Written by via techcrunch.com
Rivian is laying off 10% of its salaried workforce in a bid to cut costs in an increasingly tough market for electric vehicles, putting even more pressure on its future, more affordable EV called the R2. A limited number of non-manufacturing hourly employees will also be cut, founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said in a companywide email.
This is the third round of layoffs for the EV company since July 2022, when Rivian cut 6% of its workforce. The company cut another 6% of jobs in February 2023.
The company more than doubled the number of EVs it built and shipped in 2023 compared to 2022. But Rivian still lost more than $5.4 billion for the year, and announced Wednesday that it only expects to build the same amount — 57,000 — of electric vehicles across all of 2024. Rivian said it plans to shut down its sole factory in Normal, Illinois midyear to upgrade its manufacturing line with an expectation to improve production rates by about 30%.
As a result, Rivian says it expects to lose, on an adjusted basis, around $2.7 billion in 2024, and has decided to “continue its company-wide cost transformation program.” That includes changes to the design and engineering of its vehicles, making manufacturing more efficient, and laying off more employees. The company said it expects capital expenditures to reach $1.75 billion in 2024— an uptick from the $1.03 billion it spent last year that will be driven by additional investment in its next-generation technologies, its future Georgia factory and go-to-market operations.
The company’s production and profit loss guidance combined with the layoffs pushed Rivian shares down more than 15.6% in after-hours trading.