Easing concerns about (early) Rivian manufacturing quality?

[IHScout]

Wow....

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[Notaevfan]

That is fair. All Rivian needs to do, is demo something besides collapsible cookware, and we can take their word on the infotainment.

All I am saying is; bad communication & delays aside, something is going to not be right with Rivian. Tesla had teething pains, Ford has teething pains, Audi has teething pains. It is foolish of me to not assume Rivian is going to drop the ball on something. The lack of communication leads me wonder if it is more than one thing they are dropping the ball on.

It could be poor infotainment, EV fires, service centers backed up, build quality, stereo system, paint quality, bad public charging (identity and access management defects in plug-n-go EV), poor charging speeds, road noise - there are going to be issues.

I’d rather we start seeing Rivian come forward with some information here. We’re just days away from customers supposedly (won’t see me believing that statement. Anyone want to place any wagers?) receiving vehicles.

Is there anything we know, besides how the collapsible cookware works?

I love to rag on Rivian demoing off this collapsible cookware, but holding out on every other detail. It taunts me. Absolutely blows my mind that the Hummer EV was announced in like what? Fall 2020. Kids on YouTube have been touching, feeling, driving and showing off the vehicle since like....well, fall 2020.

I really want a R1S, but you know how fads seem to fade, right? I feel like I have been invested in this Rivian thing for so long, that the trend is kind of.....waning. And it is just turning in to frustration. Like the excitement has come, and it came....and other EV’s are just here to steal the show now. It royally sucks for Rivian, because they had a serious chance at being a standout EV brand (besides Tesla). By the time they make it to market, I fear they will be lost in the mix - like a random Android phone from a now defunct company. The EV market is rapidly becoming crowded, and there is only so much room for boutique John DeLorean brands. The fact that the most legacy automotive companies are beating Rivian to market just makes me sour, and the confidence in the brand just erodes everyday they can’t show me anything. Ultimately, this is going to be a $80,000 purchase for me. This is a highly coveted segment of the automotive market. This is luxury vehicle pricing. This is more than two times expensive the than any vehicle I have owned. I am deeply concerned about the lack of communication, the lack of visibility, and transparency. I want them to succeed.

Blows me freakin mind. Hummer EV going to beat R1S to market. Each Hummer EV customer is going to be a $75k loss to Rivian. Rivian is becoming a case study in how to not launch a (serious) brand.

I used to be a denier - I deflected Rivian criticism. I raved about the brand. But now I just keep wondering if 80k on a Rivian is just too big of a gamble. It is not lost on me that Trevor Milton just bailed himself out of jail with 100 million. I am tired of giving these brands a pass, and living in denial land, where I don’t look at things with a clear lens (and instead have my fanboy lens on)

Something is going to be wrong with my R1S, and the Rivian experience. We just don’t know what it is yet. Rivian won’t be transparent and have an honest discussion, so they are fine with giving us a cold shoulder. If RJ wants to end this speculation and actually increase his brands awareness in the market; he can lend Doug Demuro a R1T, he can lend Out of Spec motoring a R1S, he can give Rich Rebuilds a R1T for a weekend.

The anticipation has turned to frustration. And every brand is racing to market to snipe these 80k customers out from underneath Rivian. If Rivian waits long enough to let the Hummer EV + Cybertruck hit the market at the exact same time; nothing will stop me from returning my R1S and picking up a Hummer EV.

This is me totally going after RJ as a person right now; but RJ just has no track record. The more we don’t hear from Rivian - the more I worry RJ lives in a land of theory and books. Which is to say, we’ve never really seen RJ succeed, or hear much of how RJ has done anything that even in his professional life. Musk - for all his faults, was part of PayPal, a company so successful it would spinoff from eBay, shape the internet and eCommerce, create countless billionaires and success stories. This is to say - Musk lived in a world that required implementing and actually delivering something to the customers.

I worry about Amazon’s influence here, too. Amazon is a great example of a company (like Microsoft), with (massive) pockets of mediocrity. Amazon has too much influence in the company, and Rivian is just as focused on commercial vans as they are collapsible cookware and the vehicles for consumers. I don’t want Rivian to be another mediocre offering in the AWS marketplace, and this to turn in to a pet-project for Bezos. When we got a guy with no real implementation / boots on the ground experience - all theoretical classroom background.....yeah - I worry about Rivian.

/tangent over.

RJ - your move. You gotta show these vehicles to the public sometime, bud

A little wordy, but I agree. I have convinced myself that there is no good alternative to an R1S right now, but if something else were to come along..... Just get some vehicles to me, I'll make a YouTube video.

 

[SoCal Rob]

@AndroidAppBundle I think that some of us aren’t as concerned about this as you are because you’re treating subject statements as objective statements. Subjective statements like, “I was pointing out how Windows has gotten worse over time, and this is despite the availability of patches for the operating system.” and regarding infotainment, “Because in the case of Ford, Honda, Volvo, etc - as you point out; they own everything - and yet it still sucks.”

If my experience differs from yours then it’s hard for me to get riled up about the issue. My experience differs from yours since I don’t see either of these to be accurate, “…Windows has gotten worse over time…” and, “…Ford …still suck…”

I’m not a lover of all things Microsoft, especially Windows, but if you think Windows has gotten worse over time I can list a couple of stinkers that, while still subjective, would arguably show that we are FAR from the worst version of Windows. Likewise, my experience with Sync 3 on my Ford is quite good. It’s pretty intuitive, it’s responsive, and it has gotten better over time. I’ve used other systems which are far worse, because of performance, complexity, and/or my preference for a touchscreen over a knob, touch surface and/or pseudo-mouse controller thing used by Lexus.

tl;dr When your concern is based on things that don’t strike others as issues then others don’t see your concern as an issue.

 

[yizzung]

Neither of those things happened and the conversation now makes sense to everyone except for the two of you.

That would make sense but does not explain this comment

It would be helpful if you would respond to specific posts or even sections of those post so that your replies have the context of what you are responding to.

Perhaps ol' what's-his-name gets in over his head pretty frequently and subsequently ends up blocking lots of folks? Maybe Gshenderson bruised his ego at some point also?

As far as making it personal and/or insulting people: the guy misunderstood me, took things I wrote out of context, misquoted me, flat out lied about what he originally wrote, and then reached the conclusion that I was "exhausting". Mind you, this is on a thread that I started about manufacturing quality and whether or not Rivian would suffer from the same pitfalls as Tesla, which he joined to complain about how the dastardly PR department at Rivian won't tell him if Apple Music will be supported or not... Ha.

Unlike that guy, I have a thick skin and find it all pretty entertaining. Guess I shouldn't have deleted my posts... And sorry, Gshenderson, you'll just have to remain in the dark like me. (Don't worry, you really aren't missing much.)

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