Rivian Lost $6.8 Billion Last Year as Production Fell Short

Rivian, a maker of electric trucks, said on Tuesday that it lost $1.7 billion in the final three months of last year as it struggled with production difficulties.

The loss brings the company’s total losses for 2022 to $6.8 billion and highlights the troubles that once-promising start-ups are having gaining ground on Tesla, which dominates the electric vehicle business. Last week, another young automaker, Lucid Motors, said that it lost $2.6 billion in 2022.

Rivian said the supply chain problems that dogged it last year would continue this year but become easier to anticipate. The company said it expected to produce 50,000 vehicles this year, roughly twice as many as it did in 2022.

In a conference call, Rivian’s chief executive, R.J. Scaringe, said the company was working to reduce costs, especially now that Tesla had cut the prices of its cars by as much as 20 percent. Driving costs down “is our core challenge today,” Mr. Scaringe said.

He added that demand remained “robust,” noting that the company had a backlog of orders that it expected to last into 2024.

Rivian brought in $663 million in revenue, and delivered 8,054 vehicles, in the fourth quarter of 2022. On a full-year basis, it had revenue of $1.7 billion, and delivered 20,332 vehicles, in 2022. It produced 24,337 vehicles last year, just short of its reduced goal of 25,000.

The company said it had $11.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of December, down from $18.1 billion a year earlier.

Rivian, which is based in Irvine, Calif., makes an electric pickup truck, a sport utility vehicle and a delivery van. The company has attracted several deep-pocketed investors, including Amazon, which has placed a large order for the manufacturer’s vans. Ford Motor also invested in the company but ultimately decided not to collaborate with Rivian and sold most of its stock.

The company’s inability to quickly increase production at its plant in Normal, Ill., has limited sales, and its stock price has plunged. On Tuesday, it was trading around $19, down from around $47 a year earlier. The company’s share price was about 8 percent lower in extended trading after the release of its earnings report.

Rivian said it expected to report a loss of $4.3 billion in 2023 before taking into account interest, tax and other expenses.