Amazon and Rivian negotiating end of exclusivity agreement for EDV Electric Delivery Van

[Donald Stanfield]

It looks like Amazon backing away. What are they backing away from? From EV’s in general and from Rivian.

That’s not a good look. It suggests that other people’s fears may be grounded in reality. That EV’s are too expensive and too reliant on electricity, which is a live source that could be stopped in an instant, vs fuel which lasts a while.

Consider if you were in a natural disaster situation where civilization temporarily collapsed.

Several weeks ago southern Michigan lost power. For the first three days I was thinking about how my (future) Rivian could have run my house. On day 4 of no power I realized that my Rivian and my house would be dead and I’d be SOL.

Now what if the power was out for weeks? I still could have hopped in my gas vehicle and driven elsewhere. Or if I had a gas generator I would have been fine all along.

I’m not crazy in thinking that the world could go to shit in the next decade. “The end of the world is just the beginning” is a good read, and only $2.99 in audiobook.

It’s likely that the world will be fine but maybe not. But all of that makes me question whether I want a reliable gas vehicle in a world with a ubiquitous gas delivery system or if I want to bet the farm on electric.

I’m obviously hedging. A few years ago I was talking myself out of a Rivian that I wanted so badly. Now I find I’m talking myself into one that I want less so.

All of that is to say that electrics have their place and may be the future, but lots of people are wondering if the future is now or within the decade, or if it’s a future that we should walk slowly and carefully to over the next 50 years. We’ll see.

You do realize that power is needed to fuel a gas pump right? You also realize that there are these magic things called chargers that are all over the place right? So if my county is out of power I can go to the charger in the next county over and plug in. Not to mention I have the ability to power things around my house WITH my EV where I don't have that option with the gas car in my garage.

Lastly, if I was in one of these areas where long power outages were commonplace over a wide area I would invest in some solar energy systems and then I would still have power AND fuel for my vehicle every time the sun was shining while you were waiting at the gas station. Those aren't even the only risks of ICE vehicles.

IF we go to war, if OPEC countries start messing with the price, inflation, pipeline mishap, trucker strikes and a few more things I've most likely forgotten to include all affect the price of gas MUCH more than the price of electricity. To pretend that ICE was some hedge to a fragile EV eco system is frankly pretty silly considering all the things that can hurt the fuel supply in this country.

I would strongly suggest reconsidering if you are this unsure of your purchase. For me personally having this truck has done nothing but convince me that EVs are the IMMEDIATE future and the way forward. They are simply more convenient and the power grid is less likely to be as widely affect as a pipeline attack. I remember a year and a half ago the pipeline that fed this area was affected by hackers and fuel became extremely scarce more or less overnight. Unless you have a fuel tank on your property of several hundred gallons, of which the fuel will only last 6 months or less, on hand all the time you're going to be screwed by something like that whereas someone with an EV will shrug and go eh.

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[itselectric]

It looks like Amazon backing away. What are they backing away from? From EV’s in general and from Rivian.

That’s not a good look. It suggests that other people’s fears may be grounded in reality. That EV’s are too expensive and too reliant on electricity, which is a live source that could be stopped in an instant, vs fuel which lasts a while.

Consider if you were in a natural disaster situation where civilization temporarily collapsed.

Several weeks ago southern Michigan lost power. For the first three days I was thinking about how my (future) Rivian could have run my house. On day 4 of no power I realized that my Rivian and my house would be dead and I’d be SOL.

Now what if the power was out for weeks? I still could have hopped in my gas vehicle and driven elsewhere. Or if I had a gas generator I would have been fine all along.

I’m not crazy in thinking that the world could go to shit in the next decade. “The end of the world is just the beginning” is a good read, and only $2.99 in audiobook.

It’s likely that the world will be fine but maybe not. But all of that makes me question whether I want a reliable gas vehicle in a world with a ubiquitous gas delivery system or if I want to bet the farm on electric.

I’m obviously hedging. A few years ago I was talking myself out of a Rivian that I wanted so badly. Now I find I’m talking myself into one that I want less so.

All of that is to say that electrics have their place and may be the future, but lots of people are wondering if the future is now or within the decade, or if it’s a future that we should walk slowly and carefully to over the next 50 years. We’ll see.

Amazon is buying EVs from others...

 

[zpowell]

Can anyone speculate as to the price of the van if it does become available? I’m thinking $68k.

 

[Tahoe Man]

The oil market is very mature and has withstood everything thrown at it. It's a well oiled machine for lack of better words. Prices are very competitive too.

The extremely nice thing with electricity is the multi fuel source, even solar. The bad thing with it is storage and transfer.

Gasoline extremely energy dense and very portable, extremely price competitive and extremely ubiquitous. I guess one day it runs out but there are huge fields such as the Permian basin has been an endless oil pit.

Electricity, multi fuel source, so if an attack or one source is deplinishes another fuel can offset it. Nuclear is awesome, extremely dense, lots of energy, but you can't start and stop it. Gas is awesome too, loads of it, but not as clean as solar even taking into account destruction from solar fields. Personally solar is my favorite fuel but storage is $$$.

So there's pros and cons of both.

 

[clcbjc123]

You do realize that power is needed to fuel a gas pump right? You also realize that there are these magic things called chargers that are all over the place right? So if my county is out of power I can go to the charger in the next county over and plug in. Not to mention I have the ability to power things around my house WITH my EV where I don't have that option with the gas car in my garage.

Where do you live? Sounds like utopia.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Where do you live? Sounds like utopia.

I live in East TN. Although there aren't a ton of chargers there are at least 10 within 30 or so miles to me. A few fast chargers too. Sure it could be better but the power outage situation would be pretty rare to start with.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Lastly, if I was in one of these areas where long power outages were commonplace over a wide area I would invest in some solar energy systems and then I would still have power AND fuel for my vehicle every time the sun was shining while you were waiting at the gas station. Those aren't even the only risks of ICE vehicles.

IF we go to war, if OPEC countries start messing with the price, inflation, pipeline mishap, trucker strikes and a few more things I've most likely forgotten to include all affect the price of gas MUCH more than the price of electricity. To pretend that ICE was some hedge to a fragile EV eco system is frankly pretty silly considering all the things that can hurt the fuel supply in this country.

I think electric rates are just slow to react because they are so incredibly regulated. Texas showed a wonderful example of what happens to them when electricity is scarce and there is no regulation on cost.

Ultimately I'd like to get solar on our house, but the ROI is still too long in Michigan. If we move somewhere we can put up a secondary building or do a ground mount system then I definitely will be doing it. The additional complexity of putting it on our house with a rather steep pitch to the roof is somewhat of a non-starter.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I think electric rates are just slow to react because they are so incredibly regulated. Texas showed a wonderful example of what happens to them when electricity is scarce and there is no regulation on cost.

Ultimately I'd like to get solar on our house, but the ROI is still too long in Michigan. If we move somewhere we can put up a secondary building or do a ground mount system then I definitely will be doing it. The additional complexity of putting it on our house with a rather steep pitch to the roof is somewhat of a non-starter.

They are regulated and power Is produced more locally than oil and gas are. More production means less likely to have a bottleneck.

 

[zipzag]

Can anyone speculate as to the price of the van if it does become available? I’m thinking $68k.

You can look at pricing on the Ford e-Transit

 

[Zoidz]

Amazon announced another 9,000 layoffs today- that's a total of 27,000 layoffs in recent months.

They have cancelled, closed or delayed 99 facilities representing 32.3 MILLION sq ft of warehousing.

With this magnitude of cost cutting at Amazon, it's also a fair assumption that they are reducing their order volume of new EDVs simply because they do not need them, and Rivian has or is looking for other buyers.

 

[bemulligan]

During the whole downtrend from some ridiculous overvalue to now, it's always been "Oh this is good for Rivian". So how is that working out?? Instead of fanboy comments why not something realistic? The stock is now down something like 90+ percent. When is enough, enough?

Imo, this isn't good for Rivian at all. I see it as a major loss of confidence from a extremely well known customer. The loss of the exclusivity PR is another hit.

I still think $12 is a real possibility. I really thought getting my feet wet at $19 was the right move, looks like it was way premature. This stock needs a real washout.

You say you were wrong at $19 so what makes you think you’re right now? What is worse, fanboy comments or self-absorbed, uninformed bloviating?

 

[bemulligan]

During the whole downtrend from some ridiculous overvalue to now, it's always been "Oh this is good for Rivian". So how is that working out?? Instead of fanboy comments why not something realistic? The stock is now down something like 90+ percent. When is enough, enough?

Imo, this isn't good for Rivian at all. I see it as a major loss of confidence from a extremely well known customer. The loss of the exclusivity PR is another hit.

I still think $12 is a real possibility. I really thought getting my feet wet at $19 was the right move, looks like it was way premature. This stock needs a real washout.

You say you were wrong at $19 so what makes you think you’re right now? What is worse, fanboy comments or self-absorbed, uninformed bloviating?

 

[Tahoe Man]

You say you were wrong at $19 so what makes you think you’re right now? What is worse, fanboy comments or self-absorbed, uninformed bloviating?

The "self-absorbed, uninformed bloviating" are the fanboys/apologist that have been pimping this thing since the IPO while cluelessly trying to sway others to get in on the Rivian EV bandwagon at insane valuations.

I feel bad for those that lost their ass in this thing because of the "self-absorbed, uninformed bloviating" fanboy influence.

 

[NY_Rob]

Amazon announced another 9,000 layoffs today- that's a total of 27,000 layoffs in recent months.

They have cancelled, closed or delayed 99 facilities representing 32.3 MILLION sq ft of warehousing.

With this magnitude of cost cutting at Amazon, it's also a fair assumption that they are reducing their order volume of new EDVs simply because they do not need them, and Rivian has or is looking for other buyers.

I think they still need additional vehicles, around here about half or more of our Amazon deliveries are made in unmarked white rental delivery vans. Also, the branded Amazon vans look like they are on their last legs already.

 

[Zoidz]

I think they still need additional vehicles, around here about half or more of our Amazon deliveries are made in unmarked white rental delivery vans. Also, the branded Amazon vans look like they are on their last legs already.

At one point around Christmas a few years ago, Amazon made a statement that they were intentionally using white generic vans because they did not want to scream "This is an Amazon Van" due to safety/security/theft concerns regarding porch pirates, etc. A generic white van could be the plumber, electrician, etc. I don't know Amazon still follows that philosophy.....

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