Rough times ahead for EV startups

I do not think Fisker or Lucid will make it. Lordstown is already done.

Rivian will survive, mainly because of the Amazon backing and the delivery vans.

I have a love-hate relationship with my Rivian. Great car with a lot of stupid choices in it. That said, I believe they will last because of Amazon's backing and once they get their sh*t straightened out.

Where do you go for service of any kind for your Rivian?

Mr DJ said:

Where do you go for service of any kind for your Rivian?

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Even with traffic, the newest Rivian SC is about a 30 minute drive from my house. Previous one was about an hour. Service centers are all on this map a bit more than halfway down the page: Service - Rivian

Mr DJ said:

Where do you go for service of any kind for your Rivian?

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I just picked up a used one and there is a service center in Phoenix. But the timeline is crazy, I made an appointment for mine to fix some issues it is 6 weeks out.

One thing unbelievable about the Rivian is the lack of a good navigation system and trip planner (for example cannot manually add waypoints). The Ford system in my Mach E puts it to shame. Also the Alexa voice commands do not work well, very hit or miss.

Dark-Fx said:

Even with traffic, the newest Rivian SC is about a 30 minute drive from my house. Previous one was about an hour. Service centers are all on this map a bit more than halfway down the page: Service - Rivian

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40 minutes away for me.

azbill said:

But the timeline is crazy, I made an appointment for mine to fix some issues it is 6 weeks out.

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Really depends on what your issue is. Something that prevents you from driving it can displace people with less important issues. Not every service center is that overwhelmed either.

IMO Rivian has months before they get acquired as a distressed asset.

The start ups can’t compete for the battery minerals from the mining industry when their orders are so much smaller than the established car companies. Among other problems.

Rivian is a real mixed bag. Generally, owners are very satisfied with them. But under the hood, numerous production-unfriendly engineering decisions have sabotaged both their profitability and their production speed. A lot of hand-work required. See Munro’s teardown videos. Also, their platform design neglected to adequately pre-engineer how to do a “max pack” (about 200 kWH), which has prevented them from delivering the vehicles with the most profit potential.

By comparison, the recent Hummer battery replacement photos blew me away with the pack and under-body engineering and build quality. GM’s BT1 platform is a generation ahead of Rivian and 1.5 generations ahead of Ford. . Can’t wait for Munro to get their Hummer and get Jordan Arocha’s thoughts.