Money-losing Rivian Automotive (RIVN 0.49%) isn't the type of stock a conservative investor should buy. If you're a more aggressive growth investor, however, you might be interested in shares of this electric vehicle maker. Is now the time to buy it, or should you wait for the next important milestone in the company's development? Here's what you need to know.
Rivian has achieved a lot in a short period of time
To give credit where it's due, Rivian has created a pretty impressive business. It isn't easy to build an auto company from the ground up. Not only is the competition intense, but the industry is also capital-intensive. Rivian, like Tesla before it, is attempting to leverage a new technology to break into the big leagues.
Image source: Rivian
The problem is that Tesla basically introduced the world to electric cars, creating the niche that Rivian is now trying to use to build its business -- only today, most major auto companies and a few large EV makers already have material market share in the EV space. The competitive landscape for Rivian is very different from the one Tesla faced.
Still, Rivian has managed to produce award-winning vehicles, scale up its production, and turn a gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2024, as management promised. It repeated that feat in the first and third quarters of 2025, but not in the second quarter. Still, barring a particularly weak fourth quarter, Rivian could post a modest gross profit in 2025.
At this point, Rivian is making more from selling its electric trucks than it costs to build them. A gross profit is not positive earnings, though it's an important step toward that goal. However, the fact that the EV startup is still bleeding red ink should keep most conservative investors on the sidelines.
Rivian's next step is a big one
More aggressive growth investors may still be interested, believing Rivian could offer similar appreciation potential to Tesla. That's probably unlikely, given that Tesla's business is far more diverse. And while Rivian is using Tesla's playbook in the auto space, the next test of its business model will be hugely important.
Up until now, Rivian has focused on business customers with its delivery trucks and high-end consumers with its consumer offering. In 2026, Rivian plans to introduce a lower-priced truck, the R2. It's geared more toward the mass market.
NASDAQ: RIVN
Key Data Points
Given the capital-intensive nature of building cars, it's important to spread costs over as many cars as possible. This is why large auto companies dominate the industry. It's simply hard to compete if you have a small production base. Tesla's move into the mass market was pivotal to its development. It will propbably be a pivotal move for Rivian, too -- only, at this point, there's no way to know whether the R2 will be a commercial success or a flop.
To be fair, Rivian had $7 billion of cash on its balance sheet at the end of the third quarter of 2025. It's almost certain that the R2 will get built and sold. The question is whether people will buy it in large enough numbers. And there's no way to know until the lower-priced vehicle is actually in the market.
Approach with caution
Rivian has achieved a lot in its short history. However, that alone isn't enough to make it worth buying today. For most investors, a better course of action will be to hold off investing in the stock until the success of the R2 can be better assessed. You'll give up some appreciation potential by waiting, but a weak R2 launch would be a very big problem for Rivian.
