Ford is one of the biggest investors in Rivian which is also backed by Amazon. But Ford will also be one of its biggest rivals soon as it launches the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck that will go heads up against the Rivian R1T. Ahead of the mooted deliveries of the Ford F-150 Lightning, Ford has published a loss of $3.1 billion in Q1 2022 thanks to Rivian. This has nothing to do with competition but rather that Rivian's stock has taken a plunge as it has been slow to scale up production of the R1T and is yet to properly launch the R1S. This has had a direct impact on Ford's profitability. Ford lost $5.1 billion on the Rivian stock alone as its shares traded at $102 the previous quarter and now have dropped to $31.59.
Delivery window has been pushed back to between May and July at the earliest for the R1S
Ford's problems were further compounded by the global chip shortage which limited vehicle production in January and February. Its shipments went down by 9 per cent in the quarter to just 970,000 vehicles.
In Q1 2022 Ford made $1.59 billion while it made $2.9 billion at the same time in 2021. Its performance has also gone down globally save for South America. Ford, however, sees greener pastures as it has 400,000 vehicle preorders already. Its cars also have strong pricing which has helped curb the impact of global inflation as noted by its CFO, John Lawler.
