Rivian Stock Roller Coaster Continues as Amazon Van Delivery Faces Delays
Courtesy of Rivian.

Rivian Stock Roller Coaster Continues as Amazon Van Delivery Faces Delays

Rivianā€™s stock lost 7% yesterday on the back of news that the company could face delays in fulfilling Amazonā€™s order for a fleet of electric delivery vans due to legal issues with a supplier. The electric vehicle maker is suing Commercial Vehicle Group (CVG) over a pricing dispute related to the seats that the supplier promised, according to the Wall Street Journal.


The legal issue could mean that Amazon may not receive their electric vans on time. The dispute hinges on whether or not Commercial Vehicle Group is allowed to raise the prices of its seats after Rivian made engineering and design changes to the original version. Rivian says the price hike from CVG violates the supply contract. CVG denies the claim.

Regardless, the dispute could hamper Rivianā€™s ability to deliver electric vans to Amazon on time. The ecommerce/streaming/cloud computing/AI megacorporation controls an 18% stake in Rivian as one of the companyā€™s largest early investors. Amazon has previously said it hopes to buy 100,000 delivery vehicles from Rivian by 2030.

The stock plunge marked another wild turn for the EV manufacturer. Last week, Rivian shares dropped 21% on Monday after Ford, another early investor, announced its intent to sell 8 million shares. The next few days saw even further declines as virtually the entire market saw massive losses, but then Rivian rallied partially on the back of their earnings report on Wednesday, gaining 28% back by Friday. Then came yesterdayā€™s 7% slide. Today the stock is up another 10%.

Hold on tight, who knows where weā€™re going next.

Jessica Jackley

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, Untapped Capital, Alltruists and Kiva founder Jessica Jackley talks about her experience supporting entrepreneurs across the world, and offers advice to founders on what to do when encountering doubt -- from themselves or others.

"The pursuit of an opportunity, a vision, like an imaginary world that you want to make real. You're running after this thing, you're pursuing it without regard to what you have in front of you," she said. "So there's always going to be something wrong."

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Minnie Ingersoll
Minnie Ingersoll is a partner at TenOneTen and host of the LA Venture podcast. Prior to TenOneTen, Minnie was the COO and co-founder of $100M+ Shift.com, an online marketplace for used cars. Minnie started her career as an early product manager at Google. Minnie studied Computer Science at Stanford and has an MBA from HBS. She recently moved back to L.A. after 20+ years in the Bay Area and is excited to be a part of the growing tech ecosystem of Southern California. In her space time, Minnie surfs baby waves and raises baby people.
LAā€™s Data Center Supply Crunch

šŸ”¦ Spotlight

Happy Friday Los Angeles!

The Los Angeles data center market is experiencing a significant supply crunch, ranking 12th in growth among top markets since 2020 with only 265 megawatts of colocation inventory (data centers where businesses rent space to store their computing hardware and servers). Despite this, demand is surging, driven by AI, cloud, and hyperscaler needs, with AI accounting for 20% of new data center demand nationally. This scarcity is creating a highly competitive environment, with vacancy rates at a record low 3% and asking rents rising 13-37% year-over-year. For Los Angeles, this presents both challenges and opportunities in the big picture. The city's strategic position as a global entertainment hub and its connectivity to international markets through subsea cables make it an attractive location for data centers. However, the limited inventory and rising costs could potentially hinder growth and innovation in the tech sector. To maintain its competitive edge, Los Angeles will need to address these constraints through new developments, such as GI Partners' 16 MW addition at One Wilshire, and by focusing on high-connectivity, high-power capacity submarkets. The city's tech community should prepare for a landscape of increased competition for quality data center space, higher costs, and the need for innovative solutions to meet growing demand, particularly in AI and cloud services. While Los Angeles faces a challenging data center supply crunch, its strategic advantages and ongoing developments offer a promising path forward.

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