In recent years, there has been no shortage of examples to illustrate Benjamin Graham's famous quote, which was intended to distinguish fads from fundamentals. Take the case of electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian: a few days after its IPO, its valuation reached $180 billion, more than Ford and General Motors combined.

This, for a company that at the time had produced just a few thousand vehicles, without of course ever earning a single cent in profit. The windfall fell as quickly as it rose, and the enterprise value - market capitalization minus net cash - now stands at $10.3 billion.

Headed by RJ Scaringe, often referred to as the "anti-Elon Musk", Rivian continues to burn through between $1.5 and $2 billion per quarter. At this rate, cash flow is melting like snow in the sun, and refinancing over the next twelve months seems inevitable.

For this to take place under the right conditions, Rivian must prove that its vehicles meet their market. The good news is that yesterday, in a press release, the company confirmed its target of producing fifty thousand of them this year.

We're a long way behind Tesla and its two million vehicles a year, but Rivian has confirmed its credibility, and joins Elon Musk's group and China's BYD, both of which have exceeded their annual production targets.

On the other hand, circumstances are a little more difficult for younger start-ups such as Fisker, Nikola and Lucid - despite the latter's partnership with Aston Martin - who have all revised their projections downwards.

Rivian's advantage is that it has relied for years on its industrial partnership with Ford. However, the latter is now almost entirely out of the capital - with the interesting presence of Amazon, which holds 17%.

The share of electric vehicles in the US is growing significantly, despite the skepticism of analysts in recent months. This year, they account for 8.6% of new vehicle sales, compared with 5.9% at the same time last year.