Demo Rivians Now for Sale

[Patrick87]

I hope you get it! I just booked another one that's in California. Honestly, I would rather that white one with the dark wheels, but I can deal with a silver one with the brighter 20's.

Good luck! Please report back with how it goes.

So, I reserved this one in the demo shop at ~11pm on Friday night.

Suprisingly, early this morning (Tuesday @ 1:30am) I received an email that my order has been cancelled.

WTF? No email asking to put down a deposit, no contact from a guide, nothing. Just a cancellation email. The truck was (fortunately) made available in the demo shop again.

So I booked it again.

I sent a reply to the cancellation email asking for an explanation. I'm wondering if it's one the following scenarios:

a) Someone looked over my account when seeing the new reservation and (falsely) assumed that this was the truck I tried to buy last week and wasn't cleared out.
b) They're pushing to sell these things by the end of the quarter and compared my address (TN) to the truck's location (CA) and cancelled it since they know they can't ship the vehicle from the west coast to Tennessee by the end of the quarter.

I really want to buy one of these demonstrator vehicles, but damn, they're making it difficult!

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[Simplejack]

Still waiting to hear anything regarding my reservation. Emailed my guide yesterday and got nothing. If they cancel mine out I will give u a heads up for the Brooklyn one.

 

[Patrick87]

Still waiting to hear anything regarding my reservation. Emailed my guide yesterday and got nothing. If they cancel mine out I will give u a heads up for the Brooklyn one.

Wow, still nothing? Not even an email asking for the $1k deposit? I didn't get anything either before they cancelled my 2nd reservation. (the silver one in CA)

 

[Simplejack]

Still nothing, more are popping up as demo inventory as well fyi

 

[Simplejack]

Wow, still nothing? Not even an email asking for the $1k deposit? I didn't get anything either before they cancelled my 2nd reservation. (the silver one in CA)

just got a call, same thing… the truck has to be picked up in Brooklyn. He did say if I found one local to me or out of Normal Illinois that they could deliver and that is my only option as far as demo’s go. So Brooklyn truck is going to pop back up. Back to shopping I suppose.

 

[Patrick87]

just got a call, same thing… the truck has to be picked up in Brooklyn. He did say if I found one local to me or out of Normal Illinois that they could deliver and that is my only option as far as demo’s go. So Brooklyn truck is going to pop back up. Back to shopping I suppose.

Damn, so only vehicles located at the Normal, IL service center (factory) can be transferred to a different service center?

I wonder if home delivery (+$1k) is an option at other facilities? I sent an email to my last guide (Conor) to see if that's the case.

If so, I'd be willing to pay the $1k to save the $20-$30k a new one would cost...

 

[jbl911]

Damn, so only vehicles located at the Normal, IL service center (factory) can be transferred to a different service center?

I wonder if home delivery (+$1k) is an option at other facilities? I sent an email to my last guide (Conor) to see if that's the case.

If so, I'd be willing to pay the $1k to save the $20-$30k a new one would cost...

My demo was transferred from VA to the MI service center. No additional cost, aside from the transport fee everyone pays.

 

[Patrick87]

My demo was transferred from VA to the MI service center. No additional cost, aside from the transport fee everyone pays.

Good to know! I had read of others doing it, so it must be just that one service center (hopefully) with that exception.

Let us know how you like your truck once you pick it up!

 

[Simplejack]

Good question, he did acknowledge this is definitely a quarter end push so seems to be the biggest focus (obviously ) Guessing if it can’t be done by end of the quarter then it probably won’t happen. But who knows, Good luck!

 

[Jw3833]

So I exchanged my full price reservation for a demo reservation after a bit of back and forth they made is possible.

but just now i was informed by someone who was not my guide. That the policy on delivering demo vehicles has just changed and I would be required to take delivery on in California and I live in NJ. This is infuriating because the website clearly says they are delivering these vehicles in 1-4 weeks. This seams like a real legal delimia to change the terms of a transaction mid transaction.

I see many of you hear have taken delivery after transportation from the original location.

Im obviously going to make this happen regardless but its really a really bad way to treat costumers.

 

[Patrick87]

So I exchanged my full price reservation for a demo reservation after a bit of back and forth they made is possible.

but just now i was informed by someone who was not my guide. That the policy on delivering demo vehicles has just changed and I would be required to take delivery on in California and I live in NJ. This is infuriating because the website clearly says they are delivering these vehicles in 1-4 weeks. This seams like a real legal delimia to change the terms of a transaction mid transaction.

I see many of you hear have taken delivery after transportation from the original location.

Im obviously going to make this happen regardless but its really a really bad way to treat costumers.

So you're going to CA to pick up the truck and you're in NJ? I'm assuming they're pushing you to do it prior to April 1st?

That's a heck of a drive (or flight/drive), but with savings in the $20k-$30 range (compared to brand new), I totally get it.

 

[onesoil]

Good question, he did acknowledge this is definitely a quarter end push so seems to be the biggest focus (obviously ) Guessing if it can’t be done by end of the quarter then it probably won’t happen. But who knows, Good luck!

I think the demo store is here to stay—and I don't think Rivian will successfully transact the 150+ vehicles in the demo store before end of Q1. Just becasue they say "Sale Pending" doesn't really mean they are close to delivery—it says that as soon as you "check out" for $0, so I'm sure many of the reservations have yet to go through, and many still will fall through and get relisted.

I suspect there will be a big wave of demos next month. With the factory shutting down, I bet the sales team will focus more on getting the last '22/'23 units moved.

My sales and delivery teams (it really does seem like they need to trim down the amount of people needed for each transaction) were initially pushing hard for a 3/30 delivery, but now my delivery team both agree that the first week of April is a safer bet.

Today we decided that since the truck still hadn’t been moved from IL to MA (which will hopefully happen this week), they still haven’t been able to confirm whether or not the tonneau is functional and/or Gen 2 (and apparently won't be sure until it lands in Chelsea), and that I have plans this weekend preventing me from picking up the truck at the Chelsea SC in person. We all agree at this point that the safer option is to wait until the following weekend.

The Chelsea delivery team also hasn't delivered a demo truck yet and seems to be learning as they go (but it seems like they are doing their best to smooth out my experience after the choppy start—which I appreciate).

My hope for those of you getting cancelations/ambiguous postponements from the inside sales guides are casualties of the end-of-quarter-chaos and will have an easier time completing the purchase next week. With how inefficiently they seem to be moving these units, I'm sure a lot of the vehicles will still be available (or somewhere in process) next week, so I'm not sure why they would shut the demo shop down.

 

[Patrick87]

Just got an email back about my cancelled demo reservation and the one I placed today:

Hi Patrick,

Apologies that nobody had reached about order request #135x. Been in back-to-back calls most fo the day.

Looking at order #137x and can provide additional insights:

In a nutshell, all of those previously internal fleet vehicles are locked at their respective locations. They would only be available for pick up as home delivery isn't an option. If there's anything you see still available that could work based on those details that is "fairly" close by, feel free to submit on the shop portal.
CA and MA are the exceptions in which they will not allow out-of-state pick-up/registration. This means that (vehicle VIN) which we do have on hold under order #137x would have to be released back into the shop portal unless you've got a CA-based address though taxes tend to be higher when registering with CA.

I'll be back in office 9am, pst tomorrow. Feel free to schedule a consultation call with me. I'll help answer any additional questions.

Your fellow adventurer,
(Name withheld)

Bummer! I'm going to email tomorrow to see if the policy will change after March 31st since he sort of alluded to that after the deal on my first reservation (NY based truck) fell through...

 

[Jw3833]

So you're going to CA to pick up the truck and you're in NJ? I'm assuming they're pushing you to do it prior to April 1st?

That's a heck of a drive (or flight/drive), but with savings in the $20k-$30 range (compared to brand new), I totally get it.

Im just not understanding why they dont evenly apply a policy that makes sense. There are people all thru this forum with mix experiences on delivery. Im certain all of us here wouldnt mind an additional fee to deliver, but some if their sale reps are needlessly rude and provocative.

Were also dealing with a company that regularly ships vehicles across the country, its nothing for them to include our orders in their existing system.

Not to mention the website for demo sales clearly states they deliver in 1-4weeks in multiple places.

Its frustrating to be in the middle of buying a very expensive vehicle (at a discount, but still expensive) and to be treated poorly.

 

[Patrick87]

I spoke with a guide at 5pm yesterday. My main question was regarding the new policy that the demo vehicles are locked into their SC locations and cannot be transfered between service centers: will this policy return to normal (being able to ship demo vehicles to a nearby service center) after April 1st? (since this seems to be an end of the quarter sales push)

The answer: he doesn't know. Maybe. But he probably won't know anything until mid-April after they've reviewed "what worked and didn't work regarding these demo vehicles". He said he would reach out sometime in mid-April to let me know.

I asked if I should continue to "reserve" a vehicle I'd be willing to purchase on the demo shop for $0.00? Or maybe resume after April 1st?

He said no, no use in it. It would just prevent someone that might be local to the vehicle to not be able to get one. He recommended just hanging tight until I hear from him next month...

He also confirmed that vehicles located in CA or MA cannot be registered to out of state buyers. So unless you live in one of those states-- don't waste your time.

With that being said-- Jw3833 said he lives in NJ and is heading out to CA to pick his up. So it seems the Rivian guide is giving some conflicting info in that regard...

Frustrating. For the next couple weeks I'm going to keep an eye on the demo shop to see if anything that meets my criteria pops up within ~400 miles of my location.

It just seems crazy to me that a lot of folks were able to transfer vehicles between service centers earlier in March, but if a person tries to the same in late March, they can't do it.

If anyone hears anything different, please post up.

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