Rivian (RIVN) builds premium electric trucks and SUVs. The company is gearing up for its next big step with the R2 launch, a crossover SUV designed to reach a wider audience at a much more accessible price. Rivian is still early, but it’s no longer a concept story. It’s a real business working to scale, improve margins, and turn the corner, and it’s at a similar inflection point as Tesla before its huge run.
That’s why it earns the first spot in this Stock Picks for 2026 series.
The Chart
If you zoom out on Rivian, you see a massive spike after the IPO, a brutal collapse when the EV bubble popped, and almost two years of sideways movement at the bottom. It looks dead, which is usually where the real turn begins.
The long term trend is flattening
The 200 day moving average used to slope straight down, now it’s leveling out with the price putting in higher highs and higher lows. That’s usually the first sign that momentum is starting to shift.
The stock is acting better near the highs of its base
Trading near the upper end of a long bottoming range is a sign of strength. It doesn’t confirm a new trend, but it shows buyers are stepping in.
These are the kinds of base breakouts you look for in hyped post-IPO tech stocks. The pendulum swung so far to the negative side that people forgot this was once a company the market valued at 120 billion dollars at its 2021 peak.
The Numbers
Revenue is climbing
Rivian is doing about 1.5 to 1.6 billion dollars in quarterly revenue, up from roughly 1.0 billion a year earlier. Annual revenue should land in the 6 to 7 billion range if production stays on pace. It’s still small compared to Tesla, but the growth rate shows real demand.
Gross profit just turned positive
Rivian posted its first quarter of positive gross profit in 2024 after roughly 3 years of losses. Automotive gross margins are still negative, sitting around negative 20 to 25 percent, but that’s a large improvement from the negative 70 percent range right after the IPO. If R2 ramps smoothly, those margins should move toward break-even over the next product cycle.
The software side is promising
Software and services are growing quickly and already profitable on a gross basis. Their partnership with Volkswagen makes that side of the business way more credible and gives Rivian a real shot at building a meaningful high-margin revenue stream over time.
Why 2026 Could Be a Turning Point
R2 could be the unlock Rivian’s been waiting for. If you want a real-world comparison, look at what happened when Tesla launched the Model Y in 2020. It went from a steady EV story to a true breakout once production ramped.
After Model Y scaled, Tesla’s stock jumped ~10x in under two years. That run was powered by rising deliveries, clearer margins, and confidence that the company could execute at scale.
Rivian isn’t Tesla, but the setup has similarities. A major new product cycle, a bigger addressable market, and improving fundamentals all lining up at once. If R2 hits its marks, the market may need to rethink what Rivian is worth.
Why I Like It Here
Rivian is a high-risk, high-reward play, but the setup is cleaner now than it has been at any point since the IPO. The stock spent almost three years going nowhere while the business kept fixing the hard stuff. Now revenue is rising, gross profit is turning, and the next product cycle is close. The real risk is timing. The market might wait longer to reward the progress, but if you can hold through the noise, you’re getting a company with improving fundamentals before the story fully shifts.
This is the kind of position that can sit quietly for months and then rerate fast once sentiment turns. If R2 lands, Rivian has a real chance to become one of the best performers in a long-term portfolio over the next few years.
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