Could Rivian Get Acquired in 2022?

Rivian$Rivian Automotive, Inc.(RIVN)$ made an explosive market debut at the end of 2021, raising $11.9 billion in an IPO that was the world's largest last year. But concerns about the future of the company and its ability to maintain production capacity have dampened the enthusiasm of some investors. Is it possible that the newly public electric vehicle company could become an acquisition target?

Analysts think the company could potentially get acquired，the reason is that they're so highly valued right now, and a majority of that is based off that Amazon$Amazon.com(AMZN)$ partnership that they have right now, that contract with Amazon. Because in the EV market, about the trucks getting delayed, there's so many delays. It's incredible.

It's happened with Tesla$Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ for all of the time that I have followed the company. There's always so many delays. So I can see something happening with Rivian where the stock price gets cut in a major way and it just gets acquired by somebody, perhaps even Amazon. I think Amazon owns 20% of the business already, if I'm not mistaken. I may be wrong, but I think it's close to 20%. That would be my company that could potentially be sold for its scrap, I guess.

I think we're going to see, as the trucks start to come out -- because the truck market is one market where there is a lot of infrastructure for aftermarket products. So I think when we start getting a critical mass of electric trucks, you're going to start to see that market adapt to optimize their offerings for the electric versions, to the extent that that might make sense. That will be interesting to watch.

The valuation of Rivian seems really, high for the amount of product they're actually putting out into the market right now, which is not almost zero, let's say. So that's a potential issue. Realistically, ask yourself: Who do you honestly think makes more [electric] trucks in 2022? We know it's not going to be GM$General Motors(GM)$ because they've said 2023 is what they're targeting, the Chevy Silverado.

But if you say, between Ford$Ford(F)$ and Rivian, which one of them do you think makes more trucks in 2022? Personally, I think the answer is probably Ford. They've got the factories. Although Rivian has just produced so far about 1,000 electric vehicles, I think that's the number it just hit. Of course, all those parts, it's very complicated in this environment, too.

Rivian's doing something that's a little different, they're doing this truck and this SUV, but they got a long way to go to catch up. I think both GM and Ford probably produced more electric vehicles in 2021 than Rivian has put out. Not trucks, but again, they have other products out there that they're making right now.