Rivian Pops 18% After Dumping Nvidia and Taking Aim at Tesla’s Most Sacred Revenue Stream

Well, it’s not very often that giving Jensen Huang and Nvidia the middle finger gets you investors climbing over each other to buy your stock… but that’s exactly what just happened.

Shares of Rivian exploded nearly 18% after the company held its first-ever Autonomy & AI Day and said the three magic words shareholders never thought they’d have the balls to say.

Custom chip. AI. Software.

Suddenly, the same stock that was flirting with the teens is back near $19, its highest level in almost two years. Amazing what happens when you tell the market you’re breaking up with Nvidia and rolling your own silicon like a real tech company.

So let’s break down why analysts got all hot and bothered.

For starters, Rivian announced it’s moving away from Nvidia processors for autonomous driving and building its own self-driving chip, creatively named the Rivian Autonomy Processor.

The chip will be manufactured by TSMC, which is like the Michelin star kitchen of semiconductor production… so you know it’s gonna be done right.

Based on this move, it’s obvious Rivian wants to compete as a software company that happens to sell vehicles, not the other way around.

(Source: Yahoo Finance)

And get this… according to BNP Paribas, one of the largest banks on the planet, the event “cements” Rivian as the #2 EV player in North America, and in certain AI-integration areas, even past Tesla. (Though I’m sure Elon would disagree).

On top of the self driving tech, Rivian also unveiled Autonomy+, a paid driver-assistance package that costs:

-$2,500 one-time, or

-$49.99/month

For comparison, Tesla wants $8,000 or $99/month, which makes Rivian’s offering look like the no-nonsense alternative… same promise, half the price.

The system still requires human oversight (lawyers everywhere just exhaled), but Rivian says “eyes-off” functionality could arrive in 2026, timed with the launch of its mass-market R2 vehicles.

Will that timeline slip? Almost certainly. Will Wall Street care right now? Absolutely not.

Analysts at Needham raised their price target by 64% to $23, citing confidence that Rivian is positioning itself where the industry is heading: software-first EVs.

And that’s the real story here.

Rivian isn’t being valued like a struggling car company anymore. It’s being valued like a future platform… subscriptions, updates, AI assistants, autonomy, the whole nine yards.

Rivian is pushing an AI voice assistant to current R1 vehicles next year. Because God forbid your truck doesn’t have something to say.

And I’m not trying to overhype this, but the stock ripped higher on a down market day while AI favorites like Broadcom and Micron got clipped on bubble fears. That’s not nothing.

Sure, the stock is still way below its glory days. The execution risk is still enormous. And Rivian still has to, you know, make money.

But for the first time in a while, Rivian’s story isn’t about survival… it’s about ambition. And that’s exactly what shareholders want to see. 

The people who bought into the dream years ago didn’t sign up for caution. Go after Tesla. Be bold. Fire Nvidia, build your own chips in-house, and roll out a subscription model that actually beats Tesla’s. That’s how you swing for something bigger.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla as mentioned in the article.