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Enhanced Dual-Motor -- features different mechanical/electrical design or just a software change?

norivian

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Is the enhanced dual-motor a different mechanical/electrical design or simply a software enabled change from a dual-motor?
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OverZealous

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Enhanced is apparently just a software upgrade, at least as far as any details Rivian has released. Nobody knows if it'll be unlockable later on.
 

moosehead

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Where there’s a fee, there’s a way.

Incremental power seems like something worthwhile to charge for monthly.

Not sure I’ve said that before.
 

Rivian_Hugh_III

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It seems like they created 350hp motors and decided to offer a lower price to de-power each to 300hp. That lets people get in at a lower price and also performs that secret marketing trick where people want to buy the middle-cost version of a product.

Usually this trick is employed by taking the highest tier (that no one wants to buy) and offering an Ultra tier above it with silly upgrades like a better color, prettier body, or more x, where x is something easy to add more of which doesn’t make much difference. With this Ultra tier priced 30% higher people feel good about buying the next lower version.

In this case Rivian is wanting to sell lots of Enduros, so the Quad is the higher and the lower hp Enduro is the lower.

Again, it’s marketing-speak to say the lower Enduro is the standard, but for a low low price you can increase hp and torque, or go all out for the Quad. They’ll sell a ton of full-power enduros.

BTW, here’s a prediction: To stand out in the 2023 Truck of the Year competition Rivian will make some major upgrades to the truck some time this year. Enduro plus some other perks I would imagine. For 2024 they’ll change up the R1S and for 2025 make a “plaid” R1T with four enduros for 1200-1400hp. For 2026 they’ll hope for an R2 entry.
 
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norivian

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Once upon a time, you can’t buy a house with a basement and the builder locking you out of the basement because he wants more money for that basement. 😊
 

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Once upon a time, you can’t buy a house with a basement and the builder locking you out of the basement because he wants more money for that basement. 😊
It's not impossible that Rivian designed around the non-enhanced power levels. Then decided to try to pull more power out of the motors at a risk of increased warranty costs, and the increase in cost is relative to that.
 
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norivian

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Enhanced is apparently just a software upgrade, at least as far as any details Rivian has released. Nobody knows if it'll be unlockable later on.
Makes me think I’ll just opt for the standard dual-motor + max. It could become subscription-based later.
 

mindstormsguy

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It's price discrimination, which sounds like a bad thing, but I think economists generally agree isn't? If you're Rivian, and can only afford to design and build one motor, you have a few options. Make the powerful one, spend a bunch of development money doing so, and then charge a high price that wont sell as many units (so you don't make as much money). Or, you build the less powerful one (which probably cost you the same development effort), sell it for less, but sell more of them because you have a larger market. In both cases though, you haven't addressed the whole market. You're either selling to the cost-conscious crowd or the speed-craving crowd. You're leaving part of the market untapped. So instead, you could design the powerful motor (which again, we assume doesn't actually cost anything different in development costs, and probably has minimal material/manufacturing cost differences), and sell it as two different versions (defined only by SW) for two different prices. The added material/manufacturing cost that you incur by giving everyone "the better hardware" is probably canceled out by the fact that you are only running one manufacturing line for both, have less inventory to manage, less build configuration that needs to be tracked on the manufacturing line, etc.

On the whole, it allows Rivian to be able to sell more units for the same development cost. This in turn means that Rivian is more efficient in getting products to market, and means that in the end the customers win too because overall costs for Rivian are lower. If Rivian has lower costs, they can offer lower average prices, sell more, get more leverage with vendors for lower prices, and the circle goes on.

It feels wrong to know you have hardware that was engineered to be more capable than what you paid for and have in your driveway/hands/whatever, but it's super common. Computer CPUs are basically the same thing. For one chip layout that Intel designs, they sell probably a dozen SKUs. Some are sold as lower-end SKUs because they didn't pass tests to perform at the higher level (ie: they were binned). But sometimes they just sell them as lower end SKUs because that's where the demand is. Computer overclocking exists partially because of this (though binning can be a lot more complicated than just clock speed). Do people feel crappy when they buy a lower-end computer, and know they have a CPU die that was engineered to be faster? Maybe? I bet most people don't even realize it. But one thing is for sure, if every SKU that was sold was a unique engineering effort and design, all of the SKUs would cost more money. You'd lose the economies of scale.

Subscriptions though? Yeah, fuck that.
 

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It's price discrimination, which sounds like a bad thing, but I think economists generally agree isn't? If you're Rivian, and can only afford to design and build one motor, you have a few options. Make the powerful one, spend a bunch of development money doing so, and then charge a high price that wont sell as many units (so you don't make as much money). Or, you build the less powerful one (which probably cost you the same development effort), sell it for less, but sell more of them because you have a larger market. In both cases though, you haven't addressed the whole market. You're either selling to the cost-conscious crowd or the speed-craving crowd. You're leaving part of the market untapped. So instead, you could design the powerful motor (which again, we assume doesn't actually cost anything different in development costs, and probably has minimal material/manufacturing cost differences), and sell it as two different versions (defined only by SW) for two different prices. The added material/manufacturing cost that you incur by giving everyone "the better hardware" is probably canceled out by the fact that you are only running one manufacturing line for both, have less inventory to manage, less build configuration that needs to be tracked on the manufacturing line, etc.

On the whole, it allows Rivian to be able to sell more units for the same development cost. This in turn means that Rivian is more efficient in getting products to market, and means that in the end the customers win too because overall costs for Rivian are lower. If Rivian has lower costs, they can offer lower average prices, sell more, get more leverage with vendors for lower prices, and the circle goes on.

It feels wrong to know you have hardware that was engineered to be more capable than what you paid for and have in your driveway/hands/whatever, but it's super common. Computer CPUs are basically the same thing. For one chip layout that Intel designs, they sell probably a dozen SKUs. Some are sold as lower-end SKUs because they didn't pass tests to perform at the higher level (ie: they were binned). But sometimes they just sell them as lower end SKUs because that's where the demand is. Computer overclocking exists partially because of this (though binning can be a lot more complicated than just clock speed). Do people feel crappy when they buy a lower-end computer, and know they have a CPU die that was engineered to be faster? Maybe? I bet most people don't even realize it. But one thing is for sure, if every SKU that was sold was a unique engineering effort and design, all of the SKUs would cost more money. You'd lose the economies of scale.

Subscriptions though? Yeah, fuck that.
People may or may not realize, but even ICE engines can be upgraded with a computer chip/software program, though this is done aftermarket by a third party. So it only makes sense for the manufacturer to capture that market, as you explained well.

It depends on how they are structured, but if month to month, I think a lot of people up north would find a lot of value in paying for it only between May and September, because they wouldn't use it in winter. That could push out the breakeven timing between paying for it upfront in lump sum vs. via subscription by double (perhaps 10-12 years vs. 5-6). That's just one example. Another example is someone that can't decide upfront, and wants to try it out. They then realize it's not worth it, and instead of spending $3,000 and realizing that, they only spent $100 testing it. Or you're 35 to start and need the speed, and after a few years and starting a family, you realize you no longer do. So yes, you will pay more over a long horizon with a subscription vs. all at once, but there's two sides to that bell curve.
 

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mindstormsguy

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It depends on how they are structured, but if month to month, I think a lot of people up north would find a lot of value in paying for it only between May and September, because they wouldn't use it in winter. That could push out the breakeven timing between paying for it upfront in lump sum vs. via subscription by double (perhaps 10-12 years vs. 5-6). That's just one example. Another example is someone that can't decide upfront, and wants to try it out. They then realize it's not worth it, and instead of spending $3,000 and realizing that, they only spent $100 testing it. Or you're 35 to start and need the speed, and after a few years and starting a family, you realize you no longer do. So yes, you will pay more over a long horizon with a subscription vs. all at once, but there's two sides to that bell curve.
That's a fair point. I think specifics matter a lot with the subscription thing. Can I continue to choose to buy the option ("a perpetual licence") at a reasonable market price? Or am I forced into licencing it now, at a cost that doesn't actually make sense.

The SW world has some interesting examples. You used to be able to buy a game for $50 (or whatever it was), and it would have plenty of single-player campaigns, or you could host your own online server, and basically play it forever. Would you get updates? No. But if it was a good game, you might not want them. If you bought a good product, you would have paid your money and that's it. The company that sold it to you would have no recurring costs, but also no recurring revenue. Works well for the customer, and doesn't seem inherently unfair.

But then we got publisher-hosted online gaming. At first you had a choice. You could host your own server, or you could pay a recurring fee to the publisher for them to host a server for you. Then the publishers figured out they had a recurring revenue stream if they only offered the later. Is it better for players? Maybe? Maybe not. It was nice to have the option at first, but the option went away.

MS office is the same now I think. Can you actually buy Office anymore? I don't think you can. I think it's subscription-only now. (At least it is with the "home use program").
 

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Am I the only one that is slightly skeptical that either Rivian's quoted 0-60 times or the hp ratings for the upcoming dual motor versions are correct? Using crude web calculators and assuming 7000lbs, the 840hp quad motor is estimated to have a 0-60 time of 3.1s. I estimated a 150lb weight reduction switching from quad to dual motor, so a 6850lbs truck with 700hp gives a 0-60 time of 3.6s. The same 6850lbs with 600hp has a 0-60 time of 4.2s, so roughly a 0.6s difference.

I suspect Rivian will need more than a 100hp difference between the standard and enhanced versions to give a 1 second reduction in 0-60 times for such a heavy vehicle. But the wording on the drive system page seems to suggest otherwise- the enhanced version has "Approximately 700 horsepower" and the standard will have "More than 600 horsepower". I suppose Rivian could use software tricks to meet the 0-60 targets by either temporarily boosting the hp of the enhanced option or limiting the hp of the standard option below a certain speed.

A 0.6 second decrease in 0-60 vs a 1 second decrease is quite a significant difference and changes the value of the upgrade in my mind. I wonder how the two drivetrains will measure once production vehicles are out in the wild.
 

Kieran

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Usually this trick is employed by taking the highest tier (that no one wants to buy) and offering an Ultra tier above it with silly upgrades like a better color, prettier body, or more x, where x is something easy to add more of which doesn’t make much difference. With this Ultra tier priced 30% higher people feel good about buying the next lower version.
*cough* Tesla Plaid *cough, cough*
I'll never understand why most people feel they need/want a Plaid vs. a standard LR+. If you're a hobbyist who tracks/races your car, OK fine. Otherwise is 0-60 in 3.1 seconds REALLY not sufficient?
 
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norivian

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People may or may not realize, but even ICE engines can be upgraded with a computer chip/software program, though this is done aftermarket by a third party. So it only makes sense for the manufacturer to capture that market, as you explained well.

It depends on how they are structured, but if month to month, I think a lot of people up north would find a lot of value in paying for it only between May and September, because they wouldn't use it in winter. That could push out the breakeven timing between paying for it upfront in lump sum vs. via subscription by double (perhaps 10-12 years vs. 5-6). That's just one example. Another example is someone that can't decide upfront, and wants to try it out. They then realize it's not worth it, and instead of spending $3,000 and realizing that, they only spent $100 testing it. Or you're 35 to start and need the speed, and after a few years and starting a family, you realize you no longer do. So yes, you will pay more over a long horizon with a subscription vs. all at once, but there's two sides to that bell curve.
Similar to Tesla’s FSD subscription.
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