Ford Sold off About 8% of its Stake in Rivian

Ford Motor Company has sold about 8% of Rivian Automotive's stake, making shares of the electric car startups the lowest ever, according to people familiar with the matter.

Rivian shares are under pressure following news of the sale of Ford shares reported by CNBC last Saturday. Rivian shares fell 21% on Monday to $22.78, continuing the slide that began earlier this year when the company had to curtail factory production due to supply chain challenges.

Ford, an early investor in Rivian, has been aggressively expanding its electric vehicle offerings after recently starting production of its battery-powered pickup truck, the F150 Lightning. Lightning is a direct competitor to one of Rivian's first models, the all-electric pickup R1T, launched late last year.

Rivian reported about 83,000 reservations at the end of March and is struggling to speed up a regular factory in Illinois. The old factory of Mitsubishi Motors can produce 150,000 vehicles a year, but currently, it produces about 1,000 vehicles a month.

Rivian has also signed a contract to supply 100,000 battery-powered delivery vans to Amazon Inc, another investor in emerging automakers. According to FactSet, Amazon-owned 17.74 million shares of Rivian as of December 31st.