The opening trade of $106.75 gave Rivian a market value of about $91 billion, greater than that of Ford and General Motors.
Ford is one of Rivian’s high-profile backers, having invested a half-billion dollars into the company in 2019.
Rivian is aiming to take advantage of a growing appetite among consumers and investors for electric vehicles.
Rivian priced the offering of 153 million shares at $78, giving it proceeds of nearly $12 billion.
Automakers big and small, new and old, are chasing Tesla, which has largely dominated the electric vehicle market for years, amassing a market value of more than $1 trillion along the way.
Rivian has a contract with Amazon to build 100,000 electric delivery vans at its factory, a former Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois.
Rivian rolled out its first vehicle, the R1T electric truck in September and will launch its electric SUV, the R1S, in December.
Options for the vehicles include a $10,000 battery upgrade that will extend the driving range from 314 miles .
The Lightning has a starting price of $40,000, but will sell for thousands of dollars more once customers add options.
The research firm LMC Automotive says in 2020, EVs made up a little more than 3% of the global auto market and less than 2% of the U.S.
Rivian, which was founded in 2009, says it lost $426 million in 2019 and $1 billion last year.