Rivian (RIVN) is reportedly seeking a site for a battery factory in a addition to two already-planned assembly plants.
Rivian stock jumped 7.6%, and is up 40% since its IPO last week.
RIVN stock notched a valuation of $126.8 billion at Friday’s close.
Some of those proceeds will go to build a battery factory, according to a Bloomberg report.
Rivian is considering opening a battery factory near Atlanta, according to local reports.
Other states in the running include Arizona, Michigan and Texas. The company currently assembles battery packs at its site in Irvine, Calif.
However, the top priority is a second U.S.-based assembly factory, the Bloomberg report said.
Rivian currently makes the R1T electric pickup at its Normal, Ill., plant.
Next, Rivian plans to open a plant in Europe to start building vehicles by the end of 2023, according the report.
A site in the U.K. is also possible, as well as locations in continental Europe.
The Rivian IPO priced an upsized 153 million shares at $78 a share Tuesday night. That was above the already-raised price range of $72-$74. Rivian had originally planned to offer 135 million shares. The RIVN IPO raised $11.9 billion.
That makes Rivian the largest IPO so far in 2021 and the largest since Alibaba (BABA) in 2014, according to Renaissance Capital, manager of two IPO-focused exchange traded funds. In comparison, the Alibaba IPO raised $25 billion.
EV leader Tesla (TSLA) now has a $1.05 trillion valuation, with the stock price exploding over the last several weeks before falling sharply this week.
Among other U.S. automakers vying for EV market share, General Motors (GM) has a market valuation of $92 billion, vs. Ford’s (F) $78 billion on Friday.
Lucid Motors (LCID), the EV maker that came public earlier this year via a merger with a SPAC — a special purpose acquisition company, has a market cap of around $71 billion.
The Rivian IPO also potentially benefited customers who preordered the R1T electric pickup truck or the R1S SUV.
The company’s prospectus shows that its directed share program set aside 7% of its IPO shares for the program. Participants could include customers who preordered either vehicle by Sept. 30 and did not cancel the order as of Oct. 25. Each of those customers had access to a maximum 175 shares at the IPO price.
