On November 10, Rivian Automotive, a manufacturer of vehicles with an electric motor financed by Amazon and Ford, debuted on the Wall Street stock exchange. The shares of the young startup recorded a strong rise, signaling investor interest in a company that wants to use its batteries to manufacture SUVs, as well as trucks and vans for commercial transport.
The success of the operation comes on the wave of the extraordinary results achieved by Tesla, whose shares in 2009 were worth 17 dollars each while today they are around a thousand dollars, making the company founded by Elon Musk one of the most important in the world, with a stock market value of over one trillion dollars. But it also counted the support of two giants such as Amazon and Ford. The former owns 20 percent of Rivian’s capital and has already announced that it will buy one hundred thousand vehicles of the company for its delivery services. The automaker, on the other hand, has a 12 percent stake and through Rivian has paved its way into the new electric car market, beating off competition from General Motors.
As the Wall Street Journal explains, two years ago it was for Ford’s historical rival to invest in the prominent startup. “The story of how it managed to overcome General Motors”, writes the US newspaper, “perfectly illustrates the level of the ongoing battle between traditional car manufacturers to secure a place in the new market. Ford’s mission culminated in a four-hour negotiation aboard a private plane, which ended with senior executives of the group trying to camouflage themselves at an airport near Detroit, for fear of being spotted by those of General Motors.
Rivian’s loss, however, did not deter rival, which in October said it would soon become the first company in the electric car market sales. Meanwhile, another fierce competitor, Germany’s Volkswagen, has announced that it will open a plant entirely dedicated to electric vehicles at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.
