Enlarge / Rivian pick-up trucks on the assembly line in Normal, Illinois. (credit: Bloomberg )

Spotting an electric truck on the road remains a novelty in most of the US, but not Normal, Illinois.

The town in the Midwestern corn belt is home to the manufacturing operations of Rivian, the battery-powered vehicle start-up worth more than Ford or Volkswagen soon after it listed 18 months ago.

Rivian’s market capitalization has since crumbled from a peak of $162 billion to $12.5 billion in the face of production shortfalls and intensifying competition from carmakers both established and new. It is expected to report a $1.7 billion operating loss on $654 million in revenue in first-quarter results due on Tuesday, according to a compilation of analysts’ estimates.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Earlier this week , the IRS began enforcing the new clean vehicle tax credit rules . This program is an incentive of up to $7,500 for the purchase of a new battery-electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid EV (or hydrogen fuel cell EV), albeit with some conditions, including a requirement for a certain level of domestic content in those cars' battery packs. As a result, many previously qualifying vehicles lost their eligibility, but not all.

When the rules went into effect on April 18, 10 models qualified for the full $7,500 tax credit, and another seven were eligible for a $3,750 credit. The Volkswagen ID.4 was a notable omission from the list, which was puzzling at the time given that VW now builds its electric crossover in Chattanooga, Tennessee . Perhaps it was a day late with its paperwork to the IRS, because the ID.4 now appears on the US Environmental Protection Agency's official list of eligible vehicles .

"This is great news for consumers in the US because it expands the choice of truly affordable EVs," said Pablo Di Si, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America. "The ID.4 is already one of the lowest-priced electric SUVs on the market, and the $7,500 Federal Tax Credit makes it even more attainable. This shows that we made the right decision to localize production of the ID.4 in Tennessee and invest even further in battery production, components and innovation. Every ID.4 sold supports thousands of American jobs and helps advance our goal of a carbon-neutral future."

Enlarge / With a starting price of $26,500, it's no surprise that Chevrolet has sold a lot of Bolt EVs this year. (credit: General Motors)

As we're now in the second quarter of the year, automakers have been reporting their sales numbers. Tesla, which we covered on Monday , is far and away the leader when it comes to electric vehicle sales in the US. But as more and more automakers are bringing new EVs to market, Tesla's market share is eroding, from 72 percent at the beginning of last year to 54 percent now— and it may fall to less than 50 percent over the next few weeks . Which of those other automakers are managing to move metal? We took a look through the Q1 sales announcements to get an idea.

While most automakers have published their Q1 2023 sales, this is not a universal list. In particular, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Lucid, and Genesis have yet to reveal those numbers as of April 5. And the manufacturers don't all break out data in the same way, either lumping all EVs together (looking at you, General Motors) or grouping different powertrains together (as is the case with the Kia Niro and Hyundai Kona).

It's also helpful to remember that, other than Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, all the other automakers have product lines other than battery EVs, so such a company probably isn't going out of business next week because it only sold 3,000 EVs in three months. Supply chains still aren't back to what was considered normal pre-pandemic, and it's worth remembering that in most cases, these are global products. There are severe penalties for automakers who don't sell enough EVs in Europe and China, unlike here in the US. So in cases of finite supply, those markets will receive priority when it comes to deliveries—every EV you sell in the US is an EV you can't sell in Germany, after all.

Enlarge / The recall affects both the Rivian R1S (pictured) and the R1T pickup truck. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Rivian is in the process of recalling nearly 13,000 R1T trucks and R1S SUVs due to a potential seatbelt problem. It believes that in some vehicles, a sensor within the seatbelt system is missized or "dimensionally out of tolerance," and that could prevent the automatic locking retractor from working properly. That in turn could lead the front passenger airbag to believe the seat was unoccupied during a crash, resulting in it failing to trigger.

Last July, Rivian and its supplier were investigating a vehicle that was displaying a message that the front passenger airbag was off despite having a passenger in that seat. Rivian and its supplier, Autoliv, worked on the problem until January, collecting more potentially suspect parts from other Rivian EVs. In February the startup determined that vehicles with the suspect parts would not be compliant with federal safety regulations and initiated the recall.

Unlike many problems we see on new EVs, this one is not the sort that can just be fixed with a software patch. Although Rivian thinks that only 1 percent of the 12,716 affected cars actually have a defective part, it will inspect and, if necessary, replace the passenger seatbelt components in those affected vehicles.

Enlarge / Rivian's electric truck is aimed at the adventure lifestyle. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

On Friday, Rivian issued a recall for more than 12,000 electric vehicles due to potentially suspension components. The problem affects model year 2022 Rivian R1T trucks, R1S SUVs, and some Rivian EDV delivery vans—a total of 12,212 EVs in all.

In mid-August, Rivian discovered that an upper control arm had separated from the steering knuckle on one of its vehicles. The company began an investigation and by the end of September had identified six reports "potentially related to this issue that had accumulated" over the course of production.

According to Rivian's safety recall report , its production records can't confirm that the two suspension components have been properly torqued on every vehicle. That could throw out the wheel's alignment or potentially even separate the joint.