> On Monday, Rivian announced it had raised $1.3 billion in its fourth funding round of the year, led by T. Rowe Price, bringing its total for 2019 to nearly $2.9 billion.
> Rivian has been quietly developing vehicles for a decade, but it seized the industry’s attention in late 2018, when it unveiled a pair of eye-catching, high-end electric trucks.
Rivian raised $2.9 billion over four funding rounds in the span of one year? And it's been around for a full decade without ever releasing a product?
> Rivian raised $2.9 billion over four funding rounds in the span of one year? And it's been around for a full decade without ever releasing a product? Does this not set off alarm bells?
Not necessarily. They just signed some huge deals with Ford and Amazon, both of whom invested. What likely happened is that Rivian needed a lot of money for cap ex an inventory and wanted the customer to prepay. Those customers had a lot of power and so likely said, "Sure, but we'll take equity thank you very much."
I've bootrapped companies by having the customer underwrite the development cost but the sums have been so small (hundreds of $K, once a few million) that they weren't worth the customers (megacorps) worrying about this kind of thing. But when the sums needed are in the hundreds of millions, the CFO's office, if not the CEO, is gonna try to get something back.
I agree, but I would guess the deals looked something like equity, first right of refusal on acquisition, some level of access to IP, and maybe something like timed or category exclusivity in exchange for investment.
I'd also guess that the money is going to mostly CapEx for infrastructure (facilities, automation, tooling, etc) and OpEx for headcount and sub-supplier NRE rather than to inventory. There are "cheaper" ways to finance something short term like inventory than giving up equity.
I've stopped paying attention to all these auto manufactures like Rivian, VW, etc. All they do is keep announcing how they are going to take the industry by storm but yet never release a product or are working on it. Meanwhile Tesla pumps out a few thousand vehicles a month and the media makes it sound like it in big trouble. Ford, GM, VW are junk.I wouldn't buy any of their vehicles ICE or Electric. I worked for Ford 20 or so years ago and bought a Toyota (2000 4Runneris still going @ 300k + miles).
Although I'm glad they're pursuing electrification, it's all B.S until I see mass production.
If I were a betting man, all my money would be on the one horse that actually showed up for the race.
VW Group has already released a car which is in the hands of customers today i.e. Porsche Taycan. And there are plenty of EV cars today from the big auto manufacturers e.g. Audi, BMW, Mercedes. Some of which even outsell all Tesla cars in a country or two.
And it's hilarious to see you go on about car companies pre-announcing products when Tesla did exactly the same with the Cybertruck, Model Y, Roadster, Semi.
The VW group EVs are mostly junk and don't even compete with 8 year old Tesla's. That's tosay nothing about their pitiful charging network or substandard pilot assistance applications.
I am a German car fanatic and would love to own a German EV. The reality is they still have a long way to go.
Well, let's look at the world's top two car markets: China and Europe.
The Audi e-tron and the Jaguar I-Pace outsell the Tesla Model X in Europe. The Mercedes EQC will probably also outsell the Model X next year. The VW e-Golf does well in Europe so the Volkswagen ID.3 might outsell the Model 3 in 2020 or maybe 2021: https://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2019/12/europe-november-2019.h...
Not to mention that at this same point 10 years into Tesla’s existence the Model S was in full production of 1,000 cars a week and Motor Trend Car of the Year.
Tesla had the advantage of being the only car company which was 100% committed to electric at that time.
1000 a year is pretty good for luxury eco friendly car in 2009.
Rivian cannot sit in the same place. They have to carve out some market segment that loves electric but hates Tesla or get enough funding to stick around for 10 years when Tesla may be vulnerable to competition.
Size and lack of growth. If they are a 2 trillion dollar company they will not be able to grow nearly as much on a percentage basis at that point. Also it is harder to make big changes at large stable companies to respond to threats and large companies are more likely to ignore much smaller companies.
Can you point out comparable US-based car company startups that developed faster and by raising less? There's only one other example, so it's hard to draw any conclusions.
It is yet another effort (fuel cell, Nikola, lucid, workhorse) by the existing industry to divert attention and money away from the few players (mainly Tesla) that are actually delivering battery electric vehicles. /tinfoil
Until recently, the existing industry was shipping more battery electric vehicles than Tesla. Nissan Leaf sells very well, as do BMW, Chevy, and several other OEMs.
There are are dozens and dozens of companies delivering EV vehicles including big players like VW, BMW, Porsche, Jaguar, Audi, Volvo etc. Could be even hundreds based on what what little we know from all of the skunkwork projects.
What's strange about this? When it doesn't have anything to show investors shy away. Prove its chops with some impressive prototypes and investors rush in.
I am skeptical that Rivian has "proven its chops". Consider Magic Leap, a company with a some impressive prototypes that used its $2.6 billion of funding to… sell 6,000 headsets, out of a goal of one million.
Well... Magic Leap has no market, it literally has to invent one out of thin air. There is a gigantic market for trucks, and the market price for trucks is well established.
In one people invested in something that was unproven with an unknown market, the other people are investing in something the market already has show demand for... Seems pretty damn different to me /shrug
For amazon the equity investment fell under corporate social responsibility, the alternative would be something like carbon offsets which are a pure loss.
For ford it just means one less competitor, and they might be able to salvage some IP in the fire sale.
If rivian is just a variation on a proven technology whats their competitive advantage? They have zero manufacturing scale, zero experience selling cars, and with the “platform” model no way to differentiate the cars over any other EV (no vertical integration).
It's manufacturing, not software. While one can produce one million copies of a binary for cheap and no lead time, producing one million physical objects requires setting up production lines, quality control checks, rework stations, warehousing, supply chains and controls, and so on.
Yes, but before you produce one million physical objects it's good to do a test run with one to see how strong the market demand is. It's not a foregone conclusion that their product will sell at high enough margins and quantity to be successful. You don't automate something before you validate it. Even Tesla made this mistake - they tried to automate their assembly line before they had the assembly line figured out. It's one of the few things Elon Musk did that he later admitted was stupid on his part.
Tesla didn't start with a mass-market vehicle. They started with an extremely high margin, low volume sports car. They then transitioned to a not-quite-as-high margin, not-quite-as-low volume luxury car. They are currently trying to make moderate margin, high volume sedans with the Model 3, but it's uncertain they can currently sell those profitably.
Not even close. Having worked at a Medical ultrasound startup and now at a Gene Sequencing Company that also sells diagnostics equipment, there is More documentation burden involved with bringing medical devices to market, more verification and validation than Auto. Just compare what Apple had to go through to v&v Series 5 EKG Vs the Tesla Auto summon which was literally regression tested by hapless customers at Target/Walmart parking lots. It’s really a day and night difference.
Trying to solve manufacturing while inevitable improvements to battery chemistries and electric motors proceed, is a viable strategy. They’re not inventing a new magic box nor disrupting the art of office leasing, they’re building electric vehicles.
They actually do have lots of sales. Rivian is making a “skate” that is everything but the body of the car. Bolt on the body and you have an EV. Amazon and Ford have made large orders.
I’ve never owned a truck before, mainly for economic/environmental reasons, but I am extremely interested in an electric truck. I’ve decided to order the Cybertruck over the Rivian, primarily for 2 reasons:
1) Tesla has a massive charging network that is expanding rapidly
2) The Rivian starts $30k+ higher than the Cybertruck
When Tesla did a platform deal in 2010 for the RAV4 they had at least sold a car to customers.
Why would Ford license a drivetrain from a company thats never shipped a car when they already have a drivetrain licensing deal with VW (who have at least sold EV’s).
I predict Rivian will use the deal with Amazon and Ford as an excuse to “pivot” from shipping any cars to customers, and it’ll be another decade of prototypes and vague licensing deals that dont generate any revenue.
I'm a huge Tesla fan, but it looks like Rivian has made some very smart moves, and I hope it's a massive success.
Why do I say that? Because to save the climate we need to move off of fossil fuel vehicles as fast as possible, and that can happen only if there are lots of car companies all doing it at once.
Now the problem is so many big car companies don't have their ev programs very well developed, so it is great there is a pure ev company that is licensing its well-developed technology out to them so they can get up to speed years sooner.
Surprised that no one has yet mentioned the US Postal Service and their fleet of 30+ year old LLV vehicles.
Surely someone is trying to convince the USPS to upgrade to an EV based solution? There are 140,000 plus LLVs out there. The last one was made in 1994.
The USPS was supposed to announce their next gen delivery vehicle (NGDV) this fall, but the decision is pushed back to 2020. There's a small American EV company called Workhorse among the four contenders for the contract. DHL was also trialing some Workhorse EVs recently, I'm not sure how that ended up.
Thanks to an array of StreetScooter vehicles, developed and manufactured inhouse, and some 12,000 e-bikes and e-trikes, Deutsche Post DHL Group today operates the largest electric fleet in Germany. For the good of the environment and its customers, the company plans to replace its entire mail and parcel delivery fleet in the mid-term with electric vehicles that are charged with electricity generated from renewable energy sources.
Bollinger is dodging all the safety regulations a normal car manufacturer would have to deal with by classifying their vehicle as a commercial light duty truck. It's cool but I think the company is doomed.
I think it's actually quite the opposite. If you need a truck for its utility which one makes more sense? The Cybertruck is less expensive, has more range, bigger payload, higher towing capacity, access to the best charging network in the world. Why would you buy a Rivian instead? The only reason I can think of is that it looks more conventional. If you need a truck, you buy the Tesla. If you want a lifestyle truck that looks pretty, you buy the Rivian.
Okay fine. As long as we're not believing announcements, then Rivian’s prices are promotional too. And so are the specs. So this conversation is pointless.
Part of me wants to believe Elon et al. at Tesla has a soft-spot for Rivian and - yes - while the Cybertruck could crush Rivian - they want to see Rivian succeed because an EV monopoly over all vehicle classes might mean an own-goal for combating global climate change: competition is important, and the appearance of competition even more-so.
If Tesla's priority was combating global climate change then Tesla would open its chargers to all EVs. Other charging networks charge all EVs (including Tesla cars) whereas Tesla's charging network only charges Teslas.
Tesla has said that they are willing to do so, just not for free. I also get the impression that they don't want every slow-charging electric vehicle to have access to their network, and I honestly can't blame them. They have capacity issues as it is, it would be much worse if slow-charging Bolts were able to use it.
Its the early days still, though, so hopefully this will change as Tesla's competitors become more competitive.
Tesla only has capacity problems in North America because they've stuck with a proprietary plug. If they switch to CCS and provide a CCS adapter for older cars then their capacity problems will be solved.
There don't need to be any special deals for them to open their network to other EVs. Tesla can just keep the old proprietary plug on their chargers, add on a CCS plug as well, and get on with it.
Tesla Superchargers in Europe already have CCS plugs because that is what the Model 3 uses here (no idea what connector they use in the US) and it is possible to order an adaptor for CCS from Tesla to be used on the Model S and X; unfortunately it requires a new socket on the car as well so it's not cheap.
So if other manufacturers wanted to use Tesla's chargers they just have to ask Tesla, pay their way, and help expand the network. At least that is what Tesla is rumoured to be willing to do.
> Why does anyone need to ask Tesla anything? What does anyone need to pay?
The comment is not about Tesla cars using non-Tesla chargers; it is about non-Tesla cars using Tesla chargers.
If other car makers want to use Tesla's network they would have to pay their share of the costs of maintaining and expanding the network.
At the moment Tesla's Superchargers are available only to Tesla cars even though many other cars use Type 2 and they now have CCS connectors. Tesla have several times said that they would consider opening up the system to other manufacturers cars if those manufacturers were willing to pay their share of the costs which most likely would be less than the cost of creating their own network. But, no other manufacturer has taken them up on it.
None of the charging networks you mention were set up by the car makers. Tesla's network is part of the package when you buy a Tesla, or at least it was, and is again, for the S and X. It is a selling point that the chargers just work. They have no user interface, you just plug in and it works. You connect your credit card to your Tesla account and away you go. No need for dozens of apps and RFID cards. Every other charger I have tried to use has been significantly more trouble and often simply would not work. Even those that are free in Tesco supermarket car parks (provided by a consortium that includes VW) need an app on your mobile to get more than 15 minutes of charging.
> they would have to pay their share of the costs of maintaining and expanding the network.
Tesla is not paying other charging networks for the costs of "maintaining and expanding" their networks.
If Tesla's not paying anyone, then why should and why would anyone pay Tesla? This "you must pay us" position is logically inconsistent and hypocritical.
> None of the charging networks you mention were set up by the car makers.
I see people say this online from time to time, but I see very little evidence for it. The Madonna Inn charger was clogged with traffic yesterday, despite it being a massive charger relative to what the other US networks have built. Is there any indication that there are other companies wanting to open up massive charging stations along this route and are simply being held up by Tesla? I can't see evidence of that. It isn't like there are massive waves of EA chargers available along the way.
Granted, the Tesla owners with Chademo adapters often did ok, but that was mostly because so few bothered to buy or use them. The available options would have been just as overwhelmed if more owners used them.
Around here, we are actually have some issues with hotels being hostile towards Tesla owners and Tesla having issues finding properties to place chargers.
> The Madonna Inn charger was clogged with traffic yesterday
You'd plan a different route if there was access to other chargers. There's an EVgo site 5 km from the Madonna Inn. An Electrify America site is going in 19 km from that site.
Electrify America is adding new sites every week at the moment.
EVgo is adding a Tesla plug to their chargers. It's essentially a built-in CHAdeMO adapter. It's dumb having to support three different plugs. The sooner it gets to one plug the better. Europe has taken the correct approach by setting CCS type 2 Combo as the standard plug for all cars and chargers.
> Around here, we are actually have some issues with hotels being hostile towards Tesla owners and Tesla having issues finding properties to place chargers.
All the more reason to spread the work around to multiple companies.
I hope you're wrong but I suspect they're right. If they're accurate I and I think a ton of other people will buy them. The performance per dollar just seems too good to be true.
the problem with the Cybertruck is going to be its size, it's humongous, it's in the same class as a Ford F-250. Going to be hard for a lot of folks to find the space for that behemoth, especially for the people that like to camp but don't have hard core needs like farmers and construction workers. I think Rivian will have the suburban-outdoors people market down pat if they ever manage to actually ship and the car doesn't suck.
When it comes to utility design the Rivian is far far ahead.
It's not about more conventional but about more convenient.
One example: you cannot throw stuff in the back of the Tesla from the side.
And when it comes to towing: nobody will use an electric vehicle yet. You can buy a gas truck for half the price with the same towing capacity. A gas truck with the same price as the Tesla will have twice the towing capacity.
What?! Sure it can be more convenient to drop things into the bed, but have you ever tried to get things back out of the bed of a full size pickup? Beds are tall. That's why it's more convenient to store things in the storage room compartments on the side of the Tesla's bed.
Give me another example of how Rivian’s utility design is "far ahead".
Have you seen the side loading compartment o nthe Rivian? Its a pretty cool design...
However - I am interested in neither the rivian and the tesla for their beds -- what I really want is the skateboard from the rivian and the ability to custom build the car I want on it -- if this takes off we can get back to the boutique still car shops of the 20s and earlier.
Sports gear, camping equipment, portable chairs, anything soft that can go on top of other luggage, all go over the side, over the back, however it's most convenient.
More importantly though, is that a lot of this gear is removed from the truck over the side, especially at the beach or on the mountain or at a trailhead, where I'm parallel-parked and can't easily remove items out of the back.
For over 20 years I have owned various models of F150 Trucks
and I access from the side more often than I use the tailgate.
Infact my current Truck is a Regular bed, and the one before it was a FlairSide ... I miss my FlairSide that is my one big disappointments in Ford that they stopped making Styleside and FlairSide Beds
I haul every day small items, and home improvement supplies, and other things like that
no one is thinking about that automatically adjusting suspension. It could lower itself when you get near with your phone, like an elephant kneeling down for you to climb on to it lol
>> truck for its utility which one makes more sense
Anyone that used thier Truck for actual work will tell you the CyberTruck is 100% not practical as a work Truck for many reasons not the least of which is the Bed (or Vault) design.
The CyberTruck seems to appeal to Hipsters and Urbanites that want a "Urban" truck, you are not going to be seeing the CyberTruck on the Farm or Jobsite
Ohh it also appeals to Gen X's that grew up watching 80's SciFi
The issue is that the comparison is to the Rivian which only has a 4.5 ft bed. The rear 4.5 feet of the Cybertruck isn't too hard to access, its the front 2 feet that is problematic.
Again, I was comparing to the Rivian. I'm not convinced that the sail sides on the CT are appreciably higher than the Rivian over only the rear 4.5 feet. The Rivian is not a more practical vehicle by any stretch of the imagination.
I think the Cybertruck looks like a fantastic SUV, but here would be my critiques of it as a competitor in the pickup truck:
As oft stated, the slope of the bed's walls makes side-loading difficult. This may not seem too significant day-to-day given the bed's volume, but if you're doing commercial work (construction, professional moving, etc), you'll get a lot of items that don't properly fit in the bed's volume. Even the cladding like on the Chevy Avalanche can be obnoxious, if not impossible to work around with some loads.
The body also doesn't look as ammenable to aftermarket modifications as its competitors. Standard racks and bed rails won't be compatible with it, which are pretty much standard mods for any contractor.
On the more elaborate side, you couldn't replace the back end of the vehicle with a domain-oriented work box.
I think a more utility-oriented cybertruck would have gone cab-over like an Isuzu elf, and used a more raditional, if elongated bed-design.
The tonneau cover and specs are nice, but it needs to function more as a modular platform, and have traditional rear end if it wants to compete broadly in the "practical pickup" space.
Great as a lifestyle vehicle, I expect your average truck owner will get more than enough utility from it, and it'll be a dream off-road. But I don't think most of the critiques leveraged against it are being made from the mindset of a consumer who only occasionally needs the pickup portion of their vehicle.
I'm not sure if youve used the average pickup truck in the last 5-6 years but side loading is pointless/impossible because the bed is so high. I am over 6' tall and can't put stuff into the bed of an f150, Silverado, etc without needing to use step rails.
You aren't wrong about that. I've used a couple late-model trucks (Silverados) at various points, but I prefer to early oughties Rangers and F150s for just that reason.
I don't think that the diminished utility of sideloading on modern trucks entirely diminishes the advantages of not having sloped bed walls, however.
Which is why I own a F-150 and not a Ranger or Colorado
The point I was responding to was the person implied that Full Sized truck beds have some how gotten taller thus less usable from the side in the last 5-6 years, this is completely false
Hence saying "relatively rapidly" - meanwhile other manufacturers are nowhere near creating a vehicle to compete with any Tesla vehicle; if wondering why they're 5+ years ahead of competitors in a dense overview, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uEELWPV8Yc
Yeah I think the innovation here is in the business model, not the engineering.
I really do like the four motor design on the Rivian platform though. It opens up a lot of possibilities for improved performance/handling/safety and off-road capability. The 'tank turn' demo is kind of a gimmick but also not - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzwM8KE2L3I
Tank turn is not a gimmick. Super useful on offroad trails where space to turn around is quite limited, which is important when you get to a part of the trail that is impassible or dangerous.
Many full-size trucks are never driven off-road or carrying/towing heavy loads, but the advertising for them always mentions these features. Some people call that using gimmicks to sell trucks.
So features are gimmicks when they're only useful to a subset and buyers? Even if they're very useful to a subset of buyers? That would make towing a gimmick.
Possibly but it largely depends on how the torque is routed to the wheels that share a motor. It also wouldn’t likely be as repeatable and precise as this.
I would guess each motor has more than enough torque to spin the wheel so probably, but it would be way faster and a rough ride unless they were exquisitely balanced.
As long as the rest of the components can take it it will work fine (or as fine as it can given the wheelbase and track width of the vehicle doing it). I wouldn't bet on a typical consumer vehicle that makes it to production being able to take it long term. Adding enough extra beef to the drive-line to do that almost certainly fails the cost/benefit analysis.
Gm invented the skateboard design but never did anything with it. Tesla uses it but it's proprietary. Rivian's shtick is that they are willing to license it and build it for others. That's a big reason why Ford invested: they can immediately get access to a leading edge ev platform without spending any time on it.
Wasn't that part of Tesla's business-model between the Roadster and Model S? In 2010 they engineered the Toyota RAV4 EV ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV ). I'm curious how many other companies approached Tesla to seek partnerships building other EVs...
Tesla also supplied a drivetrain and battery pack for a B series car from Mercedes. At this point all of the big carmakers consider Tesla a competitor and EVs too important to outsource.
So they buy the big two components, motors and batteries, from other people rather than Tesla's (it would seem) superior ones.
There is so much EV plans of actions in companies seem to almost only be for mollifying activist investors livid that their particular company has been asleep at the wheel for 20 years of Tesla's rise.
Otherwise someone would be partnering. No one wants to admit they suck at engineering though.
While a 4-motor design allows this really cool tank-turn trick, it also prevents torque transfer between wheels / axes.
Some "pedestrian" SUVs today allow transferring up to 70% of all available torque to any single wheel if situation demands. A 4-motor design is limited to 25%.
When you have a truck with 700hp and 800 ft lbs torque, you are only using all that power in good traction situations. I don't think you'll need more then 25% power per wheel with traction in slippery situations.
Also, in bad traction situations open diffs have the issue of transferring all the power to the wheel without grip and much engineering is put into solving this on off road vehicles. A 4 motor electric car solves this while being mechanically much simpler and likely lighter.
I believe that most BEVs are limited by the power the battery can output safely, not by the motor's individual power rating.
I could imagine an EV with a 400hp battery + a 400hp motor at each wheel allowing for 100% of the power to be used at one wheel, where in 4x4 mode each motor would be seeing 25% at max power. I'm not sure exactly how much of a premium you would pay for that but motors are cheap compared to batteries.
I think most hype over EVs is a direct result of the Tesla stock price and people upset they missed their chance to buy it when it was $20. Probably nothing to do with Rivian or their tech - they just want "the next Tesla".
No, the hype is over the vehicles themselves. EVs are the future. And, as William Gibson famously said, "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed." Once you experience the quiet, convenience and power of an EV, it's hard to go back to an ICE car. We're already past the early-adopter phase. Improvements in price, range and charging infrastructure (already happening) will capture everyone else.
The EV market has already hit a plateau, suggesting that it has exhausted the customer base for very expensive cars with short ranges. September 2019 sales were down (US and global) vs 2018, and 2019 Q3 sales were down vs Q3 2018 as well (also for the US and globally). These sales figures suggest that EVs need something new, like lower prices or more utility, to start growing again.
How do you determine sales (demand) plateau vs. sales (manufacturing capacity or brand loyalty having customers wait for their brand to ship) plateau vs. model availability plateau (i.e. no electric truck is shipping today, no fullsize SUV, no minivan, etc.)?
TCO my math has EV better than ICE already even in the US with lower fuel prices and typically higher mileage per day than EU.
I disagree with that, Longevity of these platforms have yet to be worked out, we are coming up on the time when the first Model S units are going to start having failing batteries. How much is that going to cost?
The Used Car market is what supports New Car sales, Tesla and other EV's are riding on the ability of people to sell off the ICE cars and buy into EV
Once EV has a large enough market share, and that is coming soon, EV resell value will become even more important, and if the cars need a repair that costs the equivalent of a new engine at year 8-10 the resell value of them will PLUMMET
I'm willing to bet that the EV battery longevity is even longer than advertised. I have a ten year old battery in my hybrid car and as of yet I have zero reason to replace it.
The first Model S rolled of the line on June 22, 2012, that is about 7.5 years
You can not believe that is "been out long enough" to factor in Resale values and longevity?
The Average Scrap age for a car in the US in 2014 is about 15 years, and the Average age of all light vehicles in operation on the reads as of 2014 was 11.4 years old and was expected to raise to 12 years by 2018 but I could not find data to confirm that
This means the VAST majority of cars in operation are aging used cars that are older than even the oldest Tesla on the road today.
Get back to me when the Model S reaches the decade mark and see if the Cost the the batteries exceed the value of the Car, and the real test will be if the low end Model 3 can maintain a 15+ year life span on the road
because if the EV scrap date is a full 5+ years quicker than a ICE car that is going to be a problem not only for sales but also all of the environmental calculations that make it "green"
ICE Manufacturers are targeting a 15year life span for cars, if EV can not do that economically we are going to have problems
(Mild conflict of interest: I'm originally from Central Illinois, Rivian took over the old Mitsubishi plant where my dad worked, so I'm keen to see manufacturing stay around there.)
I think the future earnings potential is the "platform". Which sounds like marketing hype, but I'm not so sure.
The US is, at least under the current administration, not going to push for EVs, but the rest of the world is trending in that direction, especially after it was revealed that basically everyone was cheating on diesel emissions. Rivian's pitch is that they have a modular flexible platform that's tuned for boring-but-essential utility vehicles. Tesla sells consumer sex, Rivian is selling white van man utility ahead of big, big pressures to lower fleet CO2 emissions. Seems like a reasonable business model to me.
It's not just lowering fleet emissions, it's also while consumers are stupidly fixated on price commercial looks at TCO. EV's TCO is lower. There is also something I learned about golf carts. For consumers being able to gas up a car is a convenience. For fleet operators having to deal with fuel is a pain in the ass they do not want.
Most EV owners with at-home or at-work charging appreciate the convenience of not having to go to "gas stations" other than during long trips.
This is an issue that the general public has yet to fully think out... every EV thread on HN has a few folks talking about how it's impossible to take a long trip in an EV because they'd have to spend time charging during it. And these same folks are usually not considering how much time they save during the rest of the year. Good thing EV sales are low enough that everyone doesn't need to be convinced of this immediately.
Have you driven one? Energy is 1/4 the price or less and efficiency is better even if your electricity comes from fossil fuels because small heat engines suck. Torque curve is better. Little maintenance, no oil changes, quiet, better handling. EVs are objectively superior in every single way except recharge speed amd range, and the gap has closed for the latter and is closing for the former. ICE is dead except for long haul and heavy driving where you don't often park the vehicle.
I have an older Leaf and it was an incredible deal for a commuter car. I don't understand why anyone gets anything else. The fuel cost savings and lack of maintenance alone are worth it, but it also drives and accelerates better than a smaller gas commuter car.
> I don't understand why anyone gets anything else.
Presumably different reasons for different people, but my dealbreakers are a) I rent and park on the street in a suburb where there's no charging infrastructure and b) every time I run the numbers, they're still too expensive. (e.g. a used Leaf runs about double what my used ICE was, and it's too much of a difference for savings on fuel and oil changes to make up.)
edit: The range is also a real concern. I get several dozen days of snowboarding in per winter and frequently go hiking, backpacking and climbing in the summer. Ski hill parking lots, hostel parking lots, and trail heads don't have charging infrastructure. I'd need 400km of range at -20C as a minimum viable EV.
There won’t be a next Tesla and (smart) investors aren’t looking for one. Like chip startups the exit strategy doesn’t depend on competing with the big guys, but being acquired by them.
Sounds familiar to NIO. They raised a total of $4.1B.
This whole electric hype is interesting to me. Why is it better for the environment? In the end you drive around with however the power from the grid was produced. Even in California that’s only one third renewables. Most is natural gas and nuclear. So, your electric car is driving around with natural gas with an efficiency way worse than petroleum. Besides, disposing the batteries is an issue. Also, the required rare earths might become an issue (especially because China kind of owns the market).
> Rivian has been quietly developing vehicles for a decade, but it seized the industry’s attention in late 2018, when it unveiled a pair of eye-catching, high-end electric trucks.
Rivian raised $2.9 billion over four funding rounds in the span of one year? And it's been around for a full decade without ever releasing a product?
Does this not set off alarm bells?