All discussion of Rivian Automotive

[KJD]

Right now Rivian has the EV truck market pretty much to themselves. If Ford and GM ever get to volume EV production, I think the Rivian reservation list will dry up in a hurry.

 

[bkp_duke]

Right now Rivian has the EV truck market pretty much to themselves. If Ford and GM ever get to volume EV production, I think the Rivian reservation list will dry up in a hurry.

See Sandy Munro's F150 Lightning teardown . . . not an EV truck I would buy. From top to bottom it was a "compromise" vehicle to get to market.

 

[RobStark]

You have got to be kidding me: “Of Rivian’s nearly 15,000 employees, about half are focused on future products, Scaringe said”

Why? They have a golden goose in front of them and they aren’t pursuing it? Do they think their vehicles aren’t going to be competitive long term?

The engineers have already engineered the R1T, R1S, and Delivery Van. A few are re-engineering the tonneau cover.

Do you want the engineers to keep staring at R1T,R1S and Delivery Van?

Production engineers and production staff are focused on R1T,R1S and Delivery Van.

 

[bkp_duke]

The engineers have already engineered the R1T, R1S, and Delivery Van. A few are re-engineering the tonneau cover.

Do you want the engineers to keep staring at R1T,R1S and Delivery Van?

Production engineers and production staff are focused on R1T,R1S and Delivery Van.

Given Munro's teardown of the R1T, while a good first product, there is plenty for the Engineers to re-do in order to lower costs and improve manufacturing throughput.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Given Munro's teardown of the R1T, while a good first product, there is plenty for the Engineers to re-do in order to lower costs and improve manufacturing throughput.

Exactly. The R1 platform isn't cost optimized by a long shot. Some of those engineers could also be working on securing supply chain items, like battery cells. Their self driving system needs a lot of work. And if you have too many engineers, then lay them off, don't have them designing products the company can't sell, manufacture and service properly.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Exactly. The R1 platform isn't cost optimized by a long shot. Some of those engineers could also be working on securing supply chain items, like battery cells. Their self driving system needs a lot of work. And if you have too many engineers, then lay them off, don't have them designing products the company can't sell, manufacture and service properly.

Rivian is working on borrowed time. Their stock price is below IPO price by a significant amount. Their big pre IPO investors are selling their stock. Rivian is not going to be able to raise money at a decent valuation unless their stock price rises, which will only happen when they are either profitable or show a strong path to get there. With half of their employees not working on anything that currently boosts revenue and/or decreases expenses one does wonder how that will happen.

 

[KJD]

The engineers have already engineered the R1T, R1S, and Delivery Van. A few are re-engineering the tonneau cover.

Do you want the engineers to keep staring at R1T,R1S and Delivery Van?

Production engineers and production staff are focused on R1T,R1S and Delivery Van.

I want them to figure out how to build more that 25,000 trucks a year. They have close to 100,000 reservations.

How many people do you think are willing to wait 4 years to get a vehicle ?

As a Rivian reservation holder I hope they get their act together sooner rather than later.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I had an interesting reddit discussion with an Amazon delivery fleet owner. He is rolling out seven new Rivian vans for Amazon delivery today in the Dallas region, well six since one had an electrical problem that Rivian is fixing.

I didn't realize this, but almost all Amazon logoed delivery vans you see out there aren't run by Amazon employees - they are leased from Amazon by delivery companies and it is the delivery companies that hire the delivery guys. Same thing for these Rivian delivery trucks, the delivery companies lease them from Amazon. And Amazon is leasing them out to the delivery companies at very similar rates to the Ford gas powered vans. So it would appear that between Amazon/Rivian they have figured out some subsidy scheme to electrify their delivery fleet.

Each van only gets 150 miles of range, but since the vast majority of that is start/stop, low speed urban driving, the guy I talked to said it can easily do a full package run of between 8 to 10 hours. The vans gets stocked at the Amazon hub every morning and then the drivers drive to their zone and deliver the van's worth of package for their entire shift and returns it end of day to get charged up at Amazon's hub.

Rave reviews from delivery drivers, as expected.

 

[mongo]

Quad motor max pack delay.

Your delivery window estimate has been updated in your Account. R1T Quad-Motor + Max pack deliveries are now planned to start in 2024. We apologize for this shift in timing and realize it is disruptive to your ability to plan. We are working hard to ramp and deliver as many vehicles as possible.

We plan to share more news on Max pack later this year, including an earlier launch for Dual Motor + Max pack with deliveries starting in Summer 2023. For the opportunity to take delivery even sooner -in some instances as early as Q1 2023-you can also reconfigure to Large pack.

If at any time you reconfigure or change your delivery address, your delivery estimate in your Account will update to "processing" pending our next scheduled refresh. We plan to refresh your estimate every three months, which means you can expect updates in January, April, July, and October of each calendar year. Moving forward, further updates to your delivery estimate will be shared in your Account.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586096649956311040

 

[MP3Mike]

Quad motor max pack delay.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586096649956311040

Ouch. That seems bad.

They will be able to deliver "max pack" vehicles early next year but only dual motor variants. Does that mean that the "max pack" won't fit in the quad motor vehicles? Or maybe it doesn't support the necessary power output for quad motors?

 

[mongo]

Ouch. That seems bad.

They will be able to deliver "max pack" vehicles early next year but only dual motor variants. Does that mean that the "max pack" won't fit in the quad motor vehicles? Or maybe it doesn't support the necessary power output for quad motors?

Or vehicle rework to ditch the gear tunnel for pack/ motor space? (Twitter comment).

 

[Cosmacelf]

Quad motor vs dual motor isn’t that huge a difference? I’ve always thought quad motors was mostly unnecessary.

 

[RoBoRaT]

Got it. Thanks!

So then my R1S will likely arrive EOY 2025.

2024. One year early delivery!

 

[ChadS]

Or perhaps most current 4-motor max-pack orders (like mine) are at the old pricing. The 2-motor version should be cheaper to make, but is the same price, so why not ship those first and make more (or at least lose less) money. Sigh.

 

[Todd Burch]

Just watched the Munro video on the Rivian drivetrain. Why are the front and rear motors entirely different assemblies and part numbers but they have almost the exact same HP? Theory is they might unlock more power later, but that seems unlikely.

Seems like a big miss for getting economies of scale by using the same motor for front and rear, unless I’m missing something?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Just watched the Munro video on the Rivian drivetrain. Why are the front and rear motors entirely different assemblies and part numbers but they have almost the exact same HP? Theory is they might unlock more power later, but that seems unlikely.

Seems like a big miss for getting economies of scale by using the same motor for front and rear, unless I’m missing something?

You probably aren’t. Rivian has a long way to go to figure out cost optimization. The front door assembly has something like 100 screws! Hopefully for the company, they will continuously cost optimize like Tesla and not be stuck in model year thinking like legacy auto.

 

[rhumbliner]

Quad motor max pack delay.

I guess that makes it official, although back in June when I was assigned a Guide I was told the MaxPack would be delayed until mid-2024 but if I settled for the LargePack I could get an R1T in July. Which I did.

 

[samppa]

Just watched the Munro video on the Rivian drivetrain. Why are the front and rear motors entirely different assemblies and part numbers but they have almost the exact same HP? Theory is they might unlock more power later, but that seems unlikely.

Seems like a big miss for getting economies of scale by using the same motor for front and rear, unless I’m missing something?

Teslas have different front and rear motors as well. Eg in model Y rear motor is a switched reluctance permanent magnet motor, front is induction motor.

Induction motors can coast when you're driving and don't need awd, so this way is more efficient than using the same motors.

 

[Todd Burch]

Just watched the Munro video. Why are the front and rear motors entirely different assemblies but they have almost the exact same HP? Theory is they might unlock more power later, but that seems unlikely.

Seems like a big miss for getting economies of scale by using the same motor for front and rear, unless I’m missing something

Teslas have different front and rear motors as well. Eg in model Y rear motor is a switched reluctance permanent magnet motor, front is induction motor.

Induction motors can coast when you're driving and don't need awd, so this way is more efficient than using the same motors.

Yes, but those are different for a reason. Maybe I missed it (admittedly I didn’t watch 100% of the video) but I didn’t hear that Rivian’s motors are fundamentally different front to rear.

 

[MP3Mike]

Yes, but those are different for a reason. Maybe I missed it (admittedly I didn’t watch 100% of the video) but I didn’t hear that Rivian’s motors are fundamentally different front to rear.

The biggest difference I saw is that the rear motors have the axel uncoupling feature/module so that they can be disconnected for efficiency while the truck runs in FWD mode.