Rivian Automotive (NASDAQ: RIVN) shares gained 1% in Friday trading, touching an intraday high of $15.65 before settling at $15.47. Trading volume came in 44% below the average session level, suggesting the move was not driven by heavy conviction in either direction.

The stock has spent months bouncing between $15 and $16, with a fifty-day moving average of $15.98, leaving the shares just below that level. The fifty-day moving average is a level many traders watch as a gauge of medium-term trend, and a stock hovering just under it typically points to an absence of clear directional momentum. That range-bound pattern mirrors a divided Wall Street view on where the electric vehicle maker goes next.

Split Analyst Ratings, Modest Upside Implied

Of the analysts covering the company, twelve rate the stock a Buy, nine a Hold, and seven a Sell. That works out to a consensus Hold rating and an average price target of $19.00, according to MarketBeat data. A separate TipRanks tally puts the average target at $17.13, implying nearly 11% upside from current levels. Such targets generally reflect a twelve-month outlook, so the spread above the current share price speaks to where analysts see the company heading over the coming year rather than a near-term verdict.

The message from both tallies is the same: analysts see room for the stock to run, but nobody is fully convinced yet.

Earnings Beat, But Losses Continue

Rivian's most recent quarterly report, released July 30, topped expectations. The company posted an adjusted loss of $0.63 per share, better than the $0.66 loss analysts had projected. Revenue reached $1.66 billion, up 27% year over year and well ahead of the $1.52 billion consensus estimate.

Still, Rivian is not profitable. Analysts expect a full-year loss of $2.98 per share, and the company projects a full-year adjusted EBITDA loss between $1.8 billion and $2.0 billion. Adjusted EBITDA, which strips out certain non-operating items, is one of the measures pre-profit growth companies are judged by because it approximates how heavily the core business is still consuming cash. The numbers paint a familiar picture for Rivian watchers: growing sales, shrinking losses, but still a long way from the black.

Software Could Be the Real Story

Deliveries are no longer the only metric investors are tracking. Rivian's autonomy software is starting to look like a business of its own.

On September 29, Rivian's autonomy and AI leaders will speak at the Evercore ADAS, AV & AI Forum — a session investors are watching closely for autonomy updates. The timing lines up with the company's plan to roll out point-to-point assisted driving later this year.

The R2 platform, which began deliveries on June 9 starting at $57,990, already supports hands-free assisted driving across 3.5 million miles of U.S. and Canadian roads. A cheaper R2 Standard, priced at $44,990, is expected in 2027.

This month, Rivian merged its R1 and R2 lineups onto a single software platform called RivianOS 2. That consolidation should make fleet-wide updates easier and could pave the way for paid features down the line.

The financial case for software is starting to show up in the numbers as well. Software and services revenue hit $515 million last quarter, carrying a 42% gross margin and contributing to $179 million in total gross profit — a bright spot in an otherwise unprofitable business. Margins of that scale stand out in an industry where the hardware side of the business — building and selling vehicles — has historically run on far thinner gross margins, which is why higher-margin software revenue is often treated as a decisive lever on the road to sustained profitability for EV makers.

Uber Partnership Tied to Autonomy Milestones

Then there is Uber. The ride-hailing company has agreed to invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031, contingent on Rivian hitting autonomy milestones — a structure that ties funding to demonstrated technical progress rather than a single upfront payment. The plan calls for an initial fleet of 10,000 autonomous R2 robotaxis, with room to expand to 40,000. Commercial deployment is targeted for 2028. Taken together with the assisted-driving rollout planned for later this year and the R2 Standard in 2027, the company has laid out a dated sequence of milestones that gives investors concrete checkpoints to measure progress against.

Insider Selling Continues Amid Heavy Institutional Ownership

Insider selling has persisted in recent months. CFO Claire McDonough sold 13,144 shares in August at an average price of $14.50, while insider Michael John Callahan sold 15,000 shares in September at $16.29. Both sales were made under pre-arranged trading plans — programs scheduled in advance that let sell on a predetermined timetable, a practice designed to avoid any appearance of trading on nonpublic information.

Institutional ownership remains heavy, sitting at 66.25%. Norges Bank and Bank of New York Mellon both built new positions in recent quarters, while Capital International Investors added to its existing stake.

Key Metrics at a Glance

Rivian's market capitalization currently stands at $22.40 billion, with a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.00 and a beta of 1.62. The negative P/E ratio simply mirrors the bottom line: with no positive earnings to divide by, the metric confirms the company is still losing money rather than offering a valuation signal. A beta of 1.62 indicates the stock has historically moved more sharply than the broader market, meaning the shares tend to amplify swings in overall sentiment.

This article originally appeared on CoinCentral: Rivian (RIVN) Stock: The Software Story Investors Are Watching.