Stuart Goldberg of Big Sky, Montana doesn't think his Rivian orders are ever coming in.
An IPO Rivian stockholder, Goldberg put two deposits down on an R1T and an R1S in September 2019. The 53-year-old resident of the ski town says he's a perfect example of a Rivian customer. He said he even offered to let the company film an ad for free on his property if they would just deliver his vehicles.
In February, Goldberg received an email that his delivery date was pushed back, yet again, to the second half of 2024.
"I read that as basically never," Goldberg said. He's embarrassed, he said, because he spent years hyping up Rivian to his friends and enthusing about his orders. Now, he dreads friends asking where his electric trucks are. "I'm the jerk who gets calls all the time like 'you get your car yet?' and I have to answer 'no' because at this point they're never selling me a car."
Goldberg's plight — and newfound distaste with Rivian after waiting nearly half a decade for his vehicles — are an early sign to some that the company has made more promises than it can deliver upon.
The list is certainly long. Since its blockbuster IPO in late 2021, Rivian has attempted to launch three vehicles at once, deliver 100,000 electric vans to Amazon, and hammer out 25,000 vehicles in its first full year of production — all while standing up a second factory in Georgia.
While the company tries to keep all of these plates spinning, shareholders are losing patience. In its first full year as a publicly traded company, Rivian's stock fell roughly 80% as it pushed back deliveries, changed pricing, and in the end, delivered just over 20,000 vehicles.
