Other Manufacturers Kicking the Tires on Rivian Software / Interested in Partnership

[SASSquatch]

As a stockholder I am very happy to hear Rivian is exploring strategic partnerships with other OEMs.. And, I might add VW wants to deepen their partnership with Rivian.

Le me go dig up my scorecard...

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[smunro622]

I will say it again a VW ID Buzz bus on a dual motor on a max pack would be great and I would probably buy one...

 

[BigSkies]

The idea makes sense. One of the most important things for auto manufacturers is economies of scale. All of the major manufacturers already rely on tier 1 suppliers for most of the components that go in cars.

This would be more true of software that has a massive fixed cost but a nearly $0 marginal cost. If they're spending $100M per year on software, it makes a big difference if they're putting that software in 50k Rivians, 300k Rivian's + VW's, or 1M Rivian's + VW's + others (these are made up numbers for the sake of example).

 

[Dark-Fx]

I will say it again a VW ID Buzz bus on a dual motor on a max pack would be great and I would probably buy one...

And it would be too wide for VW's MEB platform

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Chevy and ford would be my hope

A year ago, my father in law had an insane prediction that Rivian would eventually be a software only company and not build cars. Time will tell and I hope not cuz I love my Rivian

Also the value of the software probably just went down a heck of a lot with there no longer being a govt push in the US, at least to go electric by 2030. So perhaps more non US based manufacturers are the likely target

Nah the political climate isn't going to hurt EVs that much at this point. Some so many people have them and will not switch, and as they get better, more people are switching. It's a superior technology to ICE cars so it taking over is inevitable. Speaking for myself I won't buy an ICE again if an EV is available even with today's EVs.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I can promise you I don't want Rivian software in my Porsche lol.

Why not? It's better than Porsche's

 

[KW_88_SS]

Why not? It's better than Porsche's

It’s not, lol. I drive both cars regularly during the week and write software for a living. If I had worked on what’s in a Rivian, I’d be embarrassed to put it on my resume—it’s just bad. People like to blame hardware limitations, but that’s a weak excuse. Well-written, elegant software compensates for hardware constraints—it doesn’t expose them.

For context, Rivian’s Staff Engineers in the Bay Area make around $200K. Meanwhile, Facebook pays nearly $1M for engineers at the same level.

You’re not getting top-tier software talent for $200K—you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, especially in that area.

 

[beaker]

For context, Rivian’s Staff Engineers in the Bay Area make around $200K. Meanwhile, Facebook pays nearly $1M for engineers at the same level.

That isn't really a fair comparison.

At Facebook you're also selling your soul.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

It’s not, lol. I drive both cars regularly during the week and write software for a living. If I had worked on what’s in a Rivian, I’d be embarrassed to put it on my resume—it’s just bad. People like to blame hardware limitations, but that’s a weak excuse. Well-written, elegant software compensates for hardware constraints—it doesn’t expose them.

For context, Rivian’s Staff Engineers in the Bay Area make around $200K. Meanwhile, Facebook pays nearly $1M for engineers at the same level.

You’re not getting top-tier software talent for $200K—you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, especially in that area.

Why are you comparing it to Facebook’s top developers? I said their software was better than Porsche not Meta. Nice red herring.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

It’s not, lol. I drive both cars regularly during the week and write software for a living. If I had worked on what’s in a Rivian, I’d be embarrassed to put it on my resume—it’s just bad. People like to blame hardware limitations, but that’s a weak excuse. Well-written, elegant software compensates for hardware constraints—it doesn’t expose them.

For context, Rivian’s Staff Engineers in the Bay Area make around $200K. Meanwhile, Facebook pays nearly $1M for engineers at the same level.

You’re not getting top-tier software talent for $200K—you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, especially in that area.

You might write software for a living but I’m a C-Suite executive. What I know from doing what I do professionally is that if Porsche’s software stack was better than Rivian’s VW group wouldn’t have given Rivian 5 billion dollars to buy theirs. VW would be using Porsche’s instead.

 

[DuoRivian]

It’s not, lol. I drive both cars regularly during the week and write software for a living. If I had worked on what’s in a Rivian, I’d be embarrassed to put it on my resume—it’s just bad. People like to blame hardware limitations, but that’s a weak excuse. Well-written, elegant software compensates for hardware constraints—it doesn’t expose them.

For context, Rivian’s Staff Engineers in the Bay Area make around $200K. Meanwhile, Facebook pays nearly $1M for engineers at the same level.

You’re not getting top-tier software talent for $200K—you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, especially in that area.

Explain why the Rivian software is bad and where the Porsche software (from the VW group who have known software issues) is better please.

 

[KW_88_SS]

Why are you comparing it to Facebook’s top developers? I said their software was better than Porsche not Meta. Nice red herring.

You can't build quality software at that pay level—it's pretty straightforward. Not sure why that comparison was hard for you to piece together.

Do you even own a Porsche? No? But you're an expert on its software based on anecdotes and Reddit threads? Nice straw man.

I literally own both cars, and Rivian's software is absolute garbage. That might sting, but it's the reality.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

You can't build quality software at that pay level—it's pretty straightforward. Not sure why that comparison was hard for you to piece together.

Do you even own a Porsche? No? But you're an expert on its software based on anecdotes and Reddit threads? Nice straw man.

I literally own both cars, and Rivian's software is absolute garbage. That might sting, but it's the reality.

Then VW must be complete dumbasses for spending 5 BILLION dollars on it when they already had better in Porsche huh?

 

[KW_88_SS]

You might write software for a living but I’m a C-Suite executive. What I know from doing what I do professionally is that if Porsche’s software stack was better than Rivian’s VW group wouldn’t have given Rivian 5 billion dollars to buy theirs. VW would be using Porsche’s instead.

You’re a C-suite executive but can’t grasp that just because Porsche is part of the VW Group doesn’t mean they share all resources and technology? That’s like assuming PayPal and Venmo—both owned by the same company—run on the same software stack and cloud infrastructure(they don't, they are entirely two different cloud environments.

I have an MBA too, from a little school called Tuck. Like, this isn't rocket science lol.

 

[opnwide]

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