Tacoma Vs. Rivian

I thought you were known for making predictions and even generously called you Nostradamus and all you got is “etc…” and “…”

 

EV works for China, the rest of the world not so much.

 

Why?

 

They seem to be doing much better over there. Why? I have no idea why.

Not that owning and operating an EV won't work anywhere there's electricity.

 

So?

 

He made that up.

 

Out of those 7millions mods, does it have an electric conversion for the Taco??

 

As expected. Starting a car company requires enormous capital with massive operating expenses, and it will operate in the red for a long time before moving to profitability. It is a massive challenge that many are not willing to take. This isn't a low cost tech startup that can flip a profit quick. It took Tesla 10 years to turn a profitable year, and they are now among the most profitable automotive manufactures. Rivian is only in their 2nd year of delivering vehicles, they still have a long way to go, it isn't going to be an easy road to get there.

 

In a recent spat with Nader, Musk claimed to have leveraged almost his entire fortune to keep Tesla alive until he was able to get outside funding and loans, does Rivian have similar deep pockets? (Honest question)

 

Amazon owns 18%+ of Rivian in a partnership to build their next gen delivery vans. Saw one of the Rivian vans in the wild not long ago.



A private Saudi company owns a good share. Otherwise it is mostly investors. No one single massive billionaire with their private personal fortune invested to float things against all odds in hard times. The brand needs to make it on their own.

 

Forget Rivian. I want to know how Electra Meccanica stays in business. Who out there is actually buying the Solo?

 

Reading their website it sounds great but it looks terrible.

 

Having seen one in person (they have a booth at a local outdoor mall), I can think of no real use for it. A motorcycle or something like a Smartcar makes far more sense.

edit: Just realized that they stopped making Smartcars almost half a decade ago. That says a lot about the teeny tiny car market.

 

I think that if Rivian can survive long enough to bring a cheaper or smaller SUV and truck to the market and mass produce them then they will be successful. If not I think they will disappear. There’s only so many people willing to pay $80K plus for a midsize truck and SUV. It’s weird that they have not even provided any teasers of any new models. They need to take some lessons from Elon on building hype even if the production of the vehicles is still years out.

 

https://jalopnik.com/watch-rivian-ev-truck-pull-38-000-pound-semi-from-the-s-1850173242

 

If you watched the last Tesla Investor Day on Wednesday you’d know that even Elon knows that launching a product that you can’t deliver for years is a bad idea. It cannibalizes existing orders, because people think “why not just wait for the cheaper one” while they are trying to grow. It will be a while before Rivian can open another production line and they just had an event in Georgia with the governor on Wednesday to celebrate that they will be building their second factory there.

 

Ready for that next prediction?

That plant will never open. Save this post boys.

https://reason.com/2022/12/28/free-...-the-worst-economic-development-deal-of-2022/

 

Seems like Rivian got the good side of that deal.