Supply chain pain leads Rivian to slash 2022 target

Continued supply chain snarls have led Rivian Inc. executives to cut in half their 2022 production target to 25,000.

Along with reporting Rivian’s fourth-quarter results, RJ Scaringe, the company founder, chairman, and CEO, said the company’s Normal, Illinois, manufacturing plant has of late been producing vehicles at twice the rate of late 2021.

But the factory is now outpacing Rivian’s supply chain, he added, although only a small number of products—mainly semiconductors, wire harnesses, and some electronic parts made by contract manufacturers—account for a majority of the delays. With semiconductors, Scaringe said, Rivian is at a disadvantage because many suppliers are often basing their allocations to customers on 2021 production.

“It's quite painful when we see our production plants really ramping and the lines running as we intend to [and] have to throttle production because of those shortages,” Scaringe said on a March 10 conference call with analysts and investors. “This is something we're laser-focused on. A morning doesn't go by where it's not a topic of conversation for us as a management team.”

For the full story on Rivian's fourth-quarter report and outlook for 2022, visit our sister brand, IndustryWeek.