Rivian laid off about 20 members of its battery cell development team

[vandy1981]

Does this layoff give or take credence to 800V coming soon? If the development is complete and Rivian doesn't plan on continuous development in the area, they would certainly need fewer people in this area of expertise.

That's a big leap from an already massively speculative rumor.

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[Dark-Fx]

Have no idea how a layoff in the battery engineering department would be related to slowing sales.

 

[Dark-Fx]

That seems like a big leap on an already massively speculative rumor.

R&D departments tend to operate like that though, unless they can justify keeping those folks busy after the projects they had them on have been developed.

 

[vandy1981]

R&D departments tend to operate like that though, unless they can justify keeping those folks busy after the projects they had them on have been developed.

Yeah, but the 800V speculation is over the top.

 

[Redline]

This can’t be a good sign.

https://www.theinformation.com/arti...f-battery-workers?utm_source=ti_app&rc=yrcwnw

20 people on a particular team isn’t a good sign?

Just go away.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Yeah, but the 800V speculation is over the top.

It's been in their focus since before deliveries started. Rivian needs to stay ahead of their competition, Ford is going to have 800V on their 2025 production Lightning, GM and Tesla are already delivering on it in small-ish numbers. Even RAM is supposed to have 800V charging on their REV which is supposed to start production in Q4 of next year. I'd say this timing absolutely makes sense for Rivian to introduce it.

 

[COdogman]

The other article said it’s “less than 8% of the battery team”, but did not say how large the battery team was before the layoffs.

Could be unrelated, but EV battery costs have dropped 40% from a year ago.??‍

https://electrek.co/2023/11/20/electric-car-battery-prices-are-going-back-down-faster/

 

[vandy1981]

It's been in their focus since before deliveries started. Rivian needs to stay ahead of their competition, Ford is going to have 800V on their 2025 production Lightning, GM and Tesla are already delivering on it in small-ish numbers. Even RAM is supposed to have 800V charging on their REV which is supposed to start production in Q4 of next year. I'd say this timing absolutely makes sense for Rivian to introduce it.

They are focusing on cost savings and simplification with their new battery packs. A higher-voltage pack and all that entails is not consistent with that goal. It's not like they can connect a few existing modules in series and call it a day--it would require substantial hardware changes that would cost $$$ on a product line that hasn't even broken even.

I'm sure we'll see 800V with the first major redesign of the R1 but not for a mid-cycle refresh.

 

[Sgt Beavis]

My company, VMware, was just bought by another company, Broadcom. There have been over 5000 layoffs worldwide thus far. There are going to be up to another 15000 in the coming months. Both companies are highly profitable with Broadcom having $9billion in revenue last quarter and expecting $50Billion for 2024. Heck, my division alone had $2billion in revenue in the last 3 quarters and we’re being spun off.

It doesn’t matter how profitable a company is, layoffs happen. There are a wide range of reasons for it. To me, Rivian’s layoffs sound like a strategic change in battery development.

 

[Dark-Fx]

They are focusing on cost savings and simplification with their new battery packs. A higher-voltage pack and all that entails is not consistent with that goal. It's not like they can connect a few existing modules in series and call it a day--it would require substantial hardware changes that would cost $$$ on a product line that hasn't even broken even.

I'm sure we'll see 800V with the first major redesign of the R1 but not for a mid-cycle refresh.

The entire vehicle architecture is getting changed. Again, they've been working on all of this stuff since before they shipped the first customer vehicles, which was already over two years ago. With today's EV technology, you either move quickly or you get left behind.

 

[COdogman]

My company, VMware, was just bought by another company, Broadcom. There have been over 5000 layoffs worldwide thus far. There are going to be up to another 15000 in the coming months. Both companies are highly profitable with Broadcom having $9billion in revenue last quarter and expecting $50Billion for 2024. Heck, my division alone had $2billion in revenue in the last 3 quarters and we’re being spun off.

It doesn’t matter how profitable a company is, layoffs happen. There are a wide range of reasons for it. To me, Rivian’s layoffs sound like a strategic change in battery development.

I was surprised by that the other day when I went to buy a copy of Fusion and Broadcom’s name was all over the main page. Unfortunately that seems to always result in a bunch of consolidation and layoffs I hope your team survives it.

 

[Sgt Beavis]

I was surprised by that the other day when I went to buy a copy of Fusion and Broadcom’s name was all over the main page. Unfortunately that seems to always result in a bunch of consolidation and layoffs I hope your team survives it.

I’m in the End User Computing group. Zero layoffs as we were one of the leaner running orgs in the company. We’re the only one hiring as we operate as an autonomous subsidiary instead of an internal business unit. Now we need our own HR, Legal, etc. It was announced yesterday that Broadcom plans to divest and “find a good home” for us. We’ll see what exactly that means soon enough.

 

[COdogman]

I’m in the End User Computing group. Zero layoffs as we were one of the leaner running orgs in the company. We’re the only one hiring as we operate as an autonomous subsidiary instead of an internal business unit. Now we need our own HR, Legal, etc. It was announced yesterday that Broadcom plans to divest and “find a good home” for us. We’ll see what exactly that means soon enough.

I don’t like the sound of that.

Sounds like your team is doing great work and someone will value that.

 

[DaveA]

When there are so many companies making innovations in battery tech, it makes sense to me that Rivian just buys a great battery product and focuses more on RAN, Software, and future vehicle design.

 

[runwithscissors]

My company, VMware, was just bought by another company, Broadcom. There have been over 5000 layoffs worldwide thus far. There are going to be up to another 15000 in the coming months. Both companies are highly profitable with Broadcom having $9billion in revenue last quarter and expecting $50Billion for 2024. Heck, my division alone had $2billion in revenue in the last 3 quarters and we’re being spun off.

It doesn’t matter how profitable a company is, layoffs happen. There are a wide range of reasons for it. To me, Rivian’s layoffs sound like a strategic change in battery development.

I use VMware each and everyday but the company completely stinks with their follow the sun/automated chat support and thankfully I rarely have to use it. I always preferred the smaller startup companies to work for but now they're all wanting to go with AWS DevOps unfortunately for me. It's going to be an interesting bumpy ride going forward but best of luck to you with whatever happens.

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