Rivian Stock Drops After Piper Sandler Downgrade, Price Target Cut: Retail’s Divided

Shares of EV-maker Rivian Automotive (RIVN) declined 4% by Thursday afternoon after Piper Sandler downgraded the stock and reduced its price target.

According to The Fly, Piper Sandler, on Thursday, downgraded Rivian to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ while reducing its price target to $13 from $19 after struggling to identify upside catalysts for the shares this year.

While investors can look to the launch of Rivian’s new R2 SUV in 2026, the company has “lots of heavy lifting” until then, the firm said in a research note.

Although Piper Sandler flagged a policy risk for the company in 2025, it said it liked the company's strategy.

Last month, Rivian said it expects to deliver between 46,000 and 51,000 vehicles in 2025, a decrease from the 51,579 deliveries reported in 2024.

For the first quarter of 2025, the company expects deliveries to be about 8,000 units, significantly lower than the 13,588 deliveries reported in the corresponding quarter last year.

Lower commercial vehicle deliveries, seasonality, and a challenging demand environment for consumer vehicles led to a dip in projection, the company said.

Rivian is also planning to shut down its production line at its factory in Illinois for about a month in the second half of the year to prepare for the start of production of R2.

Production of Rivian’s R2 vehicle, priced around $45,000 in the range of Tesla’s best-selling Model Y SUV, is expected to start in the first half of 2026.

The company presently manufactures and delivers only two consumer vehicles: the R1S SUV and the R1T truck, priced around $70,000. It also sells electric delivery vans to fleet owners, such as Amazon.com Inc, priced over $83,000.

On Stocktwits, retail investor sentiment about Rivian shares surged to the ‘neutral’ territory (46/100) from ‘bearish’ a day ago while message volume remained ‘low.’ 

Rivian shares have dropped by over 17% year-to-date and about 4% over the past twelve months.

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