Rivian to lay off hundreds amid drop in electric vehicle demand

The electric truck and SUV company Rivian will lay off hundreds of employees in an attempt to save cash as federal support for electric vehicle adoption wanes under the Trump administration.

- BY CAROLINE PETROW-COHEN

The layoffs come less than a month after the expiration of a federal tax credit that once saved many customers $7,500 on new electric vehicles and $4,000 on used ones. Experts said sales will falter without the credit, which ended Sept. 30.

Irvine-based Rivian plans to lay off more than 600 workers, a company spokesperson confirmed, or about 4.5% of its workforce. The company had just under 15,000 employees at the end of last year.

"We have made the very difficult decision to make a number of structural adjustments to our teams," Chief Executive RJ Scaringe wrote in a note to employees Thursday. "With the changing operating backdrop, we had to rethink how we are scaling our go-to-market functions."

Rivian wasn't the only tech company to announce cuts this week, with Meta laying off 600 employees within its artificial intelligence department on Wednesday in an effort to streamline operations and decrease bloat. Meta has revamped its approach to AI in recent months as it competes with OpenAI and Google.

Last month, Rivian had a smaller round of layoffs that affected around 200 employees, or 1.5% of the workforce.

Demand for electric vehicles is stalling as the market becomes saturated and the vehicles get harder to afford, iSeeCars.com analyst Karl Brauer said.