Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#261

Post by twic » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #254

qroshan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla took so long for production because Charlatan-In-Chief didn't want to use any of the lessons learned about Auto Manufacturing the past 100 years and decided to do it his way. Charlatan-In-Chief also assumed he knows more about A.I and Robotics than many who warned him about his 'Alien Dreadnought' vision. Rest assured people who are focused on building mass cars won't have the same hubris

The irony of criticising entrepreneurial risk taking on HN. Especially considering thus exact approach has lead to all his successes, which are innumerable.

Leaving knowledge on the table out of arrogance is not the same thing as entrepreneurship. Although i am as surprised as you that someone on HN managed to make the distinction.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#262

Post by winsome » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #202

cloudwalking wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a prototype is the easy (and fun) part. Scaling production is much harder. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-says-building-fact...

I think this is true if the prototype is known to be possible. It's not in the case.

What do you mean it's not known to be possible in this case?

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#263

Post by Nemi » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

qroshan wrote: post #198

cloudwalking wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Tesla truck will almost certainly beat them to mass market. Look how long it took Tesla to scale up production -- the Model S shipped in 2013. It wasn't until 2018 that Tesla built their 200,000th vehicle. Rivian hasn't yet shipped a single truck to customers; they're in for a long and difficult road ahead building out their production lines. All that said I do hope Rivian is successful. I would absolutely buy an…

Tesla took so long for production because Charlatan-In-Chief didn't want to use any of the lessons learned about Auto Manufacturing the past 100 years and decided to do it his way. Charlatan-In-Chief also assumed he knows more about A.I and Robotics than many who warned him about his 'Alien Dreadnought' vision. Rest assured people who are focused on building mass cars won't have the same hubris

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#264

Post by magduf » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #204

magduf wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but it does ignore the waste heat, which in winter months is used to warm the passenger compartment. It's one thing EVs do have working against them, though it doesn't make up for the huge efficiency gain EVs have overall.

I know several coworkers who prefer to drive their EV in the winter because it heats up quicker (waiting ~5 minutes for the ICE to warm up the car vs. an active electric heater that starts right away)

Yes, but they're having to actively use battery power to do that, instead of just passively using waste heat from the ICE engine. So this greatly reduces their range. It probably works out fine for them because the car's maximum range is probably much greater than their commute distance, so they probably have battery capacity to spare and burning some of it on heat isn't a big deal as it gets recharged at home every night (and maybe also at work). If they had more "range anxiety", however, they probably wouldn't be so eager.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#265

Post by TecoAndJix » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #235

aetherspawn wrote: post #230

I work for a company that could most definitely deliver this vision before Rivian could (this is entirely my personal opinion and not reflective of my company) due to our extensive, non-vapourware, build history. The trucks are very real and being field tested, delivering real packages to real people every day. Most don’t even realise they are electric. The price is not a niche price you may imagine; it’s very highly…

Why do you think Amazon went with Rivian instead of your company?

A guess: Rivian is an American company and Amazon wants that juicy DoD cloud contract. Not the best look when there are domestic alternatives

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#266

Post by TylerE » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

jackhack wrote: post #16

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

Wow, 100k is no small change. Hoping this accelerates the "tipping point" for electric vehicles - in my mind that's when the infrastructure for EVs (e.g. charging stations, or something in the future like battery swaps) actually makes it easier to own than a gas vehicle.

tipping point, indeed... and not in a good way: let's take 100,000 vehicles with (I'm conservatively guessing) a 100 kWh battery each, that's a 100,000,000 kWh load each night! 100,000 Mega watt-hours is roughly the output of about 10 nuclear power plants in a 24H period. Unless a lot of new capacity comes online, it could easily overwhelm the existing electrical grid's capacity. Let's hope this is a gradual transiti…

Tesla is adding over 100k vehicles a quarter to the fleet. 100k trucks over 5 years is a drop in the bucket.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#267

Post by AtlasBarfed » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #103

Honestly this is a good move, I just have a quick question: Does anyone anywhere have video footage of a Rivian actually being driven? Like, not in a commercial, someone genuinely driving it. I just want to know if they are anywhere close to having a production vehicle. If they have a single production vehicle that does what they say, then OK they "just" have to figure out scaling up the manufacturing. If they don't…

It's not THAT hard to drop in batteries and motors to some 3D printed body and have it move around.

The basic design paradigm (skateboard) of EVs is basically established, new EV companies are systems integration and supply chain (esp. battery) setup... well, probably motor design now too, but it's not like people don't know how to make electric motors.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#268

Post by AtlasBarfed » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

Wow, 100k is no small change. Hoping this accelerates the "tipping point" for electric vehicles - in my mind that's when the infrastructure for EVs (e.g. charging stations, or something in the future like battery swaps) actually makes it easier to own than a gas vehicle.

Truck prices are already out of control, and the superior towing (if they do the torque right) should put in the class of superduty trucks.

Plus these will have tons of commercial customers who get to depreciate it on schedule, and the longer term lower maintenance and fuel costs come into play more.

... assuming the design goes well.

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#269

Post by razster » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #103

Honestly this is a good move, I just have a quick question: Does anyone anywhere have video footage of a Rivian actually being driven? Like, not in a commercial, someone genuinely driving it. I just want to know if they are anywhere close to having a production vehicle. If they have a single production vehicle that does what they say, then OK they "just" have to figure out scaling up the manufacturing. If they don't…

I'm surprised Amazon didn't go with Zenith Motors. They've got a good electric cargo van and a barebone chassis/cab. In my area, I've been seeing a dozen of them boppin' down the road (Northern Cali).

Re: Amazon orders 100K electric delivery trucks from Rivian

#270

Post by WorldMaker » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

elihu wrote: post #200

WorldMaker wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (the batteries in the EV may even make it a little worse) I'm not sure it makes it worse. Lithium is a common, non-toxic element that is easily recycle-able. Pound-for-pound batteries are "just" mostly replacing steel and lead (and oil-based lubricating fluids) ICE engine components, which can be toxic, sometimes nearly impossible to recycle, and produced in very unclean smelting, machining, (and refining) operatio…

> I'm not sure it makes it worse. Lithium is a common, non-toxic element that is easily recycle-able. I think one of main constraints on battery cost is the price of cobalt, which is a conflict mineral. Some chemistries (like lithium iron phosphate) don't need cobalt, but a lot of the high-performing batteries do.

Cobalt is an off-product/"waste-product" of Nickel mines. Certainly, most of the world's Nickel mines are in questionably regulated locales such as Columbia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but Nickel is likely to continue to be mined whether or not the Cobalt those mines produce also gets sold to battery companies.

Cobalt is also presumed to be entirely recycle-able from most battery compositions, but is in such small quantities that it isn't today economically feasible (and so long as people are mining Nickel, unlikely to be).