Rivian has filed a lawsuit against auto parts manufacturer Commercial Vehicle Group due to an issue regarding the supply of seats.
A lawsuit filed by Rivian in March against Commercial Vehicle Group states that the Ohio-based supplier had threatened to stop supplying seats for Rivian’s all-electric Amazon van if the car manufacturer did not pay “approximately twice the agreed-upon price.”
Read Also: Rivian To Build 25,000 EVs This Year, Has Secured 10,000 Reservations Since Price Hike
Word of the lawsuit only just went public, prompting Rivian shares to drop almost 7 percent on Monday.
Commercial Vehicle Group supplies Rivian with the driver seat, jump seat, and various pieces of trim for the Amazon van. It’s important that Rivian doesn’t face too many snags in the production of the van as it is contracted to supply Amazon with 10,000 of them by the end of this year. All up, Amazon has ordered 100,000 vans from Rivian.
Rivian claims in the lawsuit that it had fewer than 100 seat packages left to install, noting that it would be forced to stop production if Commercial Vehicle Group didn’t restart deliveries of the seats. The electric automaker added that there is no alternative supplier for the seat packages and that finding another one could take up to a year. It is reported that Rivian had agreed to pay $775 per unit of the seat packages and that the supplier was demanding two times that amount.
Commercial Vehicle Group denies violating its supply contract for Rivian and says it was under no obligation to supply the seats at the lower price. The supplier also claims it only raised prices after Rivian submitted various engineering and design changes, The Wall Street Journal reports.
After the lawsuit was filed, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Brian R. Sullivan granted a temporary emergency order which required Commercial Vehicle Group to continue supplying the seats while litigation was ongoing.
