A leap of faith that ends up with regret (Critical Battery).... by shipping R1T to Kuwait

[WylieD]

A potential media gold mine for Rivian. More than worth the effort of helping out myboodai.

A Rivian up and running in the heart of ME oil producing nations would be newsworthy. Cheap positive publicity.

No one thinks that The Long Way Up means Rivian will support an individual driving up South America. It would be easy for Rivian to handle myboodai's situation in a way to make clear this is a one-off situation.

I hope someone at Rivian with a shred of imagination and clout is reading this thread.

As do others here, I wish myboodai the best of luck.

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[crashmtb]

1. First, we don't know why Rivian is service snafu, but they say it's parts and logistics, not a staffing issue. Staffing takes months to build.
2. The type of team they'd send is not from a field service center, not techs with wrenches fixing factory defects.
3. The fly-out crew would be people benefiting from, and capable of dealing with, the specific problem, assuming they can diagnose remotely to plan ahead.
4. It's not a week long project, it's a fly-in, fix, fly-out. Three or four days including travel.
5. I wouldn't send people on the critical path of high priority projects or deliverables.
6. It's a legit vehicle eligible for support. Since the support is a day's flight away, the customer could be asked to pick up the tab for the overhead.
7. Rivian is a big ship already 10,000+ people. Sending two R&D engineers, such as the people who design the field service operation (equipment, tools, processes, software, diagnostic procedures, documentation) is of no impact to corporate goals.
8. I'd even offer it as a perk, as paid vacation time, for a larger team (say five people, one super-skilled, four new hires, as a field training exercise.)
9. I'd consider sending a business development person to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to look for both billions in backing and potential sales and service. Not that billion dollar deals tend to unfold by happenstance, but where there's demand for your product, it's a simple thing to set up field service as an organized process. If you want to buy a used R1T, fly it to the Emirates or wherever, here's our service contract to support that vehicle. I imagine there could be US technology export laws and other trade agreement red tape, but "everyone" does business in the Middle East … Rolls Royce wouldn't exist if it couldn't sell 100 Rolls in 100 colors to the same prince (Sultan of Brunei.) : )

Rivian has zero incentive to support a grey market vehicle on another continent bought second hand. Think “if you give a mouse a cookie…”

 

[Riviot]

A Rivian up and running in the heart of ME oil producing nations would be newsworthy. Cheap positive publicity.

Aren't there already Rivians in Saudi Arabia or the UAE? Weren't a silver R1T and R1S photographed at an airport headed to the Middle East? The guess was for longtime investors IIRC.

 

[godfodder0901]

Aren't there already Rivians in Saudi Arabia or the UAE? Weren't a silver R1T and R1S photographed at an airport headed to the Middle East? The guess was for longtime investors IIRC.

One of the earliest investors is from Saudi Arabia. I garuntee he has one. Or two.

 

[Olsonsolar]

If a US based YouTuber can get moved up the line I guarantee a large investor can.

No doubt.

 

[AxelR]

myboodai - your situation is terrible but I have to be honest with you, this is all due to very bad decision making on your part.

Even if the R1T that was shipped to you arrived in a state that you could charge it, what was your plan going to be if you ever needed any service? Rivian makes clear that they are only providing service for the vehicles in the US and Canada at the moment. You cannot even make a reservation for an R1T outside of the US/Canada.

Rivian has absolutely zero incentive to help you right now because they would be setting a precedent for providing support outside North America. What if someone else decides they want to ship an R1T to Asia and then expects Rivian to support them if they help you?

I wish you the best, and I hope that potentially there is something Rivian may be willing to do remotely, but even then you are absolutely going to encounter this issue again when your R1T needs service. It is a first year production model vehicle. It will have issues.

Your best bet is to cut your losses and arrange to have the vehicle shipped back to the US. Have Rivian work on the vehicle in the US and then sell it. You will lose money, there is no way around that, but at this point it is better to lose money then to have a very expensive R1T paperweight.

Good luck and godspeed.

What’s the point of comments like these?

 

[KeithPleas]

What’s the point of comments like these?

Irony alert

 

[EVnewb]

myboodai - your situation is terrible but I have to be honest with you, this is all due to very bad decision making on your part.

Even if the R1T that was shipped to you arrived in a state that you could charge it, what was your plan going to be if you ever needed any service? Rivian makes clear that they are only providing service for the vehicles in the US and Canada at the moment. You cannot even make a reservation for an R1T outside of the US/Canada.

Rivian has absolutely zero incentive to help you right now because they would be setting a precedent for providing support outside North America. What if someone else decides they want to ship an R1T to Asia and then expects Rivian to support them if they help you?

I wish you the best, and I hope that potentially there is something Rivian may be willing to do remotely, but even then you are absolutely going to encounter this issue again when your R1T needs service. It is a first year production model vehicle. It will have issues.

Your best bet is to cut your losses and arrange to have the vehicle shipped back to the US. Have Rivian work on the vehicle in the US and then sell it. You will lose money, there is no way around that, but at this point it is better to lose money then to have a very expensive R1T paperweight.

Good luck and godspeed.

But the reason for not providing support outside of those areas is because Rivian pays for the transportation of the vehicle or mobile tech to show up. Unless it’s not a warranty claim of course. So, if a customer is prepared to pay for transportation or “mobile service”, then it shouldn’t matter where the vehicle is located. Not saying Rivian is obligated in any way to help a long distance purchaser. But if they want to build a good reputation, they have the parts and manpower available, and there is zero cost to them, they absolutely should consider helping a customer out no matter where the vehicle is located. Especially if something could possibly be done remotely. I’m sure a remote link diagnosis could indicate what the problem is before anyone had to be mobilized.

 

[SACDFJC]

@myboodai - you might try reading this thread for info on how a Rivian Tech connected the 12v batteries. I think I read in your thread that you replaced yours? If so, might be worth noting the process used by the tech to see if you did the same thing. Not sure this will help you any, but wanted to point it out. Hope you get it figured out.

 

[SASSquatch]

But the reason for not providing support outside of those areas is because Rivian pays for the transportation of the vehicle or mobile tech to show up. Unless it’s not a warranty claim of course. So, if a customer is prepared to pay for transportation or “mobile service”, then it shouldn’t matter where the vehicle is located. Not saying Rivian is obligated in any way to help a long distance purchaser. But if they want to build a good reputation, they have the parts and manpower available, and there is zero cost to them, they absolutely should consider helping a customer out no matter where the vehicle is located. Especially if something could possibly be done remotely. I’m sure a remote link diagnosis could indicate what the problem is before anyone had to be mobilized.

The reason for not providing support in those areas is that they are considered Grey Market because RIvian does not have established support or service centers, and may not even have legal authority or permission to operate in that country yet.

 

[SASSquatch]

What’s the point of comments like these?

I'm offering advice to cut his losses and ship the R1T back instead of trying to fight a losing battle with Rivian to get a one-off remote service for a vehicle that will inevitably need service again in an area of the world where no service exists.

Unlike your comments on my comments, I'm actually trying to be helpful to the OP by giving him tough, but necessary advice.

 

[the long way downunder]

Rivian has zero incentive to support a grey market vehicle on another continent bought second hand. Think “if you give a mouse a cookie…”

"Gray market" is a government regulators concept for import into the USA and not something the vehicle manufacturers care about – vendors care about paying customers. Rivian has a paying customer in Kuwait, all they need to do is send a quote for analysis, conduct the analysis (remote diagnostics) then quote for the out-of-warranty service area.

I'd guess 2 people, 4 days, two round trip tickets, three nights accomm, stipends, that's 8 working days (4 x 2 people) at 8 hours' day, 64 hours at a shop rate of say $200 = $12,800, 2 tickets, say $1500 round trip = $3000, hotel 3 nights at $200, 3 x $400 = $1200, out of pocket for taxis, tips, incidentals, food, say $100 each per day, $800. Sum $17,800 estimate +/- 30% margin of error. Then use this experience to write up a general policy so anyone else with a Rivian anywhere in the world can call and get a quote same day and have a team headed to them within say 72hrs.

I imagine this business model would be 2x to 5x more profitable that regular field service revenue per tech while gathering valuable field service data and experience.

I'd be cautious about various regulatory issues with moving technology in and out of various countries, trade agreements or other government red tape.

I'd also look at this as an opportunity to keep that R1 on the road instead of it appearing as another auction listing of "bricked R1T, 100% perfect, software locked" asking $50K to get rid of it … that's when a competitor would snap it up and reverse-engineer it down to the component level and identify critical component suppliers, etc. I'd say there are many corporations in the auto industry that would save themselves real R&D money to have an R1T to tear down. From miscellaneous hundreds (literally) of competitors in China, to all the big names like VW and Toyota … Toyota certainly knows from its failure with the BZ4X it doesn't know how to build an EV and could well want a Rivian to vivisect (no doubt they've already done at least one of each Tesla model.)

 

[SASSquatch]

"Gray market" is a government regulators concept for import into the USA and not something the vehicle manufacturers care about – vendors care about paying customers. Rivian has a paying customer in Kuwait, all they need to do is send a quote for analysis, conduct the analysis (remote diagnostics) then quote for the out-of-warranty service area.

I'd guess 2 people, 4 days, two round trip tickets, three nights accomm, stipends, that's 8 working days (4 x 2 people) at 8 hours' day, 64 hours at a shop rate of say $200 = $12,800, 2 tickets, say $1500 round trip = $3000, hotel 3 nights at $200, 3 x $400 = $1200, out of pocket for taxis, tips, incidentals, food, say $100 each per day, $800. Sum $17,800 estimate +/- 30% margin of error. Then use this experience to write up a general policy so anyone else with a Rivian anywhere in the world can call and get a quote same day and have a team headed to them within say 72hrs.

I imagine this business model would be 2x to 5x more profitable that regular field service revenue per tech while gathering valuable field service data and experience.

I'd be cautious about various regulatory issues with moving technology in and out of various countries, trade agreements or other government red tape.

I'd also look at this as an opportunity to keep that R1 on the road instead of it appearing as another auction listing of "bricked R1T, 100% perfect, software locked" asking $50K to get rid of it … that's when a competitor would snap it up and reverse-engineer it down to the component level and identify critical component suppliers, etc. I'd say there are many corporations in the auto industry that would save themselves real R&D money to have an R1T to tear down. From miscellaneous hundreds (literally) of competitors in China, to all the big names like VW and Toyota … Toyota certainly knows from its failure with the BZ4X it doesn't know how to build an EV and could well want a Rivian to vivisect (no doubt they've already done at least one of each Tesla model.)

Great points here. There are export controls that would invariably be triggered regarding technology, trade, and other equipment that could be an issue if they even contemplated sending service tech to Kuwait.

The biggest issue though, is that Rivian absolutely doesn't need this headache right now. They are trying to ramp up their service footprint in North America where they have tens of thousands of R1 vehicles on the road.

My educated guess is that they don't want to set the precedent, nor do they have the bandwidth or desire to send a team to Kuwait to service a single rogue R1T. The logistics alone are daunting.

 

[the long way downunder]

Great points here. There are export controls that would invariably be triggered regarding technology, trade, and other equipment that could be an issue if they even contemplated sending service tech to Kuwait.

The biggest issue though, is that Rivian absolutely doesn't need this headache right now. They are trying to ramp up their service footprint in North America where they have tens of thousands of R1 vehicles on the road.

My educated guess is that they don't want to set the precedent, nor do they have the bandwidth or desire to send a team to Kuwait to service a single rogue R1T. The logistics alone are daunting.

I think Rivian said they'll try to make 13,000 units in the next two months to hit 25,000 units for 2022. They're burning a billion dollars about as quickly as I can type this post … sending some R&D/QA folks to get this one vehicle on the road, get paid for the work and contribute some lessons learned to their field service processes and procedures is all good business (in my humble … it would be fascinating to have R.J. or somebody who knows what's what, read through this thread and my bullet points and either laugh their arses off or generally explain how it could go down … : )

Personally, if I was at Rivian (and how much fun?!) I'd want my product working, not sitting in a warehouse with tape crosses over its eyes and its tongue hanging out.

 

[SASSquatch]

I think Rivian said they'll try to make 13,000 units in the next two months to hit 25,000 units for 2022. They're burning a billion dollars about as quickly as I can type this post … sending some R&D/QA folks to get this one vehicle on the road, get paid for the work and contribute some lessons learned to their field service processes and procedures is all good business (in my humble … it would be fascinating to have R.J. or somebody who knows what's what, read through this thread and my bullet points and either laugh their arses off or generally explain how it could go down … : )

Personally, if I was at Rivian (and how much fun?!) I'd want my product working, not sitting in a warehouse with tape crosses over its eyes and its tongue hanging out.

Speaking as a Rivian shareholder, the last thing I want Rivian to do is pull resources away from trying to get their R1 vehicles ramped up, a critical task for the future of their company, and redesigning elements of the R1T (power cover - which impacts me directly) to go chase down some random R1T that someone decided to ship to Kuwait knowing that they were basically on their own.

Even if Rivian sent a delegation to Kuwait to fix this dudes truck - what happens in a few weeks or months when it inevitably needs another service for something? They are going to keep diverting engineering, equipment, and, and bandwidth away from their already stretched thin resources in North America to placate someone who made a bonehead decision and doesn't want to own up to it?

No thank you.

No ill will towards the OP. I genuinely hope that Rivian helps him remotely and gets him to a point where the R1T is operational. If I were him, I would enjoy it for week - then put it on a cargo container back to the US to be sold while he can still get good resale value.

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