Has anyone on this forum received a confirmed delivery date?

[ajdelange]

As an engineer you should have a pretty good sense of what's going on. The marketing guys are screaming for quick release and the engineers don't want it out the door until it is perfect. Given the current climate with lawyers, the press and the internet it is clear that total secrecy is the only prudent course for the company, It is also clear from what came out of the recent customer event these trucks are barely into beta. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be cleared up before they are ready for prime time.

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[jjswan33]

As an engineer you should have a pretty good sense of what's going on. The marketing guys are screaming for quick release and the engineers don't want it out the door untill it is perfect. Given the current climate with lawyers, the press and the internet it is clear that total secrecy is the only prudent course for the company, It is also clear from what came out of the recent customer event these trucks are barely into beta. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be cleared up before they are ready for prime time.

If so they should say that rather than highlighting how much testing they have done and saying they are ready to deliver customer vehicles.

 

[ajdelange]

That may be how you feel but apparently your feelings are not shared by Rivian's legal beagles.

 

[OldGoat]

As an engineer you should have a pretty good sense of what's going on. The marketing guys are screaming for quick release and the engineers don't want it out the door until it is perfect. Given the current climate with lawyers, the press and the internet it is clear that total secrecy is the only prudent course for the company, It is also clear from what came out of the recent customer event these trucks are barely into beta. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be cleared up before they are ready for prime time.

I've certainly not read very thread but I am curious to know everything that needs to be cleaned up. I've read about the power cover, but even that seems a bit speculative. I've not seen anything about the drivetrain, suspension, bodywork, electronics, etc. Where can I find this information? I'm down the line so knowing these things and how responsive Rivian is to address these things is important to me,

 

[Gator42]

If so they should say that rather than highlighting how much testing they have done and saying they are ready to deliver customer vehicles.

IPO quiet period pretty much puts the kibash on material public statements from RIVN.- given the timing of the S-1 their previous statements/current non-statements...makes some sense…

 

[SeaGeo]

As much as I don't want to, I can confirm this. He's on Twitter

Interesting. I couldn't find that with the limited amount of snooping I was willing to do.

 

[timesinks]

I agree for the most part.

But I think you only get to call it a “slow ramp” if the vehicles are fully finished and ready for the non-employee market if built to spec (with no minor tonneau/software/other issues). Then you can truly say you’re troubleshooting the manufacturing process.

But if you still have items that need to be addressed no matter how well you make each individual truck, then I wouldn’t call these real customer deliveries. I think that we are still in this stage of the game given that we can’t confirm a single Rivian outsider has gotten a truck yet.

but the recent posts showing more deliveries are giving me some hope there’s light at the end of the tunnel!

I once bought a Subaru Outback. 6 weeks later, I got notified of a major transmission recall. Apparently a batch of the manual transmissions had been built missing an interior drain hole for the flow of transmission fluid. The service center had to pull it out, take it apart, drill the holes, and put it back together.

Was Subaru not officially in production since they discovered a tooling issue in their line after delivering some vehicles?

 

[ajdelange]

I've not seen anything about the drivetrain, suspension, bodywork, electronics, etc. Where can I find this information?

You won't as my very use of the term "beta" implies that the unresolved areas are in software/firmware. The "truck" part is just a set of peripherals connected to a bunch of networked computers. With all the testing running up the length of the Americas, on the trans America trail etc I think the peripherals are pretty solid, But software is never finished. Tesla has been making BEV for how long now? My 2020 Tesla still has lots of beta software in it.

To get an idea of what I am talking about download and read the manual. Where are the sections on trip meters, energy displays, the navigation capabilities etc.? Not there.

 

[mwexler2]

Rivian is clearly following best practices and doing a slow ramp. Also it’s pretty clear that their service and delivery network isn’t fully built out. Let’s assume they have reached the point where there are no known design showstoppers and few or no known
Manufacturing showstoppers.
It would make sense to limit initial deliveries to R1T LE to preorder customers in Blo-No who are ok with intrusive monitoring monitoring and willingness and ability to regularly bring their truck to the factory for inspection if necessary.
I would guess that pretty close to 100% of those customers are employees or ex employees.
I would also guess that the first “arms length” customers will be very close to Blo-No.
The thing about a slow ramp is that you do it to find those unknown problems. So you might have a nominal plan, but with each batch you are going to see how many and what kind of problems you found and whether any are showstoppers. If there are showstoppers you are not going to do the next batch until they are fixed. So it should be expected during the slow ramp that their will be a lot of uncertainty in delivery dates.
I would expect deliveries outside of Blo-No to start when all of these conditions are met:
1) they can fill at least one train car with vehicles for delivery to either East or West coast.
2) they have at least one fully functioning delivery network (not necessarily scaled) at the destination.
3) they have at least one fully functioning service network at the destination
So I would expect a trickle of deliveries in Blo-No to employees and ex employees, followed by a trickle to non-affiliated customers near blo-no, followed by a small stream to one or more of the initial delivery centers, followed by a small stream to all the initial delivery centers, followed by a bigger stream to the initial delivery centers, with additional delivery/service centers coming online slowly. The pace of deliveries will then increase until demand is met or they become supply chain constrained.
also details about the ramp will be shared only among insiders or to the world in SEC filings and press release.
No CS Rep is going to share material, non-public information with a customer.

That changes everything. Based on 50 delivered vehicles our confidence in our decision to reject the null hypothesis plummets to 97.6% (or they'd have to have made 63 trucks).

Remember this is just a statistical test which suggests strongly that they are not releasing to the general public at this point in time. It does not prove anything.

 

[jjwolf120]

Also, one should keep in mind that we are in the early stages of the production ramp. I expect their production rate to have started around 10 per day. If they haven't advanced beyond or much beyond 10 per day, then only around 200 vehicles have been built.

 

[St Bernard]

Rivian is clearly following best practices and doing a slow ramp. Also it’s pretty clear that their service and delivery network isn’t fully built out. Let’s assume they have reached the point where there are no known design showstoppers and few or no known
Manufacturing showstoppers.
It would make sense to limit initial deliveries to R1T LE to preorder customers in Blo-No who are ok with intrusive monitoring monitoring and willingness and ability to regularly bring their truck to the factory for inspection if necessary.
I would guess that pretty close to 100% of those customers are employees or ex employees.
I would also guess that the first “arms length” customers will be very close to Blo-No.
The thing about a slow ramp is that you do it to find those unknown problems. So you might have a nominal plan, but with each batch you are going to see how many and what kind of problems you found and whether any are showstoppers. If there are showstoppers you are not going to do the next batch until they are fixed. So it should be expected during the slow ramp that their will be a lot of uncertainty in delivery dates.
I would expect deliveries outside of Blo-No to start when all of these conditions are met:
1) they can fill at least one train car with vehicles for delivery to either East or West coast.
2) they have at least one fully functioning delivery network (not necessarily scaled) at the destination.
3) they have at least one fully functioning service network at the destination
So I would expect a trickle of deliveries in Blo-No to employees and ex employees, followed by a trickle to non-affiliated customers near blo-no, followed by a small stream to one or more of the initial delivery centers, followed by a small stream to all the initial delivery centers, followed by a bigger stream to the initial delivery centers, with additional delivery/service centers coming online slowly. The pace of deliveries will then increase until demand is met or they become supply chain constrained.
also details about the ramp will be shared only among insiders or to the world in SEC filings and press release.
No CS Rep is going to share material, non-public information with a customer.

Why not tell people that they are going to fully roll out RIT’s Feb 2022 or April 2022 or Xmas 2022. How difficult would it be to give approx dates to 2018 Reservation holders? Instead they are giving out no details other than to say we started delivering in Sept. RIS customers have no idea if they will see any Cars in the next few months. All we know is LE RIS customers can expect to have their Cars by Summer 2022, which now realistically is Fall 2022. With regard to customers for Max Pack RIS Jan 2023 is a good guess.

 

[GaryL]

Also, one should keep in mind that we are in the early stages of the production ramp. I expect their production rate to have started around 10 per day. If they haven't advanced beyond or much beyond 10 per day, then only around 200 vehicles have been built.

Ramping up to 3-5 per day by October 31

 

[OldGoat]

You won't as my very use of the term "beta" implies that the unresolved areas are in software/firmware. The "truck" part is just a set of peripherals connected to a bunch of networked computers. With all the testing running up the length of the Americas, on the trans America trail etc I think the peripherals are pretty solid, But software is never finished. Tesla has been making BEV for how long now? My 2020 Tesla still has lots of beta software in it.

To get an idea of what I am talking about download and read the manual. Where are the sections on trip meters, energy displays, the navigation capabilities etc.? Not there.

In my experience (having spent my career in the software industry), documentation is always the red-headed stepchild. I can't ascertain the state of the software by looking at a user manual.

 

[stynes]

As much as I don't want to, I can confirm this. He's on Twitter

Agreed. A quick Google gives you her name and his. Another quick Google to this...
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zach-morris-465a4489

He started at Rivian well after my pre-order which tells me he likely isn't "ahead" of me in line but received delivery because of location and Rivian employment. Both understandable things but just say that.

 

[DB-EV]

Why not tell people that they are going to fully roll out RIT’s Feb 2022 or April 2022 or Xmas 2022. How difficult would it be to give approx dates to 2018 Reservation holders? Instead they are giving out no details other than to say we started delivering in Sept. RIS customers have no idea if they will see any Cars in the next few months. All we know is LE RIS customers can expect to have their Cars by Summer 2022, which now realistically is Fall 2022. With regard to customers for Max Pack RIS Jan 2023 is a good guess.

Not being cute: one answer is the company may not exist in Xmas 2022. Their IPO filing says the proceeds will provide sufficient cash for at least 12 mos. I believe they will be here, but the future is uncertain.

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