Rivian claims $100M in CAFE credit sales stalled by policy reversal - report

[Rivian Electric Pickup Truck]
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Rivian Automotive (NASDAQ:RIVN [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RIVN]) says the U.S. government has tied up $100M in revenue from the sale of regulatory credits to legacy automakers as part of Washington’s push to reverse the prior administration’s fuel economy policies.

According to _The Wall Street Journal,_ Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RIVN]) and other EV automakers generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue selling regulatory credits to competitors whose vehicles exceed Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards. However, Washington’s decision to remove penalties for violating CAFE standards led the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to delay issuing annual CAFE compliance notifications as it reconsiders standards for cars made in 2022 and after.

Accordingly, EV automakers have not received compensation for selling credits. For smaller EV makers like Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RIVN]) and Lucid (LCID [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/LCID]), the regulatory credits comprise a meaningful amount of revenue. Rivian estimates regulatory credits made up 6.5% of total revenue for the first half of 2025.

To address the Administration’s decision to suspend CAFE standards, the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) filed a petition with the Washington, D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals to force NHTSA to resume issuing CAFE compliance letters. NHTSA, however, has said it will return to its prior policy of issuing compliance letters once the agency has “reconsidered CAFE standards to make cars more affordable again.”

In the meantime, Rivian (RIVN [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RIVN]) says it is out $100M in regulatory credits it has already negotiated for but can’t finalize, while Tesla (TSLA [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/TSLA]) claims the recent regulatory actions have resulted in a $1.1B revenue shortfall [https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/TSLA-Q2-2025-Update.pdf] from selling credits. At the same time, General Motors (GM [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GM]) is said to have spent $3.5B since 2022 to purchase CAFE credits.

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