I’m sure the knowledge at Ford to service Rivian EVs is non existent. Those capabilities will have to be developed. If Tesla is having problems making money right now, Rivian has no chance in the near future. That means Amazon and Ford shareholders will be carrying them.
Amazon can give Rivian the same capitalization as Tesla tomorrow and Rivian still doesn’t get any cars to consumers for a long time.
You can pay 100 billion each to 9 women and they still won’t be able to give birth to a baby in one month.
Amazon would have to basically buy out car dealerships all over the world to setup Rivian distribution and service.
And buy out LG Chem as well so there is a source of batteries.
Rivian sells 100 percent of what they make and so will Taycan because there’s only a few thousand cars tops.
Does it really matter that Rivian can't make a profit for a few years? You're saying that as if Tesla has been consistently profitable for the last 10 years.
Amazon has so much cash to throw in huge amounts at anything for a decade and barely feel it. That's been their business plan for ages now and how they've built the company anyway - I don't think their shareholders are particularly worried about adding one more thing to that balance sheet. Especially a thing that could help their logistics business long term.
Your comment about Ford not having knowledge to fix Rivians is completely bizarre. One would assume that if they work together, they would know about Rivian's manufacturing and parts process. The last step would be to ramp up service personnel at various dealerships, which will take some time for sure, but it's not like they will have to put their service people through a 4 year college to service a car they built. Come on.
And why would Amazon need to buy out car dealerships if these dealerships are already Ford dealers? Maybe some(many) will be reluctant to sell it, but some(many) won't.
Now, the battery part IS interesting and I have no idea how these companies source their batteries. I recently read that a shortage of cobalt is possible very soon, but that will make it a problem for everyone then, including Panasonic.
A few thousand cars? From what I read, Porsche is planning 30k cars initially. That's a solid number one would think.
Now, unrelated to the above: I went to an Audi dealership yesterday to test drive some cars and looked at the e-tron. I found it quite awkward. It doesn't *feel* like an electric car. The design is very much what you would expect from Audi - the car interior is very well built, but it felt weird. It felt a lot more premium than my Model S in some aspects, but I had a mixed overall impression for some reason. I think a big center screen (as in Model S, not that Model 3 junk) somehow is a must for an EV. The e-tron doesn't have it. If Taycan turns out similar/same to the e-tron, I don't see myself ever considering it because it's just... clunky... But then again, Model 3 is the other, minimalist, extreme where it's so Spartan, it made me feel like sitting in a toy car after sitting in an Audi. It's hard to find a car that has it all these days
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