11–20 of 38 posts
I’m not surprised. A lot of companies in Germany hire students and pay like 1.000€/month for this kind of work instead of creating automated processes. When you tell them that they need to hire engineers for the automation, they complain how expensive to hire them and instead they can just hire bunch of students by paying less to let them do the work manually.
Rivian have always struggled to bring down the cost of manufacturing their EVs. This is one of the biggest issues they have when you are making an EV battery & motor are 2 of the most important components of the car. In Rivians case they both are sourced and not done in-house. They got carried away making a luxurious car, custom screen setup (rather then leveraging Carplay or Android Auto) & good looking interior. If…
Rivian have always struggled to bring down the cost of manufacturing their EVs. This is one of the biggest issues they have when you are making an EV battery & motor are 2 of the most important components of the car. In Rivians case they both are sourced and not done in-house. They got carried away making a luxurious car, custom screen setup (rather then leveraging Carplay or Android Auto) & good looking interior. If…
I’m. It sure why no one is producing a commodity “skateboard” platform for other companies to build their vehicles on. When Tesla showed off this design prior to the Model X (iirc), the idea of a company that could optimize batteries and motors to sell a blank canvas chassis seemed obvious.
I think the issue with unibody cars is eventually you’re constrained on how much a base platform can be changed without the OEMs’ commitment to modifying the layout. The Honda Prologue and the Blazer EV have the same silhouette.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The legacy manufacturers are having a competition to see who can become the next Nokia. The infotainment system, charging network and charging experience of a Tesla are still far ahead of the competition but I can’t tell why. There is literally a playbook to follow and they are all failing at it.
My non-expert guesses: - Investing capital for new manufacturing lines, retraining employees, hiring new employees, etc. means reduced profits and reduced short term returns for shareholders. The top level execs probably feel like their heads would be on the chopping block if investor returns were to be reduced in the short term for accelerating long term growth. - A lot of entrenched mid-level and senior executives…
Which is really silly because these new lines are relatively cheap to setup. EVs are easier to manufacturer than ICE vehicles with fewer parts and inspection points needed.
That is why so many small time EV manufactures were capable of spawning out of nowhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rivian also got in a dispute with Amazon when the latter wasn’t ordering enough delivery vans; as I understand it they tried to sell to others but Amazon had an exclusivity clause Seems like some self inflicted wounds in an industry that can’t afford a slip
Thankfully the exclusivity clause was finally dropped Nov of last year. Amazon has invested a lot of money into Rivian and if they want to recoup that investment it’s in their best interest not to needlessly hinder them. Still hoping the R2 launch gets them into the mainstream and profitable.
At the same time Chinese EVs have ranges of of 500 and 600 miles.
I don’t think I can purchase an EV as a primary vehicle until they catch up.
> “Instead, Bosch had apparently employed teenage interns to stand by the line holding flashlights for quality control,” I’m not surprised. A lot of companies in Germany hire students and pay like 1.000€/month for this kind of work instead of creating automated processes. When you tell them that they need to hire engineers for the automation, they complain how expensive to hire them and instead they can just hire bun…
I can see the culture shock here. Some German states have what amount to technical high schools. If these are Working Students from a mechanical/engineering type school it’s probably simply “different but not wrong.” For the working students they get to put Bosch on their resume and get paid ok for what would probably just count as course credits in the US.
My experience with working for my specific German company (a wildly thin skinned brand so I’ll leave them unnamed so I don’t get fired) is we generally over promise and under deliver at a high price. We seem to sell to large firms that then do the same based on what the local teams tell me. Brand is so powerful that bad deals just get renegotiated, and new contracts can be drawn up to replace the old ones. Even when they’re unhappy with us or we are unhappy with our own suppliers, we all renew each year so long as it’s a German business dealing with a German business. Breaking a contract without remuneration, even if you’re in the right, is seemingly a cultural business sin and that’s when words get sharp and the “take care of me and I’ll take care of you” yearly renewals go away.
Our contracts are wildly complicated and our legal team for Germany inserts poison pills that would hurt ourselves if we needed to shut down an unprofitable line of business. I’m not a lawyer, much less a German lawyer, so I don’t know if this is normal. One of the companies in my portfolio of products has a clauses that would cost the company 3x what the revenue of the product is in penalties. I don’t know why this is there but perhaps it’s part of this seeming social contract between firms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The legacy manufacturers are having a competition to see who can become the next Nokia. The infotainment system, charging network and charging experience of a Tesla are still far ahead of the competition but I can’t tell why. There is literally a playbook to follow and they are all failing at it.
They're producing what people want to buy. Used EV prices are in freefall. I'm not saying that's a good thing it's just the way it is.
Can you quantify this? Most times when people say things like this they are just repeating headlines of articles. The articles themselves will loosely be based on some truth, but are mostly just EV hit pieces. It would be good to see similar ICE models compared %age wise. “Freefall” sounds dramatic, but if it’s an extra 5% depreciation from the expected 50% over 3 years I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration, especially if fuel savings would fill the gap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thankfully the exclusivity clause was finally dropped Nov of last year. Amazon has invested a lot of money into Rivian and if they want to recoup that investment it’s in their best interest not to needlessly hinder them. Still hoping the R2 launch gets them into the mainstream and profitable.
My biggest surprise with the non-Chinese EVs is that the range hasn’t been increasing. Rivian announced models r2 and r3 seem that are set to come in 2026 and 2027 seem to still be around 300 miles of range. Most other EVs are similar. At the same time Chinese EVs have ranges of of 500 and 600 miles. I don’t think I can purchase an EV as a primary vehicle until they catch up.
If Bosch couldn't supply the motors required in the contact, I don't see why Rivian has to commit to not making motors themselves. Seems like the logical thing to do. If Kroger says they'll sell me 100,000 apples and only delivered 23k, I might buy an orchard
Some damning bits if true: > “Bosch made a calculated gamble to overpromise to multiple start-up electric vehicle companies on the theory that at least some of them would soon fail,” the lawsuit read. > Rivian engineers said one of the lines was “in shambles” during a visit to Germany and claimed Bosch was not using “industry standard technology.” This coupled with BMW's recent pushback against EU ICE phaseout seems…
It is not really obvious path when people in Europe are not buying BEVs unless there is some serious subsidy on it.