All discussion of Rivian Automotive

[Cosmacelf]

European Rivian/ Mercedes Benz van collaboration is reportedly canceled.

Yep. Sign that Rivian is getting a clue and not over extending itself? A sign of maturity? Or that their back is against the wall since this is a reversal of an MOU that was signed only three months ago? Back In the day, Tesla did something similar in that they had a deal with Mercedes to build the RAV4 EV, but that program eventually fizzled out after an initial production run. Tesla realized they had their hands full with their own products.

My own speculation, reading between the lines here, I suspect that RJ and some senior staff weren’t 100% focused on fixing the obvious glaring problem of profitably ramping production of existing vehicles. Maybe their focus is starting to shift to that.

Rivian pauses joint venture with Mercedes-Benz to build EV vans

Rivian Automotive announced it would pause its planned joint venture with Mercedes-Benz to develop electric vans on Monday.

www.teslarati.com

 

[Chunky Jr.]

I saw the SUV flavor of Rivian today and it looks nice. I wish Elon bought them instead of Twitter. Tesla's manufacturing know how and infrastructure applied to Rivian's products would be a great combo. Tesla tweaks the design to lower the cost of manufacturing and make them profitable and use the supercharger network.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I saw the SUV flavor of Rivian today and it looks nice. I wish Elon bought them instead of Twitter. Tesla's manufacturing know how and infrastructure applied to Rivian's products would be a great combo. Tesla tweaks the design to lower the cost of manufacturing and make them profitable and use the supercharger network.

Yeah, but Tesla has its hands very full right now. There's no way they have the bandwidth to do something like that right now. Besides, Rivian will be far cheaper in 3 years when they run out of money

 

[KJD]

Yeah, but Tesla has its hands very full right now. There's no way they have the bandwidth to do something like that right now. Besides, Rivian will be far cheaper in 3 years when they run out of money

You really are an optimist saying 3 years. I was going to say 18 months at the most.

 

[MP3Mike]

Another setback for R1T reservation holders: Rivian Removes Variant Of Its R1T For 2023, Provides Other Updates

Beginning in 2023, Rivian will no longer offer the quad-motor all-wheel-drive R1T electric pickup truck with the Max Pack battery, which is the largest battery pack Rivian currently offers. The company alerted reservation holders of the change via email.

I'm not sure it matters much, the dual-motor Max Pack configuration is still AWD, and costs $4,500 less. (Or $2,000 less if you go for the high-performance dual motor config.)

 

[Cosmacelf]

Another setback for R1T reservation holders: Rivian Removes Variant Of Its R1T For 2023, Provides Other Updates

I'm not sure it matters much, the dual-motor Max Pack configuration is still AWD, and costs $4,500 less. (Or $2,000 less if you go for the high-performance dual motor config.)

Yeah, not sure the benefit of quad versus dual motor for non off road driving.

BTW, they just pushed an update which fixed the suspension issues I was having with my R1S. And it adds snow mode which people have been saying helps tremendously in the snow. Very similar to early Tesla days, each software update is massively useful.

 

[rhumbliner]

I was never in the market for the quad AWD but I think it’s a hopeful sign that Rivian is starting to pare down their offerings. I think it’s a necessary cost cutting move.

 

[advocate8]

I saw the SUV flavor of Rivian today and it looks nice. I wish Elon bought them instead of Twitter. Tesla's manufacturing know how and infrastructure applied to Rivian's products would be a great combo. Tesla tweaks the design to lower the cost of manufacturing and make them profitable and use the supercharger network.

Ive seen two now. dig the pain schemes and the look. But man... totally dig it....BUT...it is a lot of truck, rides pretty high. def much more off-road oriented than Y or X, prob not the greatest thing around for just pavement driving. way too much truck.

 

[RobStark]

Ive seen two now. dig the pain schemes and the look. But man... totally dig it....BUT...it is a lot of truck, rides pretty high. def much more off-road oriented than Y or X, prob not the greatest thing around for just pavement driving. way too much truck.

The suspension can be raised or lowered. In the lowest setting it has car like ground clearance.

The Rivian's offroad ability does not compromise its on road performance. Its high articulation suspension makes it comfortable on road. Its quad motor system allows precise torque vectoring. And 0-60 in 3 seconds.

You get sports sedan handling. In its softest setting it won't be as comfortable as a Lightning (in large part because the Lightning has a 9" longer wheelbase) but the Ford can't touch the Rivian in handling/acceleration.

It is the right amount of truck.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Ive seen two now. dig the pain schemes and the look. But man... totally dig it....BUT...it is a lot of truck, rides pretty high. def much more off-road oriented than Y or X, prob not the greatest thing around for just pavement driving. way too much truck.

Yeah, Rivian thinks it has to have a niche market (off road) rather than general purpose. I think it is because the CEO never really believed in electric. He sees it as a gimmick to sell off road eco vehicles. Rivian is all about marketing. For many years they were just an ICE car company until they decided off road+electric was their marketing angle.

The reality is that they don't need a marketing angle. The market is so absolutely starved for EVs in normal form factors that people are compromising just to buy an EV (ie they would rather have a particular body shape/style, but it isn't available in an EV, so they'll buy the next closest thing). We bought the R1S not because it has awesome off road capability, but because it is a normal form factor SUV - ie the "utility" part of the SUV name.

While there are now all of 2 EV trucks (Rivian, Ford, soon to be 3 with Cybertruck), they all have huge waitlists, so, again, targeting your product to a niche makes zero sense. Given this, the F150 is well positioned, but of course, they are in the same boat as Rivian - they can't make them fast enough. Ford has said they want to end 2023 at a 150,000 vehicle per year run rate - Rivian probably hopes to get to that rate then too. It isn't enough. Long waitlists will continue well into 2024 and beyond.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Fun fact, I do believe Rivian will have out manufactured and out sold Ford when comparing the R1 platform to the Lightning, in 2022. It isn't clear to me who will win this sales race in 2023 between these two...

 

[RobStark]

Yeah, Rivian thinks it has to have a niche market (off road) rather than general purpose. I think it is because the CEO never really believed in electric. He sees it as a gimmick to sell off road eco vehicles. Rivian is all about marketing. For many years they were just an ICE car company until they decided off road+electric was their marketing angle.

RJ Scaringe handwashed his clothes at MIT to lower his carbon footprint. Rivian began in attempt to make a 100 MPG WRX rally type vehicle that could out accelerate a contemporary Corvette. Using ultra light weight materials and a tiny 3 cylinder engine.

1% of Rivian equity was put into Forever. Rivian's charity focusing on climate initiatives with an emphasis on preserving and restoring wildlands, waterways and oceans.

Jeep sells just under 1M SUVs per year globally doing off road marketing. It appeals to the mainstream market that will never take their vehicles off road. Just like "Plaid" appeals to people that will never track their Teslas. Rivian literally has the CEO and Founder of Patagonia on its Board of Directors.

 

[Cosmacelf]

RJ Scaringe handwashed his clothes at MIT to lower his carbon footprint. Rivian began in attempt to make a 100 MPG WRX rally type vehicle that could out accelerate a contemporary Corvette. Using ultra light weight materials and a tiny 3 cylinder engine.

1% of Rivian equity was put into Forever. Rivian's charity focusing on climate initiatives with an emphasis on preserving and restoring wildlands, waterways and oceans.

Jeep sells just under 1M SUVs per year globally doing off road marketing. It appeals to the mainstream market that will never take their vehicles off road. Just like "Plaid" appeals to people that will never track their Teslas. Rivian literally has the CEO and Founder of Patagonia on its Board of Directors.

I sit corrected.

 

[adiggs]

The reality is that they don't need a marketing angle. The market is so absolutely starved for EVs in normal form factors that people are compromising just to buy an EV (ie they would rather have a particular body shape/style, but it isn't available in an EV, so they'll buy the next closest thing). We bought the R1S not because it has awesome off road capability, but because it is a normal form factor SUV - ie the "utility" part of the SUV name.

Funny thing about this paragraph - the model names are wrong, but this was written almost word for word back in 2012 about the Model S.

Way back when, remember all of the conversations about people that had never spend $40k on a car stretching the budget for a $100k Model S? A lot of them didn't want a large luxury sedan - they wanted what is now Model Y, but S is what was available and the other EVs (Leaf mostly) didn't have the range to be functional for their use.

Before that it was people that didn't really want a sports car buying a Roadster while they waited for Model S. There were a lot of Roadster trade ins at Tesla in 2012 and 2013 -- not so many these days.


10 years later and the market is (still) "so absolutely starved for EVs in normal form factors that people are compromising just to buy an EV".

 

[RobStark]

What the market wants most is a $28k RAV4 BEV with 300 miles of EPA range.

What it wants second most is a $38k Pilot 3 row BEV with 300 miles of EPA range.

But the industry economics aren't there yet to make such vehicles profitably. Yet.

 

[Cosmacelf]

What the market wants most is a $28k RAV4 BEV with 300 miles of EPA range.

What it wants second most is a $38k Pilot 3 row BEV with 300 miles of EPA range.

But the industry economics aren't there yet to make such vehicles profitably. Yet.

It will be very interesting to see if Tesla through its various efficiency innovations and investments in battery technology can bring costs down enough to keep their growth juggernaut going. And the rest of the battery cell industry isn't standing still either.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Huh, I just looked - isn't Rivian stock price at book value now? I wonder if any legacy auto companies are thinking about buying it?

 

[NickInLab]

Huh, I just looked - isn't Rivian stock price at book value now? I wonder if any legacy auto companies are thinking about buying it?

Not quite, but they’re getting close. $19B in assets and $3.6B in liabilities as of Q3, so ~15.3B in stockholder equity. Divided by 921M shares is just under $17/share.

Since we’re nearing the end of Q4, and Rivian is lighting about $1.5B (inferred, because they only state cashflows on a 9 month basis) on fire each quarter, you might want to knock off another $1.5/share.

 

[JRP3]

Jerry tows 10K lbs in 34F weather gets about 100 miles of range. I'd consider that a good result.

 

[KJD]

UPDATE 1-Rivian stock less bruised than Tesla as both miss EV targets

Rivian, which halved its initial 50,000 production forecast in mid-2022, said on Tuesday that it produced 24,337 vehicles last year at its Normal, Illinois, plant, and delivered 20,332. In the fourth quarter, it built 10,020 and delivered 8,054.