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Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

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Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#131

Post by shiftpgdn »

crocodiletears wrote: post #107
x3haloed wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, list them out. What are the reasons that the design is impractical?

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. Eve…

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.

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#132

Post by kjeetgill »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #130
kjeetgill wrote: post #108

Since this is pulling all the EV experts out of the woodwork, do people have thoughts on Bollinger Motors' trucks? I don't follow news on thr subject but they look cool as hell. https://bollingermotors.com/bollinger-b1/

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.

Huh, I didn't find anything about that from a quick Google. What kind of regulations does that allow them to skirt?

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#133

Post by _ea1k »

clouddrover wrote: post #120
_ea1k wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

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.

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.

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#134

Post by syshum »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #131
crocodiletears wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Eve…

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.

the Load to Floor Height of a 2013 F-150 4x4 Crew Cab was ~35 inches, the inside box height was 22.5 inches, so the Bed Height to Ground was ~57in

the Load to Floor Height of a 2019 F-150 4x4 Crew Cab was ~36 inches, the inside box height was 21.4 inches, so the Bed Height to Ground was ~57in

They increased the height of the Truck by 1 in but lowered the depth of the bed by 1 in over the 2 generations of trucks

So how exactly did the last 5-6 years change that much?

I am 6'2" and access the side of my truck just fine

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#135

Post by MattRix »

threeseed wrote: post #90
hourislate wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 For…

Not sure what you are talking about. 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 Cyber…

> Some of which even outsell all Tesla cars in a country or two.

Which cars, where? Not being snarky, I'm actually curious.

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#136

Post by shiftpgdn »

kjeetgill wrote: post #132
shiftpgdn wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Huh, I didn't find anything about that from a quick Google. What kind of regulations does that allow them to skirt?

This is a very wide generalization but effectively no crash testing or safety equipment.

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#137

Post by clouddrover »

_ea1k wrote: post #133
clouddrover wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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. I…

> 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.

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#138

Post by alexandros »

threeseed wrote: post #90
hourislate wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 For…

Not sure what you are talking about. 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 Cyber…

The Taycan is not yet released, and not slated to until "Spring/Summer 2020". And since that's a lot of time till then, it might slip more.

https://insideevs.com/news/383171/porsche-taycan-delivery-de...

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#139

Post by unlinked_dll »

jfim wrote: post #55
unlinked_dll wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strange thing is running a business for a decade without bringing a product to market. Prototypes be damned, they aren’t revenue.

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.

I work in hardware currently.

Failing to bring a product to market in a decade is a failure. Even for autos, you need to ship product eventually.

Re: Rivian's platform approach to electric vehicles helped it raise $3B this year

#140

Post by clouddrover »

alexandros wrote: post #138
threeseed wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you are talking about. 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 Cyber…

The Taycan is not yet released, and not slated to until "Spring/Summer 2020". And since that's a lot of time till then, it might slip more. https://insideevs.com/news/383171/porsche-taycan-delivery-de...

Here's one: https://electrek.co/2019/12/21/first-us-porsche-taycan-owner...

Here's another one: https://www.taycanforum.com/threads/drove-home-my-taycan-tur...

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