Rivian Now Says It Will Make Fewer Electric Vehicles This Year Than It Did in 2023 66
Rivian said it would make fewer electric vehicles this year than it did in 2023, resulting from a parts shortage. From a report: The news came as the company reported third quarter production and delivery numbers that came in below analyst expectations. Rivian says it expects to produce between 47,000 and 49,000 vehicles this year, down from the 57,000 vehicles it originally forecast. That number was flat from the previous year, when the company produced 57,232 vehicles and delivered 50,122. Rivian said the disruption is due to "a shortage of a shared component on the R1 and RCV platforms," referencing the company's R1T and R1S vehicles, as well as its commercial van platform. "This supply shortage impact began in Q3 of this year, has become more acute in recent weeks and continues," the company added.
Have to get the cost down (Score:5, Insightful)
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There needs to be more EVs in the 25-35K price range. "Normal people" don't buy 100K cars.
Nissan Leafs new are $28k-$38k with a range of 150-215 miles depending on configuration. For many, that's plenty of range and a perfectly functional daily driver.
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As a daily driver, how much range do you need?
Re: Have to get the cost down (Score:2)
Re:Have to get the cost down (Score:4, Insightful)
Daily driving isn't the issue. If I want to go to New York (which is 3 hours away) I don't want to have to plan out my route so I can find a charging station. Nor do I want to sit around for half an hour waiting for my car to charge which, for a trip like that, would be at least twice.
When I go on vacation I drive. If I'm in some small town in the middle of Kansas, do you think I'm going to find a charging station?
These are not "edge" cases. These are real life considerations which have to be taken into account. Until charging stations are more ubiquitous AND do not require a "smart" phone to operate, EVs will be relegated to daily driving or pre-planned routes with no option for sightseeing.
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Err...ok, why would ANY consumer expect LESS from a major purchase replacing something they already have...would they not actually expect the same or better?
Are you not familiar with this thing we call "human nature"?
When's the last time you heard a scenario such as..."Hey, I've got this thing that I use in my life...works out quite well....OH? I can buy a replacement for it that costs more money?
I'm guessing
Re: Have to get the cost down (Score:2)
Yes, we've all heard of human nature. For example it's very human to make stupid excuses for bad behavior when having an excuse is irrelevant to the outcome and only serves to explain why things are getting worse.
Re: Have to get the cost down (Score:2)
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All of my problems must be solved without any imposition on me! My life, as it allegedly exists today, must be accommodated perfectly by any future technology!
Well if you want me to adopt any particular newer technology it has to be subjectively better than the technology it is replacing. Pretty sure that is how it works for most people. Complaining about that fact won't change anything and is probably not helpful to your agenda.
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Well, every technology has pluses and minuses.
EVs are sporty and generally excel at the "fun to drive" department because of their great low-speed torque. EVs are also light on the "gas" requirement - instead of spending $100/week on gas,
Re: Have to get the cost down (Score:2)
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The thing is people plan their purchases around their most extreme use case. If the EV is the right solution 95% of the time, then they are still faced with either owning a second vehicle for the other 5% or giving up that part of their activity. Most people will still just buy the one car that covers all their use cases.
Its the same reason I own a truck (a smaller one - a Chevy Colorado). 95% of the time I'd be fine with a small car, but there are certain times when I need the truck, so its either own
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>> When I go on vacation I drive.
And how often do you actually go on vacation? Most people get just a couple of weeks a year. I wouldn't base my vehicle purchase decision on something I almost never do.
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I don't throw parties for my friends in my backyard all the time either, but when shopping for a home, I do look for one that is general purpose enough to allow me to do what I want when I want...and a nice fence in backyard with room for my smoker and grills...room to set up and throw a crawfish boil for friends and neighbors is something
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Most people buy their vehicles expecting them to be general purpose....and why not? That's pretty much what everyone has been doing since we've had cars.
If I'm traveling it's but 2-3 times a year that it's >200 miles, so I'm getting a rental anyway. Allows me to get a smaller car for myself. Net result is I spend way less over the life of my car and I get to try out newer features.
It's the same reason the people who have dualies for their daily driver and only ever used the bed of the truck once a year make no sense to me. I can stop by a big box hardware store or hit up Budget or the like and rent a truck for a weekend for like $100 if I need to haul
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3 hour drive on a charge has been possible with mid priced EVs for years. The Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro both arrived in 2019 with around 300 miles of range.
Worst case, winter, snowing, -20C, you would need to stop for a 15 minute charge/bathroom break.
You can get them quite cheap used now too, and the batteries are mostly still at 100% health.
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I would seriously doubt that most people buy a car for only one purpose....for something that expensive, they fully expect to buy an all purpose vehicle, that will do the mudndate daily short drives, but also just as readily serve to take a long family trip too.
I mean, that's what people have grown accustom to since...well, the advent of the car.
To suggest one only buys a specialized car, the EV only to have to be subsidized with a 2nd car for longer trips or
Re: Have to get the cost down (Score:1)
If I need to drive my wife to give birth or my kid to the ER for a broken bone or a gash on the back of the head at an arbitrary time, having exhausted my "daily driving" range and needing to wait half an hour to recharge (vs 5 minutes to fill up) isn't going to work.
I am continually surprised and dismayed by seemingly intelligent people blithely substituting averages for medians and 9x-th percentiles and acting like they have a handle on the situation.
Re: Have to get the cost down (Score:2)
So I can wait for the ambulance to come after picking up everyone else who can't drive themselves now that we're in our wonderful EV future?
Or so I can wait for the ambulance to charge up now that we're in our wonderful EV future?
This isn't a joke. EVs can't do several important things people rely on ICE vehicles to do. This isn't a problem when EVs are rich people toys but it will be a problem if they are made mandatory for everyone.
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$5000 for a motorcycle? Yeah, no. For that kind of money it should have way more range than my $500 bicycle.
Re:Have to get the cost down (Score:4, Insightful)
Nissan Leafs new are $28k-$38k with a range of 150-215 miles depending on configuration. For many, that's plenty of range and a perfectly functional daily driver.
The Leaf still has a passively-cooled battery. Nissan can pretend a liquid thermal management system isn't needed all they like, but here in Florida I've personally witnessed the battery conditioning kicking on with my Chevy Bolt during hot days.
IMHO, I'd say the same advice which applies to cheap ICE Nissan cars also applies to the Leaf. Spend the same amount of money buying a used low milage EV from a brand that builds higher quality cars and you'll be better off.
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>> Spend the same amount of money buying a used low milage EV
I'm seeing plenty of great deals on Carvana for used EV's. Some still under warranty.
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The world doesn't have to build devices to function in your inhospitable storm torn part of the world
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Production of the Leaf has ended, they are just selling the last of the stock now. Their current EV is the Ariya, which does have a thermally managed battery.
There are plenty of 250-300 mile range EVs in the $25-35k price bracket, although unfortunately many of them are not available in the US.
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"Normal people" don't buy 100K cars.
There are marketing strategies which are quite successful in not targeting the "normal people" segment of the market. Porsche and Patek Philippe are two brands that come to mind. They just don't want you as a customer.
It's actually not that bad a strategy. Make your product look exclusive and more people will want it. More people wanting EVs is a good thing (at least that's what the greenies tell me). And the price is economically sound. The customer is trading a higher up front price for lower operating c
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This is total gaslighting.
All people "now have cars" by that logic. There never could have been a market if everyone who wants a car already has it. Cars, though, need to be replaced, including ICE cars AND BEV cars. There is a durable ongoing market for new cars, including EV.
"The casual adopters are more ambivalent."
There is no such thing as a "casual adopter". You are speaking of "not early adopters" and those buyers are not "more ambivalent", they are more practical. The EV market will evolve and m
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Hilariously 46% of EV owners want a non-EV for their next car.
Based on actual trade-in data [cnbc.com], it's closer to 40%.
While I was at a EA station charging my Bolt on a trip from Jacksonville, I actually spoke with an EV owner who mentioned they intended to go back to gas for their next vehicle. They'd recently moved to an apartment and now had to do all their charging at DCFC stations.
The other day, I stopped at a Wawa in town for the biological sort of refueling (their food is actually pretty decent). This gas station had recently installed some Tesla Superchargers, so t
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That lower cost is if you only charge at home, fast charging costs more than gas.
The insurance on most EVs is going to be way higher than a gas counterpart.
Your tires will wear out much faster due to the increased weight from that battery.
Ok, you don't have to change oil.Yay.
You still have to replace wipers, add windshield washer, and replace those high priced low profile tires twice as often. Unless your gas engine has a failure the total cost of ownership is abou
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That lower cost is if you only charge at home, fast charging costs more than gas.
Since most driving is done around town, a net savings will still be realized by overnight charging. On long road trips, the added costs can be absorbed.
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Only if charging at home is an option for you....
This is NOT the case for many, many people...at least 1/3 of the US population I believe I heard...
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Only if charging at home is an option for you....
True. And welcome to Seattle. Where the city has decided that zero parking multiple occupancy residential construction is the wave of the future.
The city has seen fit to install some on-street EV chargers. The kind that winch up the charging cables when not in use. So the meth addicts don't harvest the cables for copper.
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Since most driving is done around town, a net savings will still be realized by overnight charging. On long road trips, the added costs can be absorbed.
Here in eastern MA where I'm paying $0.36/kWh for electricity, it is sort of a wash for savings on home charging. Basically assuming 3.5mi/kWh, I'm at break even with a car that gets 33mpg @ $4/gal for gas. The convenience is nice though.
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Yes, much lower operating costs.
If you need to routinely charge at public chargers, an EV is not for you. For anyone with a garage (the vast proportion of non-dense-city US folks) you'll almost never use a public charger. The whole public charger thing is a red-herring for anyone with a personal garage. And the cost difference per mile over gas is massive.
My insurance is fine on my two EVs. I was surprised how cheap it was, after hearing all the noise about high insurance.
Your tires wear out faster if y
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"That lower cost is if you only charge at home, fast charging costs more than gas."
Not more, just not less.
"The insurance on most EVs is going to be way higher than a gas counterpart."
Why is that?
"Your tires will wear out much faster due to the increased weight from that battery."
That is a lie. BEV tires wear out faster because the the BEV market right now specs lower mileage, low profile performance tires. They do not have to, and BEVs weigh only 10-15% more than equivalent ICE cars. This is a popular l
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Maybe I exaggerate on tires, but once you consider that EVs are simply priced higher than an equivalent hybrid TCO balances out. That may be different tomorrow, but not today.
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> "Your tires will wear out much faster due to the increased weight from that battery."
> That is a lie. BEV tires wear out faster because the the BEV market right now specs lower mileage, low profile performance tires.
What's really happening is that new car manufacturers are specifying tires with lower initial tread depth to improve efficiency. So the new car tires wear out quickly. This is a new car problem, but more significant in EVs as rolling resistance matters more for efficiency, so there is m
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Your tires will wear out much faster due to the increased weight from that battery.
My partner has a Bolt EUV and a commute that ends up being about 24k miles per year. So far, the tires have been holding up the same as they did on his previous ICE car. Methinks it's more likely that some people are just driving their EVs like a bat out of hell and then are all surprised Pikachu face when they discover that aggressive driving chews up tires.
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and the thinking that EVs are going to. be sub-30K is not realistic. People are not pricing new cars when they think that.
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There are plenty of compact and sub-compact sedans that start well under $30k new.
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Yeah it's a bit of an EV investment death loop out there right now.
-To increase volume you have to drop prices
-In order to drop prices you need much more production on batteries to drop the per unit costs on the costliest item in the vehichle.
-In order to increase production you need a big capex to build factories and secure materials futures.
-You can't sell enough $70k vehichles to show investors growth to get that capex because the market is flooded with vehichles in that price range.
-Pause production on
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Damn, if only there had been examples of bringing new technologies to market before! Who could have predicted these problems? Who knew health care was so complicated?
Curiously, BEV incentives were designed to address these very kinds of problems. But Musk exhausted his so we needed to replace them with buyer-focused ones NOT designed to help with these transition issues.
"I think what happens here is whichever companies can actually come through the transition with production capacity in the next 3ish yea
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Also an important caveat to everything you said is that it's only true in the presence of tariffs against China. Their market share has been growing very, very rapidly. So rapidly that Europe has joined the US in putting steep tariffs on them
https://www.euronews.com/busin... [euronews.com]
Europe is hand-picking the tariff for each company:
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Yeah I think there's a different world where China continues liberalizing their economy and if they are not considered a hostile economic actor where they come to dominate the EV market across regions.
China's bad behavior in the past makes it easy to use as cover for what are effectively protectionist policies.
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The EU's tariffs are relatively light compared to the US tariffs on Chinese EVs, which are 100%.
Of course, it would be nice to have some other option than keeping car prices high, perhaps a tax subsidy or bonus FICO score points (the US equivalent of a social credit score) if one buys domestic.
Re:Have to get the cost down (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some, but in this case, the issue is supply chain shortages, not lack of demand.
Rivian also makes vans which are aimed at a different market that might be find spending that much.
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Yeah, I'd also say that price is not yet an issue if you're running into supply chain issues limiting your production rather than inability to sell them at a given price.
I'd imagine that an EV Van would sell like hotcakes in certain industries. For example, I'm retired USAF, and I was stationed far enough north that all the parking lots had plugs for block heaters. Now imagine a van that's only used for running people around in job lots on base, like 30-60 miles a day, and never needs to go all the way ov
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https://www.ttnews.com/article... [ttnews.com]
Re: Have to get the cost down (Score:2)
"people with money actually contribute to the world's economy"
Everyone who works contributes to the economy.
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This is a lie. The stock is 92% off its all-time high (which was its IPO). For you to have lost 90% would have had to buy at its peak (IPO), in which case it would not have lost all that value "promptly" but instead over the entire history of the company as a publicly traded entity.
And whose fault is your loss, anyway? Do you think high-risk investments in tech startups are promises to make money?
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It would not have lost all that value "promptly" but instead over the entire history of the company as a publicly traded entity.
Not necessarily. OP may have invested in RIVN on 11/16/2021 at the peak of $179.47/share... in which case losing 90% "promptly" would have happened 58 weeks later on 12/27/2022. Source [yahoo.com]
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3.5 ton suv is a niche market (Score:2)
There's some roads and bridges around here where the weight limit is 2.5 tons.
No CarPlay? No sale. (Score:2)
Shortage of Parts (Score:2)
The article says the lower production isn't caused by a shortage of customers. Do people think if the vehicle was cheaper the parts would be available?
The interesting question is how many of our other intellectual models for lowering emissions are similarly constrained.
The stock complaints here about range anxiety is a real issue and the immediate answer is a PHEV.
Most of your miles for common local trips can be done on electricity with a PHEV. It charges overnight on a normal plug. It has a smaller bat