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Pherdnut

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It isn't going to be that easy. For every change in wheel base and expected load, you have to do a heck of a lot of engineering and testing. You aren't going to be able to use the R1T platform for the van. The wheel base is way too short. And I would hope the CVWR will be much higher in the van. It is going to need a payload in the 4,000lbs range to compete with the Sprinter and Transits it would be replacing. More than double the payload of the R1T.
It's a modular platform. They can do things like swap different kinds of motors and suspensions in and out of it. I'm not sure how they get different wheelbases (maybe swap battery beds out?) but I think they stuck with the same platform for the van.

You're not wrong about testing but I suspect it still eliminates a lot of development time to kick things off with your drivetrain problem solved and the heaviest bits of your vehicle all packed very tightly into the bottom of it.
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CappyJax

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It's a modular platform. They can do things like swap different kinds of motors and suspensions in and out of it. I'm not sure how they get different wheelbases (maybe swap battery beds out?) but I think they stuck with the same platform for the van.

You're not wrong about testing but I suspect it still eliminates a lot of development time to kick things off with your drivetrain problem solved and the heaviest bits of your vehicle all packed very tightly into the bottom of it.
I still don't see that as a reason to make a production line and limit it to 100,000 vehicles when many more could be sold. An electric van would be marketable to the vast majority of van operations at present.
 

electruck

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I still don't see that as a reason to make a production line and limit it to 100,000 vehicles when many more could be sold. An electric van would be marketable to the vast majority of van operations at present.
It's not even 100k of the same delivery van, they're actually producing 3 different size vans:
Rivian and Amazon intend to make three different sizes of the electric delivery vehicle, to suit different workloads. There’ll also be flexibility in what battery capacity they can support: that way, the retailer says, it will be able to optimize different vehicles for specific delivery routes. Some of the trucks will be front-wheel drive, whereas others will be all-wheel drive, presumably matched to the likely weather and road conditions of the areas in which they’re eventually operating.
 

electruck

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It's a modular platform. They can do things like swap different kinds of motors and suspensions in and out of it. I'm not sure how they get different wheelbases (maybe swap battery beds out?) but I think they stuck with the same platform for the van.
You're actually thinking about this backwards. Much of what attaches to the frame will be shared but likely not the frame itself which is not that big of a deal to resize to allow for different wheelbases (and potentially 3 different wheelbases for 3 different size Amazon delivery vans). Note that RJ mentions sharing battery, drivetrain and cooling but mentions nothing about the frame.

Quote from RJ:
Because the skateboards are shared; battery, drivetrain, and cooling systems are common, almost identically the same between the two, allows us to go really fast on the Amazon program.
 

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I still don't see that as a reason to make a production line and limit it to 100,000 vehicles when many more could be sold. An electric van would be marketable to the vast majority of van operations at present.
Likely that the first 100K are earmarked/contracted for Amazon. Also likely they will take them as fast as Rivian can provide them (and that another order from Amazon will follow).
I doubt if the line will be limited to 100K, but they need to balance what vehicles are being produced. It may be battery supply that is the constraint, it may be some other factor, but I suspect the the R1T/R1S and other consumer vehicles (Ford/Lincoln skateboards?) will have a fairly high priority.
 

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CappyJax

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Ford produces well over 100,000 Transit in a year. And they have dozens of iterations.
 

EVJay

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I doubt they have 100k preorders, it's not like amazon isn't giving them a ton of money, and this is an excellent opportunity to demo how fast and effectively they can design and start building a fleet vehicle with their skateboard strategy. If Ford starts using their skateboard for any of their future fleet EVs, that could be massive. Also, knowing Bezos, he'd love to cut out the middlemen on shipping altogether. 100k may not be the end of it. But until they've ramped up to 250k cars a year, it's an awful lot for Rivian to chew on.
Wasn't it said somewhere that Ford would be using the skateboard for their version of the F150 EV?
 

DucRider

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Wasn't it said somewhere that Ford would be using the skateboard for their version of the F150 EV?
No, Ford has stated they will not be using the Rivian skateboard on the electric F-150, but would on other EVs.
 

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At least not the first generation. They were already pretty far into their own development of the F-150 EV before they invested/partnered with Rivian, I think.
 
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CappyJax

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Yes, the first videos I saw of the F150 EV looked like they simply used the old truck and added on the electrics. You can see in this video that everything looks like a regular F150.

 
 




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