Shares of Rivian Automotive Inc. rose more than 3% in late trading today after the electric car maker reported mixed earnings and revenue results in its third quarter and announced that it was ending its electric van exclusivity agreement with Amazon.com Inc.

Rivian reported an adjusted loss of $1.19 per share on revenue of $1.337 billion. Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research were expecting a loss of $1.36 per share on revenue of $1.36 billion.

The story of Rivian’s third quarter is one of an electric car maker still burning through money, but not as much as it previously was. The company reported a gross loss of $477 million in the quarter, compared with a loss of $917 million in the same quarter of last year. The improvement was primarily driven by increased production. The company produced 16,403 vehicles in the quarter and delivered 15,564. It also continued efforts to drive material cost reductions through commercial negotiations and engineering design changes.

Although the headline gross profit figure may have been better, Rivian’s operating expenses were not, with the company spending $963 million in the quarter, up from $857 million in the same quarter of last year. However, that was also the result of increased production.

As of the end of the quarter, Rivian had $9.133 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments on hand. Including an asset-based revolving credit facility, the company has access to $10.253 billion in liquidity, which, given how much money it burns every quarter, it will need.

“Results for the third quarter of 2023 reflect continued progress against our key value drivers, including ramping production, improving cost efficiency, successfully introducing new technologies and enhancing the customer experience,” Rivian said in a letter to shareholders. “Production during the third quarter of 2023 demonstrated our strongest quarterly rate to date with an annualized production rate of over 65,000 units, while financial results continue to benefit from our focus on driving down costs.”

For its fiscal fourth quarter, Rivian lowered its capital expenditures guidance to $1.1 billion. The company also is increasing its product guidance to 54,000 in the outlook, while also saying the figure was 65,000 at the beginning of the investor letter, so the actual figure may be somewhere in between.

The big news of the day, however, was Rivian announcing that its electric vans, until now exclusively produced for Amazon, will be available for others to buy.

The Rivian Commercial Van is designed to prioritize safety, driver comfort and sustainability, according to Rivian. Safety features include automatic emergency braking, collision warnings and 360-degree visibility, with Rivian claiming the van is engineered to be among the safest vehicles on the road today.

“Rivian and Amazon share a mission to decarbonize last-mile delivery and have been working together since 2019 to make that a reality,” Udit Madan, vice president of transportation at Amazon, said in a media release. “This has been part of our plan with Rivian from the beginning – we’ve always said that we want others to benefit from their technology in the long run because having more electric delivery vehicles on the road is good for our communities and our planet.”

Photo: Rivian