Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[RubberToe]

Over $1Billion in losses by the end of the year, no real deliveries yet, less than 50k orders, and an .... $80 Billion valuation.... Stop my belly hurts...

Tesla showed the way, others are following, and there will be additional EV success stories. Rivian will be one of the success stories

RT

 

[BornToFly]

Tesla showed the way, others are following, and believe there will be additional EV success stories.

RT

Tesla succeeded because it is very good a making a little money go a long way. Rivian has been burning tons of money for over 10 years without a single delivery. Getting to Tesla's profit margins and not going BK will be very difficult for Rivian and others, especially with Tesla becoming more and more efficient and keeping prices too low for competitors to compete against without huge losses.

 

[Iain]

Tesla succeeded because it is very good a making a little money go a long way. Rivian has been burning tons of money for over 10 years without a single delivery. Getting to Tesla's profit margins and not going BK will be very difficult for Rivian and others, especially with Tesla becoming more and more efficient and keeping prices too low for competitors to compete against without huge losses.

Sorry Borntofly I just saw your photo and was surprised with your FL430.....the Honda jet can get to FL430? What kind of Mach can you do there? ......sorry for the side track.

 

[BornToFly]

Rivian actually needs the current tax credit to stay the way it is, so they can charge thousands more than TSLA (and maybe make a small profit per vehicle), but the buyer pays the same. If Tesla buyers get the same tax credit as Rivian, it's game over. I know there are a few Tesla haters, but how many people are gonna pay $$$ more for the Rivian when they could save money AND drive a Tesla with the Supercharging network.

 

[Cattledog]

Tesla showed the way, others are following, and there will be additional EV success stories. Rivian will be one of the success stories

RT

I've worked with Rivian, I'm not so sure. On the one hand one could argue they get to make the same mistakes as Tesla. On the other hand, one could argue they have had 10 years and 400+ hires from Tesla to learn from them, so they should do better. Leaning towards the other hand. Perhaps their best case scenario is they get bought by someone, or taken over by Amazon.

 

[BornToFly]

Sorry Borntofly I just saw your photo and was surprised with your FL430.....the Honda jet can get to FL430? What kind of Mach can you do there? ......sorry for the side track.

Mach .72 in the mid-30s, but most efficient at FL430

 

[Knightshade]

Rivian actually needs the current tax credit to stay the way it is, so they can charge thousands more than TSLA (and maybe make a small profit per vehicle), but the buyer pays the same. If Tesla buyers get the same tax credit as Rivian, it's game over. I know there are a few Tesla haters, but how many people are gonna pay $$$ more for the Rivian when they could save money AND drive a Tesla with the Supercharging network.

AFAIK the Rivian is already priced higher by quite a bit and seems to have buyers.

Tesla is unlikely to have any volume delivering on Cybertruck for at least another year... and likely another year or more beyond that just to fill pre-orders which are massive.

There'll be plenty more than enough demand for every good EV truck both companies (and even Ford) can make, well in excess of supply, for years yet to come.

 

[Artful Dodger]

If tesla is the new ford, rivian seems like the new JLR?

Not quite Jaguar, old chap. More like Dyson, I think...

Cheers!

 

[Mengy]

Oct 1 (Reuters) -

Rivian Automotive, backed by Amazon.com Inc and Ford, disclosed losses of nearly $1 billion in the first half of the year, the electric-vehicle maker's U.S. IPO filing showed on Friday.

The company has been investing aggressively in ramping up production of its electric vehicles, including its upscale all-electric R1T pickup truck which was launched last month beating out competition from more established rivals, such as Tesla Inc , General Motors and Ford.
Rivian had about 48,390 preorders for its R1T pickup trucks and R1S SUVs in the United States and Canada as of last month.

The company is currently pursuing a two-track strategy: building electric delivery vans for Amazon and developing an electric pickup and SUV brand aimed at affluent individuals.Amazon has ordered 100,000 of Rivian's electric delivery vans as part of the e-commerce giant's broader effort to cut its carbon footprint.Rivian said on Friday it will list its shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol "RIVN".

Founded in 2009 as Mainstream Motors by R. J. Scaringe, the company changed its name to Rivian in 2011. "Rivian" is derived from "Indian River" in Florida, a place Scaringe frequented in a rowboat as a youth.

Scaringe on Friday said the company would put 1% of equity in its environmental program called "Forever" that is aimed at helping address climate change and preserving wildlands and waterways.

Rivian, which confidentially filed paperwork with regulators for an IPO in August, has not yet set terms for its offering. However, Reuters reported in September that it could seek a valuation of nearly $80 billion, raising up to $8 billion in its IPO.

For the six months ended June 30, Rivian's net loss widened to $994 million from $377 million a year earlier, the company said in its filing with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission.

Only 48,390 pre-orders for the Rivian R1T? I honestly thought it would have been much higher.

 

[Singuy]

I've worked with Rivian, I'm not so sure. On the one hand one could argue they get to make the same mistakes as Tesla. On the other hand, one could argue they have had 10 years and 400+ hires from Tesla to learn from them, so they should do better. Leaning towards the other hand. Perhaps their best case scenario is they get bought by someone, or taken over by Amazon.

They are already making the same mistake as Tesla by going public. Shorts are thirsty...and Rivian without the Musketeers constantly defending the company will have a very hard time with the FUD. There's already a less than favorable review on Bloomberg. During this time when there are reliable charging networks/service centers around while Rivian has none, the public is not going to be as forgiving as they were with Tesla. Shorts know this...the probability of any start up car company becoming successful is still less than 10%.

 

[BornToFly]

AFAIK the Rivian is already priced higher by quite a bit and seems to have buyers.

well, not many based on pre-orders. I'm biased but I won't put down that kind of money on a product with no reliability record and a tiny truck bed, and no Supercharging network. Waiting for Cybertruck.

 

[BornToFly]

Only 48,390 pre-orders for the Rivian R1T? I honestly thought it would have been much higher.

Cybertruck had that many in like the first 60 seconds....

 

[Knightshade]

well, not many based on pre-orders.

More than the expected first full year of production.... (rumored to be aiming around 40k trucks last I saw several months back)

I'm not saying I'm rushing out to buy the IPO-- but that's a lot more EV pickups than Ford is making anytime soon.

Fords "doubled" goal for NEXT year is only 15,000 EV pickups.

Cybertruck had that many in like the first 60 seconds....

Yes.

At $100 each instead of $1000 each.

If you wanna mock someones pre-order numbers talk to Ford. They only got 150k pre-orders (3x Rivian) while asking for 10x less deposit money... AND they're a company that allegedly "knows how to make vehicles" already.

Only 48,390 pre-orders for the Rivian R1T? I honestly thought it would have been much higher.

As I say, with a $1000 deposit for pre-order instead of the $100 Tesla moved to (and Ford copied), from a company with a history of making 0 vehicles, almost 50k preorders as production begins seems respectable to me.

Plus the 100k orders they also have for vans from Amazon.

So essentially they're sold out of production capacity for at least 12-18 months already.

 

[Oveeus]

I've worked with Rivian, I'm not so sure. On the one hand one could argue they get to make the same mistakes as Tesla. On the other hand, one could argue they have had 10 years and 400+ hires from Tesla to learn from them, so they should do better. Leaning towards the other hand. Perhaps their best case scenario is they get bought by someone, or taken over by Amazon.

The way I see it, between all EV players vs. Tesla is that they kinda do things as they go along, perhaps for SP or whatever.

But if you look at supercharger network... Tesla started building it out BEFORE they've achieved mass volume. Meaning they were spending money to offer the right EV experience before the Model 3 is even remotely close to production.

The philosophy is really to offer THE experience from day 1. And it's always a small step, starting with your core market, which in Tesla's case, it was from California and expanded from there to a coast-to-coast network, then to Canada and other countries in the world.

For Rivian to really succeed, or any EV player really, they need to stop thinking car-building from the ICE era, where you only need to make cars, the re-fuel infrastructure, and whatever is someone else's problem.

This is not the mentality one should have when you are pushing the consumer to adopt a brand new technology. You take their potential concerns into your business model and plan it accordingly. It was super smart of Tesla to exchange traffic for real estate in the case of superchargers. They have very little operation cost and can instead concentrate onto expanding them instead of working out leases with landlords.

Tesla is building everything as they see fit for the experience. And I don't know about you, but as a TSLA investor, I bought into TSLA because of the experience. It actually offered me a better experience than driving an ICE for 95% of my drive. Thus, being an early adopter in this case, there was little to no inconvenience and I'd gladly take that 5% road trip time that I need to plan a bit ahead vs. just drive as before but having to deal with all the inconvenience of an ICE such as constant service and watching for fuel prices.

 

[MP3Mike]

Only 48,390 pre-orders for the Rivian R1T? I honestly thought it would have been much higher.

That count is for the R1T and R1S combined. And how many will cancel because there is no tank turn?

 

[ammulder]

For Rivian to really succeed, or any EV player really, they need to stop thinking car-building from the ICE era, where you only need to make cars, the re-fuel infrastructure, and whatever is someone else's problem.

This is not the mentality one should have when you are pushing the consumer to adopt a brand new technology. You take their potential concerns into your business model and plan it accordingly. It was super smart of Tesla to exchange traffic for real estate in the case of superchargers. They have very little operation cost and can instead concentrate onto expanding them instead of working out leases with landlords.

So, in fairness, Ford seems to have done a credible job with the Mach E. It sounds like they have Plug & Charge working with Electrify America (no app or or whatever needed, just plug in and the car starts charging) and the single FordPass app for other charging networks. That avoids two of the main hurdles: locations (they have multiple networks to draw on) and the absurdities of needing another app with another management and billing scheme for every charger. I believe I heard they were also able to identify some charge stations that were known to not work with the Mach E and remove them from the nav system so the car wouldn't suggest them.

That doesn't help with all the 50 kW locations or broken-down chargers... but it's certainly one of the better moves in a situation where they've missed the boat on rolling out their own charging network.

Footnote: How the plug-and-charge feature in the Ford Mustang Mach-E works

 

[Tes La Ferrari]

Rivian Plans To Double Vancouver Workforce To 150 By End Of 2021 - Tech Talent Canada

It’s hard to miss Rivian in the mainstream news cycle these days. The electric vehicle automaker just raised a further $2.5 billion from Amazon, Ford Motors, and T. Rowe Price in advance of the planned September deliveries of its long-anticipated R1T electric pickup truck and R1S SUV. But did...

techtalent.ca

While the above article is from 3 months ago, I just saw it now after I walked by this location in Vancouver and saw the Rivian signage the other day. Thought it was curious that their software dev team is going into a rather upscale high retail rent location in a pretty expensive part of town It's the trendy warehouse district called Yaletown.

It used to be a boutique MINI dealership, now replaced by an EV company.

I wonder if they will expand it for use as a retail location at some point ?

Amazon has leased up bunch of new space in downtown Vancouver, and one would think they would leverage the economies of scale and just grabbed another floor in the same high rise in the business district. Shrug.

Polestar, Lucid, Rivian & Tesla now have presence in Vancouver.

These changes are happening faster than people are aware. Positive steps in the right direction for the mission and the planet.

 

[RobDickinson]

That count is for the R1T and R1S combined. And how many will cancel because there is no tank turn?

Theres a chunk who have also ordered a CT, or even an F150 too, theres no downside to this, people will choose who can get them a truck first.

 

[Oveeus]

So, in fairness, Ford seems to have done a credible job with the Mach E. It sounds like they have Plug & Charge working with Electrify America (no app or or whatever needed, just plug in and the car starts charging) and the single FordPass app for other charging networks. That avoids two of the main hurdles: locations (they have multiple networks to draw on) and the absurdities of needing another app with another management and billing scheme for every charger. I believe I heard they were also able to identify some charge stations that were known to not work with the Mach E and remove them from the nav system so the car wouldn't suggest them.

That doesn't help with all the 50 kW locations or broken-down chargers... but it's certainly one of the better moves in a situation where they've missed the boat on rolling out their own charging network.

Footnote: How the plug-and-charge feature in the Ford Mustang Mach-E works

You could argue that Ford is kinda on point, but the truth is that they are just looking for the easiest way out.

If they are actually serious, they should put x billion into upgrading/expanding EA or whichever charging network they want to partner with to adopt some communication protocols on their chargers to make the experience seamless. But the reality is far from it and many MachE owners can tell you the frustrating experience of them accessing the charging network.

The keyword is really "experience". And right now, Tesla offers the best EV experience, bar-none. It's so far ahead that we can basically talk about EV experience as Tesla vs. everyone else. Because none come close to what Tesla has to offer.

 

[jbcarioca]

Sorry Borntofly I just saw your photo and was surprised with your FL430.....the Honda jet can get to FL430? What kind of Mach can you do there? ......sorry for the side track.

At FL430 midweight plan for ~360kt. At FL300 ~420kt. They’re faster than CE525, fly higher, use les fuel. Quieter too.