Latest Rivian news

[Cosmacelf]

Interesting stuff from the lawsuit. I had assumed it was really high tech stuff like battery design, but instead it was more mundane, but no less secret and proprietary. Sad to say, this happens frequently, and Tesla is absolutely in the right to sue over this. When I was running my own company, and we were only about 40 or 50 employees large, my Director of sales resigned over the weekend. And he took the entire sales and lead database with him. Suing him would have been a distraction, he didn’t go to a direct competitor, and we didn’t have a lot of free cash to mount a lawsuit, so I just let it go. Actually, I even bought back his vested stock options. Which gave me a little bit of satisfaction when the company went public a few years later and he missed out on a lot of money. But had we been bigger or had I been more aggressive, he would have been in a a world of legal trouble as well.

Just to put a bow on these intellectual theft lawsuits against Rivian, here’s something similar: a high level ex google employee busted for stealing lidar self driving code for his new startup (that was acquired by Uber). It didn’t end well. Don’t employees know or get told that corporations have the ability to log and track data movements to/from the company’s own servers? It isn’t much different than a burglar robbing a home that has video cameras recording everything.

Ex-Google engineer Levandowski asks judge not to send him to prison

 

[MXLRplus]

Newsletter:

One year ago, we took two early R1Ts on a 13,000-mile, all-electric journey from the southernmost tip of Patagonia up to Los Angeles. We now get to share it with you.

“Long Way Up” premieres September 18th on Apple TV+.

Starring Ewan McGregor and his longtime friend Charley Boorman, “Long Way Up” follows the duo’s previous adventures “Long Way Round” and “Long Way Down.”

Check out our behind-the-scenes video from the trip. The vehicles have come a long way in the last year - look for more updates soon on R1T development.

htttps://rivian.com/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=ipw2-long-way-up&mcrid=R0012317387894E4BFBA24C2D49BB572ED06310C744#home-video

 

[redalf]

Newsletter:

One year ago, we took two early R1Ts on a 13,000-mile, all-electric journey from the southernmost tip of Patagonia up to Los Angeles. We now get to share it with you.

“Long Way Up” premieres September 18th on Apple TV+.

Starring Ewan McGregor and his longtime friend Charley Boorman, “Long Way Up” follows the duo’s previous adventures “Long Way Round” and “Long Way Down.”

Check out our behind-the-scenes video from the trip. The vehicles have come a long way in the last year - look for more updates soon on R1T development.

htttps://rivian.com/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=ipw2-long-way-up&mcrid=R0012317387894E4BFBA24C2D49BB572ED06310C744#home-video

The linked clip is very much a Rivian commercial, so not sure how much they'll be the focus of on the show itself. On the one hand, The Long Way series is about motorcycling, the original series had 4x4 support vehicles as well but they were not really something the show spent time with.

BUT, on the other hand, EV IS the angle of this spin-off, as the motorcycles Ewan and Charley are using are Harley Davidson's Livewires! With electric obviously being the focus of the series, even though Rivians are the support vehicles, you have to think the Rivians will be part of that story they're documenting as well.

I have been find myself loving EV road trip stuff lately (I've been watching youtuber's Out of Spec cross country trek in his Model 3), so will probably really dig this either way.

 

[Cosmacelf]

So, what do you guys think of this latest "progress report"?

 

[rhumbliner]

So, what do you guys think of this latest "progress report"?

As a Rivian reservation holder, I was a little disappointed. Several scenes show empty manufacturing space and other scenes show several engineers poring over a particular part. I’m not a mfg engineer so I don’t what I should be seeing but I expected more. Am I being unreasonable?

I’m also struck by the fact that Rivian and Tesla have similar ship dates for their first truck and yet Tesla videos show only raw land for their plant. The disparity is surprising.

 

[Cosmacelf]

As a Rivian reservation holder, I was a little disappointed. Several scenes show empty manufacturing space and other scenes show several engineers poring over a particular part. I’m not a mfg engineer so I don’t what I should be seeing but I expected more. Am I being unreasonable?

I’m also struck by the fact that Rivian and Tesla have similar ship dates for their first truck and yet Tesla videos show only raw land for their plant. The disparity is surprising.

All true. The difference could be that Tesla is building their third assembly factory, so they have a very good idea how to do it. Rivian is doing their first, so they are moving slower since they will make mistakes and by moving slower, they can minimize the cost of their mistakes.

I still continue to think that Rivian is showing zero urgency. That video even almost put me to sleep. Their CEO comes across as a lightweight, "Golly gee whiz!". And they spent quite a bit of time on that video talking about the sustainability of their packaging. Everything about the video was just off in my opinion.

 

[RobStark]

I still continue to think that Rivian is showing zero urgency. That video even almost put me to sleep. Their CEO comes across as a lightweight, "Golly gee whiz!". And they spent quite a bit of time on that video talking about the sustainability of their packaging. Everything about the video was just off in my opinion.

Zero Urgency?

They had a full on MI6 Industrial Espionage operation running to steal Tesla IP!

They pass the "IF you ain't cheat'n you ain't try'n" bar.

 

[RobStark]

Article from the Chicago Tribune.

After COVID-19 delay, Rivian plans hiring surge for June launch of electric truck. But legal battle with Tesla looms.

 

[MP3Mike]

All true. The difference could be that Tesla is building their third assembly factory, so they have a very good idea how to do it. Rivian is doing their first, so they are moving slower since they will make mistakes and by moving slower, they can minimize the cost of their mistakes.

I still continue to think that Rivian is showing zero urgency. That video even almost put me to sleep. Their CEO comes across as a lightweight, "Golly gee whiz!". And they spent quite a bit of time on that video talking about the sustainability of their packaging. Everything about the video was just off in my opinion.

But they were finally able to make the very important decision of what color to paint their robots: blue.

 

[RobStark]

But they were finally able to make the very important decision of what color to paint their robots: blue.

I guess it is as important as picking Tesla red for robots and giving them an X-Men nickname.

 

[ohmman]

I still continue to think that Rivian is showing zero urgency. That video even almost put me to sleep. Their CEO comes across as a lightweight, "Golly gee whiz!".

Whenever I watch or hear Rivian's marketing/press material, I feel like they almost always try to inject a differentiation between their approach and the things that people criticize about Tesla's approach. Paraphrasing, but things like "we try to keep a low profile" and "we don't want to over promote what we plan to deliver" and "we're focusing on quality of delivery instead of speed of delivery" all sound that way to me. It could be because I'm intimately familiar with the complaints about Tesla and so I'm hearing them colored with that bias. But it's certainly a different approach from FSD videos and "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely."

Both styles have their strengths. We can agree that as the first legitimate EV car company, Tesla had to use some garish tactics to stay relevant. Perhaps that will change and we'll get to more of a traditional car model with EV drivetrains. I don't know.

What I do think is that the Rivian is a compelling EV design, and if it does come to market successfully, it will likely sell. I have a preorder for an R1T and plan to keep it and see where things go. By the time they're delivering, I suspect the CCS network out West will have good coverage, if a bit slim on stalls per location. We'll see.

 

[rhumbliner]

By the time they're delivering, I suspect the CCS network out West will have good coverage, if a bit slim on stalls per location. We'll see

This will be the biggest factor in making my decision whether or not to go ahead with my purchase of the R1T. I’m sure it will be a fine truck with an acceptable range but if I have to hunt for chargers it’s a no go.

 

[Cosmacelf]

This will be the biggest factor in making my decision whether or not to go ahead with my purchase of the R1T. I’m sure it will be a fine truck with an acceptable range but if I have to hunt for chargers it’s a no go.

Yes, especially so with the R1S. You need hassle free charging. Then the next thing it will need for me is good highway autopilot. I would take my R1S on ski trips, so I need autopilot. Then the last thing is cost. These are the three competitive advantages Tesla has or will have going forward. Hopefully Rivian will be able to keep up.

 

[redalf]

Rivian built a charging network up South America for their appearance in the Long Way Up series, so maybe they won't be as adverse to building out charging stations as other automakers (would be especially neat if they could build them in the far flung places, since they're meant to be off road vehicles and all).

 

[Cosmacelf]

Rivian built a charging network up South America for their appearance in the Long Way Up series, so maybe they won't be as adverse to building out charging stations as other automakers (would be especially neat if they could build them in the far flung places, since they're meant to be off road vehicles and all).

Really? Sounds like an mis-allocation of resources to me. Shouldn't you be building a charging network where you plan on selling the most vehicles?

 

[RobStark]

Rivian built a charging network up South America for their appearance in the Long Way Up series, so maybe they won't be as adverse to building out charging stations as other automakers (would be especially neat if they could build them in the far flung places, since they're meant to be off road vehicles and all).

This is exactly what they are doing. Building Rivian exclusive CCS chargers in areas where offroaders like to go but where there is currently no DC fast charging. Other brands will not be able to charge at a Rivian CCS charger. Rivian even hired Tesla employees that worked for Tesla Supercharger Network department.

Some Rivian chargers set up for the documentary in Latin America will stay and some will be removed.

I saw RJ say this in several interviews.

 

[ohmman]

Really? Sounds like an mis-allocation of resources to me. Shouldn't you be building a charging network where you plan on selling the most vehicles?

I think they saw it as a pretty solid marketing opportunity. And they were J1772s, from what I've read.

This Car and Driver piece talks about it a bit.

 

[RobStark]

Really? Sounds like an mis-allocation of resources to me. Shouldn't you be building a charging network where you plan on selling the most vehicles?

Why so negative?

This was very much real life endurance testing.

And advertising.

I think very much worth money spent from all they learnt.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Why so negative?

This was very much real life endurance testing.

And advertising.

I think very much worth money spent from all they learnt.

Just my opinion. Tesla has grown very fast without resorting to expenses like this. Sure you can write it off as a marketing expense, but every dollar spent on marketing is one less dollar spent on building a charging network in the US that lots of customers will use. IMHO, Rivian is using an old school auto company playbook of glitzy and expensive advertising videos rather than spending the money on the product, like what Tesla does. The auto companies have huge sales volumes to amortize marketing spends against. Rivian does not.

 

[RobStark]

Just my opinion. Tesla has grown very fast without resorting to expenses like this. Sure you can write it off as a marketing expense, but every dollar spent on marketing is one less dollar spent on building a charging network in the US that lots of customers will use. IMHO, Rivian is using an old school auto company playbook of glitzy and expensive advertising videos rather than spending the money on the product, like what Tesla does. The auto companies have huge sales volumes to amortize marketing spends against. Rivian does not.

Tesla does Winter endurance Testing in Sweden and New Zealand. I doubt installing ~20 J1772 chargers is much more expensive than renting track time in Sweden and New Zealand. And sending a Tesla team there or hiring locals.

Or renting Nürburgring test time, Nürburgring pilots, and installing Superchargers at the Nürburgring.

Rivians videos are not any more "glitzy" than what Tesla makes for their youtube channel.

The Legacy Playbook is to spend Billions of $ on advertisement.That is nowhere near what Rivian is doing.

Plus, Tesla had some disadvantages of being first. And immediately without really earning it got devotion of millions of fans. Just for trying to launch the EV revolution. Rivan doesn't get that. They have to fight for attention.

You post a Debbie Downer at every Rivian development.