Rivian Deliveries Pushed to 2022

Rivian has started notifying customers that they will need to wait a bit longer to receive their vehicles.

Rivian has sent notifications that lay out delivery windows for the “Launch Edition” that range from March to September. It’s reasonable to assume that the company’s less-pricey “Adventure” and “Explore” packages will also be pushed to the second half of 2022.

While Rivian has started production of its all-electric R1T pickup, few have been delivered. The R1S SUV was expected to go into production next month, but it is not clear if that will be the case.

Rivian currently operates a single factory in Normal, Illinois and is reportedly looking for a second factory location. 

Early reviews of the R1T pickup have been strong. And investors have been supportive, as the company’s recent IPO gave it a market capitalization of $100 billion.

 

[Earl]

I saw my first Rivian in the wild today! It was right near my house. I gave her a thumbs up and she waived back.
I'm thrilled to see another EV on the road in my town. For over a decade, we were the only ones, with the EV1 first, then the Roadster. Now the town is full of EVs.
Also a colleague of mine caught me yesterday to tell me how happy he is with his Bolt. Chevy just gave him a new battery. It is 6 KW larger than the previous one and has a new warranty starting from zero when he had 4 years on the old battery.

 

[Sklith]

I also saw an R1T for the first time in person on Saturday. I live in Georgia, and I wonder if my sighting has to do with the fact Rivian is building their second plant here. Maybe the owner I spotted is a Rivian employee looking for a home to move into?

 

[TrevTremaine]

Although I've got an order for an X, I'm now strongly contemplating a Rivian R1T. I'm starting to think about all the compromises when it comes to the X

- 6 seater: middle row doesn't fold, so it's a compromise.
- bike carrying: you CAN carry a couple of bikes to a weight limit of 120 pounds, so it's a compromise
- add-on carrying: can't really do it
- off-roading: yeah, it's definitely not happening
- towing: okay, sort of.

No, the R1T pickup truck isn't the same as a luxury SUV, but with the X as it's currently going the "U" utility seems to be missing. The R1S is somewhat comparable, and doesn't seem to have the limitations.

Deliveries for the Rivian might be slow, but Tesla isn't exactly speedy with deliveries for the X either - and the quality coming off the line is middling at best.

 

[electricjib]

Although I've got an order for an X, I'm now strongly contemplating a Rivian R1T. I'm starting to think about all the compromises when it comes to the X

- 6 seater: middle row doesn't fold, so it's a compromise.
- bike carrying: you CAN carry a couple of bikes to a weight limit of 120 pounds, so it's a compromise
- add-on carrying: can't really do it
- off-roading: yeah, it's definitely not happening
- towing: okay, sort of.

No, the R1T pickup truck isn't the same as a luxury SUV, but with the X as it's currently going the "U" utility seems to be missing. The R1S is somewhat comparable, and doesn't seem to have the limitations.

Deliveries for the Rivian might be slow, but Tesla isn't exactly speedy with deliveries for the X either - and the quality coming off the line is middling at best.

One company is making cars for customers. The other only for employees. R1Ts are having plenty of issues from Toneau covers not working, battery issues, charging issues etc. why do you think only employees have them?

 

[TrevTremaine]

One company is making cars for customers. The other only for employees. R1Ts are having plenty of issues from Toneau covers not working, battery issues, charging issues etc. why do you think only employees have them?

And you think the deliveries of the refreshed Model S and X have gone smoothly?

 

[chinney]

And you think the deliveries of the refreshed Model S and X have gone smoothly?

True enough, but new vehicle releases often have problems. I do not condemn Rivian for its issues with a new release, nor Tesla either, although I think that Tesla arguably has less of a good explanation given that it has much more experience with building EVs at this point. That said, I am not sure that the nature and degree of the problems are really comparable.

More fundamentally though, there is just no comparison between Tesla and Rivian at this point in respect of actually supplying functional production vehicles to ordinary customers. Tesla is doing it, and on a large scale, and has been for quite some time. Rivian is not there yet, and it may be a while before they are there, at least at scale. I am very enthusiastic about Rivian, and I really hope that they succeed, but they have a long way to go.

 

[Merrill]

True enough, but new vehicle releases often have problems. I do not condemn Rivian for its issues with a new release, nor Tesla either, although I think that Tesla arguably has less of a good explanation given that it has much more experience with building EVs at this point. That said, I am not sure that the nature and degree of the problems are really comparable.

More fundamentally though, there is just no comparison between Tesla and Rivian at this point in respect of actually supplying functional production vehicles to ordinary customers. Tesla is doing it, and on large scale, and has been for quite some time. Rivian is not there yet, and it may be a while before they are there, at least at scale. I am very enthusiastic about Rivian, and I really hope that they succeed, but they have a long way to go.

And what do you think Tesla was doing when it came out with the first Model S.

 

[chinney]

And what do you think Tesla was doing when it came out with the first Model S.

Fully agreed. That was 2012 - and Tesla had a long way to go at that point. Arguably, Tesla did not achieve true large-scale EV production until Model 3 production finally began to hit its stride in late 2018. I think that it is likely that Rivian can scale up faster than that, but it will still take a while.

 

[Earl]

True enough, but new vehicle releases often have problems.

This is true of all companies. The only reason we don't see these problems with Toyota and Honda cars is that they sell every new model to their captive Japan customers for a couple of years before releasing to the rest of the world.
Perhaps that is one reason that they're so reluctant to release an EV.

 

[Merrill]

Plus I ordered my Model X in 2014 and took delivery in 2016.

 

[chinney]

One of the more recent reviews out there, highlighting various thoughtful design elements of the vehicle. Quite a positive review. (Though I wish the reviewer had done some more general driving of the R1T, and not just a 1/4 mile track test and an off-road test)

If, in fact, Rivian can scale up production quickly enough while ensuring quality control, I think that they will have a sales winner. As a wrote earlier though, I think that scaling up is going to be a real challenge for them.

 

[TrevTremaine]

True enough, but new vehicle releases often have problems. I do not condemn Rivian for its issues with a new release, nor Tesla either, although I think that Tesla arguably has less of a good explanation given that it has much more experience with building EVs at this point. That said, I am not sure that the nature and degree of the problems are really comparable.

More fundamentally though, there is just no comparison between Tesla and Rivian at this point in respect of actually supplying functional production vehicles to ordinary customers. Tesla is doing it, and on a large scale, and has been for quite some time. Rivian is not there yet, and it may be a while before they are there, at least at scale. I am very enthusiastic about Rivian, and I really hope that they succeed, but they have a long way to go.

Fundamentally, I agree Rivian has a long way to go to achieve reach what Tesla has become.

In the EV sphere, Tesla is now pretty much the leader, the savvy manufacturer, the one to beat, however, I have a hard time calling it a mature company. I know delays can happen, timelines get out of whack for numerous reasons but looking at what happened with the S/X refresh has shown it's got a ways to go itself. Musk should never had stood up and said that the turnaround time would be 2 months, and Tesla should be approaching it's customers with a bit more interest than silence. I won't say that the refresh was a trivial amount of work, but really they need to do MUCH better at planning change. I admit I don't know what has been happening behind the scenes - whether it was issues with the engineering, supply issues, manufacturing changes or something else or everything combined. Simple and timely communication would stave off a lot of the grief, but of course Tesla got rid of it's PR department. I have seen some comments likewise with Rivian but I've got no experience with them thus far.

Tesla also has to do better in terms of deliveries - it's a quagmire of QA issues so far as the threads I'm watching. The Model X production seems to be going through fits looking at all the vehicles sitting around the Fremont factory. Couple it with a sudden removal of seating configurations for the X that doesn't even begin to make sense. I am hopeful that Tesla management learns from this fiasco and figures out a way to do it better. Eventually, they'll be doing an update to the 3/Y and if this happens with those models, it'll take a good sized hit to Tesla - especially if production grinds to a halt like the S/X line did.

I would like both Tesla and Rivian to succeed. They both have interesting and well thought out products but my previous comment still stands. While it's not exactly an "apples to apples" comparison, I'll say that Rivian has a product that has piqued my interest and has more utility than the X.

2022 will be an interesting year to see what happens with each of them.

 

[Alset Srotom]

One company is making cars for customers. The other only for employees. R1Ts are having plenty of issues from Toneau covers not working, battery issues, charging issues etc. why do you think only employees have them?

This is 100% false. Rivian is delivering to customers. Get lost.

 

[chinney]

Various news sites reported at the end of December that Rivian had built 652 vehicles and had delivered 386 of them. I am not sure of what the breakdown was in those numbers as between employees and non-employees.

 

[Ogre]

This is 100% false. Rivian is delivering to customers. Get lost.

Maybe?

Rivian is largely at fault for misconceptions here.

In September they announce “Start of deliveries!!!” And promptly produce 1 car which goes to an employee.

In October they made another dog-and-pony show over deliveries and production startup… but delivered fewer than 50 cars and almost all of those to staff and investors.

They’ve been trickling out trucks, but they’ve been quiet about how many have gone to the general public versus internal.

I’m not saying they aren’t delivering to customers… but I will say they’ve told us they were starting deliveries previously when they were nowhere near what a normal auto company would call “Production”. So how many fake “Start of production” “First delivery” events can they have?

How many cars have gone out to the general public? In the auto industry, 1000 vehicles is typical internal consumption prior to any public sales. Giga Berlin has a bunch of cars sitting on their tarmac, by Rivian’s definition apparently it’s online?

 

[Earl]

1000 vehicles is typical internal consumption prior to any public sales

Why does the 100th iteration of an early 20th century car have anything to do with a new company building an EV?
The R1T is Rivian's Tesla Roadster. You were still burning gas back then but, if you were paying attention, you'd know that Tesla delivered their Roadster 0001 (to Musk), then it was almost 6 months later before they delivered 0002 to Eberhard, then subsequent ones to paying customers. They only, ever, made about 2500 of them but look at where they are now.
As software engineers know: One must single step through one's code first, then run to breakpoints a few times before actually running. You never know when those particular how long it will take but, if you hit run too soon, all your code will do is crash. With code, that isn't usually a big deal. With a car . . .
I've said, myself, on this thread, that I saw a Rivian in the wild. You can be quite sure there aren't any Rivian employees in my neighborhood. The only reason you and @electricjib might have to think Rivian is only delivering to customers would be because you (possibly rightly so) only hear it from some bozo on the internet (me).
I have great hope that Rivian will make it. We need another EV maker as, clearly, the ICErs aren't doing a great job.

 

[Zorg]

Let's see where they are in June. That will give us a better idea of how they are ramping up.

 

[Merrill]

If you reserved a R1T last year they said first deliveries in January 2022 which they are doing. I prefer that they take their time and get it right.

 

[cwerdna]

I spotted one of their trucks charging in the wild in Pleasanton, CA on Electrify America (free charging for the holidays) on Jan 2, 2022. No idea if the driver was an employee.

I did use PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You in Santa Clarita, CA about a month ago and didn't spot any Rivians but there is a pic someone added of 3 Rivians in EV spots and a check-in there of "Beware a lot of RIVIANs hogging all the chargers. And by hogging, all were finished charging and have been idle for 15+ min."

I was charging my Bolt at those sites in both cases.

 

[Ogre]

Why does the 100th iteration of an early 20th century car have anything to do with a new company building an EV?
The R1T is Rivian's Tesla Roadster. You were still burning gas back then but, if you were paying attention, you'd know that Tesla delivered their

The Roadster didn’t have 40,000 orders. It was never meant to be a large scale production vehicle, there were only a few thousand of them created and that was the entire plan. It was *designed* to be a largely hand built low volume proof of concept vehicle. The R1T is a production truck. They could have done a small scale production and done it Roadster style, but they chose not to.

This isn’t their final production line… it can’t be, if it is they will never deliver 75,000 vehicles. That is the big lie.

Regardless, what my complaint is more that the communications from Rivian has been borderline deceptive. If they were telling people leading up to the IPO that they were still months away from production they would be a lot more trustworthy. But leading up to production they were telling people R1T was starting production… not beta production.

I have great hope that Rivian will make it. We need another EV maker as, clearly, the ICErs aren't doing a great job.

I do too. I was pretty optimistic about them prior to the IPO. Not so much now.