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Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

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111–120 of 173 posts

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#111
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hear this all the time. There is no such thing as a huge lead in automaking. It’s an incredibly clonable product, and each company has huge teams taking apart each others products. It’s also not really the product that matters. It’s service centers, parts, repairs, manufacturing capacity. The traditional companies have entrenched supply chains to get parts, and cars, across the country and into hands. All the new…

I strongly disagree. Companies are having a very very hard time getting into the electric vehicle business. Toyota actively spent money trying to slow down the advancements in EVs to give themselves time to catch up ( https://electrek.co/2021/09/22/toyota-facing-boycotts-over-f... ). If only centers, parts, repairs, and manufacturing capacity matter, then Toyota should have nothing to fear. They have all of that in s…

Toyota bet heavily on hydrogen. They are still convinced that is the future.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#112

The financials may not look good right now, but the vehicles are extremely good. They’re already way out in front of the EV truck segment, and the big automakers have a huge gap to make up to reach the same level of quality. I wouldn’t be surprised if they manage to turn this around and become profitable.

If you want a truck for looks, EV is nice enough. If you want a truck to haul stuff, EV is terrible. Put a trailer on your EV and they have basically no range at all.

If you need a truck to haul stuff reasonable distances, EV isn't for you (at least not right now). If you want to save the world, then an electric car gets much better ranges with much smaller batteries and a fraction of the power usage.

This leaves EV trucks in a "why bother?" category.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#113

The financials may not look good right now, but the vehicles are extremely good. They’re already way out in front of the EV truck segment, and the big automakers have a huge gap to make up to reach the same level of quality. I wouldn’t be surprised if they manage to turn this around and become profitable.

Unless they can crank out the volume like Tesla they will be relegated to a niche market. Only big guys like Ford, Volkswagon, GM can make it now.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#114
post #76
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that until Tesla wrecked everyone.

Tesla is really nothing special. It has one massive advantage: the supercharger network. Other than that, it has an excellent powertrain (eminently clonable), a pretty good nav system, a pretty good adaptive cruise control, no CarPlay or Android Auto, and no interior amenities worth mentioning. And they have absolutely terrible parasitic power consumption, a property that every other manufacturer has nailed for decad…

Not just mindshare, ability to crank out volume, captive battery production and vertical integration

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#115
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that until Tesla wrecked everyone.

Tesla was famously close to failing. So on one hand, post-Tesla, there's more public readiness for EVs. On the other hand, there's a huge established EV-native incumbent PLUS far more legacy brand competition in the market. So it's still a really risky playbook.

Tesla was close to failing in 2008. After that its 'Musk level' close to failing. Even in 2017 when they were losing billions, they still had lots of option to raise money and their margins were already clearly moving in the right direction.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Companies are having a very very hard time getting into the electric vehicle business. Toyota actively spent money trying to slow down the advancements in EVs to give themselves time to catch up ( https://electrek.co/2021/09/22/toyota-facing-boycotts-over-f... ). If only centers, parts, repairs, and manufacturing capacity matter, then Toyota should have nothing to fear. They have all of that in s…

Toyota bet heavily on hydrogen. They are still convinced that is the future.

And after my experience with BEV, I am more likely to believe that hydrogen or synthetic fuels are future, than a battery joke.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#117
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is really nothing special. It has one massive advantage: the supercharger network. Other than that, it has an excellent powertrain (eminently clonable), a pretty good nav system, a pretty good adaptive cruise control, no CarPlay or Android Auto, and no interior amenities worth mentioning. And they have absolutely terrible parasitic power consumption, a property that every other manufacturer has nailed for decad…

Not just mindshare, ability to crank out volume, captive battery production and vertical integration

Ford in 1930s used to have this too and more (except the battery production). See Fordlandia.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#118
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't count on Maverick to be available. All 2023 Mavericks were ordered in September 2022. I'll probably wait until 2025 to get one.

I've seen some on dealer lots in the past month. YMMV on options/colors of course.

I just asked local dealer. The answer was. What you see on the lot is sold.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#119
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transportation is a luxury. It assumes that you can live in a dense area and that your travel needs coincide with bus/train routes. It's very practical for many, and very impractical for many too.

What a hilariously American comment. Nearly all American cities were built by train networks that existed in the 1800s. These train lines were ripped out to make way for car infrastructure in the mid-1900s, which was designed to segregate neighborhoods and give giant profits to GM. Even famously car-centric LA with their massive freeways once had the best public transit in the world. https://www.segregationbydesign.c…

The first things hip urban europeans do when they can afford it is buy an Audi wagon and move to the suburbs.

I worked in Mainz for many years and one of my German coworkers was so happy the day he finally had moved up enough and saved up enough to move out of town. Bought an M5 Wagon and a cute little Haus with a yard and a shed. He was so excited to be able to go to the hardware store to buy garden tools to fill up his shed and furniture that wasn't apartment-sized. He was finally living the American dream.

Name any country, any country WHATSOEVER, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, with more than 500,000 residents (small pacific island nations don't count lol) and I will find you an America-style suburban neighborhood full of station wagons and SUVs and single-family homes. Europe is easy. I lived in them. South America is easy. Asia is easy. Even Africa experiences this phenomenon.

You don't believe me. I know you don't.

Here's a suburban neighborhood consisting of fenced-in single family homes with manicured lawns and (most likely) a Range Rover in every driveway in Bujumbura, Burundi. The poorest country on earth: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Burundi/@-3.3707605,29.392...

Living somewhere where you can't smell your neighbors is what nearly every single human being who can afford it wants.

I'm an American who has lived in Germany, Nigeria, Kenya, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and Ecuador. They are all connected by the same thread: you got the choice, you get the fuck out of the cities.

The cult of urbanism has brainwashed you.

Re: Rivian announces 1B gross loss and 600M revenue [pdf]

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sell the delivery trucks at cost, we're going to try to make that cost lower so we won't lose money on each one sold.

Is "cost" set at the original date of the agreement? Otherwise lowering cost wouldn't help. (or this is a joke I'm whiffing on...)

Currently the price is approximately equal to the cost, but presumably there's nothing in the contract with Amazon saying that if Rivian's costs go down then the price to amazon goes down.
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