Shares of Rivian Automotive surged as much as 53 per cent in its Nasdaq debut on Wednesday, giving the Amazon-backed electric vehicle maker a market valuation of more than $US100 billion ($136.5 billion) after the world’s biggest initial public offering this year.

That made Rivian the second most valuable US automaker at one point behind Tesla, which is worth $US1.01 trillion. Despite just having started selling vehicles and having little revenue to report, Rivian ranked ahead of General Motors at $US85 billion; Ford Motor at about $US77 billion, and Lucid Group at $US65 billion before it pared some gains.

Reuters