5 billion commitment from its partner Volkswagen, and a potential $6.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy coming down the line. This provides a long runway to keep burning money as it scales up its manufacturing.
Eventually, it will need to generate a profit and positive cash flow, though.
RIVN Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts; TTM = trailing 12 months.
The right way to look at Rivian stock
Investors should not look at Rivian as a quick way to play the Tesla market share losses and Elon Musk's political ventures. The trends in the automotive sector and EVs take much longer to play out, with Rivian planning for a huge growth in production in 2026 and the few years thereafter. Nothing is going to happen in 2025 in regard to growth.
The way to look at Rivian stock as an investment, at least for those thinking of buying today, is as a high-risk stock with a lot of long-term potential if the company executes on its growth plans. Today, the stock has a market cap of just $16.5 billion, which is significantly lower than Tesla. Annual revenue for Rivian is right around $5 billion.
It will not happen overnight, but Rivian could potentially see its stock price soar if it gets profitable, scales up production, and starts generating tens of billions in revenue a year at some point this decade. But it doesn't come without risks, which investors need to understand before buying this upstart EV manufacturer.
