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Lack of Communication??

DucRider

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Okay, yeah, I'd also like to know when the test drive events will happen now that things are moving again. At least whether hoping for fall test drives would be delusional.
Sorry, my crystal ball is on the blink and in the shop for repair. I doubt that Rivian's is working either.

Supply chains and manufacturing are still spotty and problematic, and for someone like Rivian to commit to a time line for much of anything at this point would be pure guesswork on their part.

Disneyland was putting plans in motion to reopen, but that was put on hold when their employees expressed their discomfort at what that would mean for them.

Doing test drives would mean Rivian employees put inside a closed vehicle with hundreds of people in every location/event. Or turn the "keys" over and say "come back in 10 minutes". Both of those options are probably not terribly attractive to Rivian.

They can't tell us what they don't know.

I guess it would make some people feel better to get an email stating:
"We don't have anything to tell you, nor do we know when we will have something to tell you. But we haven't forgotten about you!"
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Pherdnut

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Fair enough. That was basically my point earlier, but then it occurred to me this wouldn't be a bad place to sneak a wish-list to Rivian in : )
 

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Well I do not think anyone is expecting things to go back to normal anytime soon so probably Rivian has decided to concentrate their resources elsewhere instead of worrying about test drives.

Personally, I am not as concerned with the test drive as I am with the configuration site. But I have convinced myself to nothing before June 2021 to save myself the anxiety.
 

johnking

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I will plan on taking delivery of my Rivian only in late 2023. I have gone ahead and placed a Model X order to move to once my Model S lease is over. Had to do it early to lock on the FSD price. The silence/lack of guidance from Rivian barring the weekly videos is one of the reasons. But I would not blame them as they are trying to get their variables defined in a challenging and economically disruptive climate. I am still an interested customer but a future one and I had to do this to remove any anxiety around when the R1S will be ready. I still prefer the R1S over the Model X. My reservation is still intact but I will be configuring my vehicle way after most of you folks. Wishing everyone who is in the line the Best. Will keep an eye on the forum continuously !
 

LeoH

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I will plan on taking delivery of my Rivian only in late 2023. I have gone ahead and placed a Model X order to move to once my Model S lease is over. Had to do it early to lock on the FSD price. The silence/lack of guidance from Rivian barring the weekly videos is one of the reasons. But I would not blame them as they are trying to get their variables defined in a challenging and economically disruptive climate. I am still an interested customer but a future one and I had to do this to remove any anxiety around when the R1S will be ready. I still prefer the R1S over the Model X. My reservation is still intact but I will be configuring my vehicle way after most of you folks. Wishing everyone who is in the line the Best. Will keep an eye on the forum continuously !
I actually cancelled my Model X reservation, and opted to hang on to my Model S ( with RFS ) until the R1S comes out. I ordered mine late, and I am sure some will drop and some will opt for the small pack that will be produced later. I am really glad I convinced myself to go this route because I really did not want another Tesla!
 

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johnking

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I actually cancelled my Model X reservation, and opted to hang on to my Model S ( with RFS ) until the R1S comes out. I ordered mine late, and I am sure some will drop and some will opt for the small pack that will be produced later. I am really glad I convinced myself to go this route because I really did not want another Tesla!

Good for you. @LeoH Glad you have the option. Since I have a lease and based on how Tesla calculates the residual value (they add the $7500 tax credit to it), it would be like buying a used car 7.5K above the KBB. This time, I will be buying my Model X instead of leasing it. That way, I don't have to be locked in for 3 years and anytime I want to jump ship and get the R1S, I have that as an option on my side.

Per the little modelling I did earlier on this forum, Rough-calculation-of-rivian-orders-delivery-times, I will be getting my R1S in 2022 - Q3. So I will be looking at jumping ship in 2023. For those who have the ability to hang on with status quo, I would say hang-on until the awesome vehicles start rolling out from the Rivian plant.

Another factor that will determine if I wanna jump ship earlier is the Federal tax credit. I am hoping that the bulk order that Amazon has with Rivian doesn't count towards the EV federal tax credit. I know they are not passenger vehicles but I am no tax expert. But that is something I will need to keep an eye on.

Talking about not wanting to buy another Tesla. I feel your pain. Especially recent challenges with getting to talk to Service Center or any support folks, finance folks etc has been a daunting challenge. I hope Rivian doesn't go that route.

Last time, I was on a call with Tesla finance, I had to wait on the line for 1.5 hours before a human could come on the other side. But based on my testing so far, Tesla has the best Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) system out there. I have tested Merc, BMW, Volvo and none of them are as good as Tesla. ADAS is very key for me as I have 90% commute on the freeway and face bumper to bumper traffic in the city every day when I go to work.

Rivian R1T R1S Lack of Communication?? Screenshot_20200622-134631
 
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Coast2Coast

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johnking, can you elaborate on your modeling? You estimate it would be Q3 2022 when you get your R1S.

We've heard RJ and others say the goal for the first full year of production is 20,000 units. Assuming production starts Q2 2021, 15,000 units might be produced in 2021. That's probably overly optimistic; 10,000-12,500 is more realistic. By 2022, Normal should be producing at 20,000 units/year. So, by year's end 2022, 30-32.5K units should have been produced.

Backing up to Q3 2022, your estimated delivery date, and 26,000 to 28,500 units should have been produced. Does this calculation square with yours?

If so, you must be making the following assumptions:
1. Preorders are in the range of 35-40,000 and a certain %, say 10%, will not culminate in orders.
2. Your preorder is roughly number 27K.
3. The Amazon van line will not slow down production on the Rivian truck line.
4. R1S orders will not be appreciably delayed relative to R1T orders.

As I said, I'm curious. You did such a terrific job with Rough-calculation-of-rivian-orders-delivery-times that I'm wanting to see how your calculated a Q3 2022 delivery date.
 

johnking

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@Coast2Coast - Mark, I placed the order in Q3 of 2019. So, per my modelling, on the 10K orders assumed, I would be getting my vehicle latest by Q1 of 2022 (Sorry, my bad not Q3 as stated earlier).

Rivian R1T R1S Lack of Communication?? 1593569838973


By the way, I would love to know how you came up with 27K as my order #. Would love to include that in the modelling.

The simulation I ran was for 10K orders with the following assumed throughput.

1st year (2021) Throughput - 5,800 cars/trucks
2nd year (2022) Throughput - 10,500 cars/trucks [In the table above, you can see I do not have any values for 2022-Q2, Q4 as I run out of cars to be manufactured in the modelling]

If we extrapolate this to 30K orders instead of 10K. It will look something like this.

Total Orders: 31,429

Production starts in Q2 of 2021.

Spread out in the same pattern of the forum members' calculated order date. Please note that I am limiting the time to Q1 of 2020 when I last did the calculation (in the 2nd week of April 2020).

Rivian R1T R1S Lack of Communication?? 1593578157567



Coming back to my color coding and the table for the data that is in the graph. Keep an eye on the color coding in the last column on the right.

Rivian R1T R1S Lack of Communication?? 1593578314312


The is the burndown. 12,500 orders a year comes to 1042 orders a month. Assume that this is the throughput for 2021. In 2022 and 2023, lets assume that Rivian is going in full steam with a throughput of 20,000 orders a year (1,667 a month). Then the burndown would look like this.

Rivian R1T R1S Lack of Communication?? 1593578743177


In this scenario, my R1S will be ready in 2022 Q2 or Q3 since I placed my order in Sept 2019.

Let me know if I missed out anything in the calculation other than the assumptions already made in the previous calculation.

Edit - Corrected some grammatical errors. No change in core content or data.
 
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Coast2Coast

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Hi John, Thank you for the details of your model. I was interested and I'm sure others are too.

My calculations are elementary by comparison. As laid out above, I made these assumptions:
1. Preorders are in the range of 35-40,000 and a certain %, say 10%, will not culminate in orders.
2. Your preorder is roughly number 27K.
3. The Amazon van line will not slow down production on the Rivian truck line.
4. R1S orders will not be appreciably delayed relative to R1T orders.

Two key assumptions are the last two.

I estimated your preorder number as 27,000 by relying on your estimated delivery date, Q3 2022.
I got there by estimating the size of the production runs in 2021 and 2022 and then walking back to Q3 2022. Using my approach, if you now think your delivery will be in Q1 2022, I'd say your preorder number is around 15,250 (10-12.5K units in '21 + 4,000 units in Q1 2022).

Since we don't really know preorder numbers, it's really hard to estimate deliveries. Your assumptions on preorder numbers and size of production runs are rather different than mine. It's really a question of how quickly production will ramp. If Rivians are as good as we think they'll be, the company will be far more production constrained than demand constrained in the first few years. Beyond 2025, the balance will shift. How many Rivians are sold will be determined primarily by how well they are accepted in the market and, secondarly, by what the model mix is.

By model mix, I mean what sort of vehicles Rivian offers. We think we know the first four: R1T, R1X, Amazon van, and some sort of four door, rally vehicle (at least according to the images being circulated). All of these are rather specialized vehicles with the possible exception of the first two, which are the most popular body types in America. What comes next? A good question.

A sedan? I don't think that's the RJ way. A smaller R1S? Isn't that the 4 door rally vehicle? A larger R1T? I don't think so. GM, Ford and Tesla offer pickups larger than the R1T. Why go into that crowded space? A smaller R1T? Perhaps but middle to small-size pickups don't sell well in N. America, not when for a little more money you can get a large medium to full size truck.

My guess is the commercial van space. Three different size Amazon vans are already on the drawing boards and will be produced. The market for vans is huge, both as package and people carriers, and the possibility of a recreation/adventure oriented van is considerable. If these musings are correct, Rivian already has a 7-8 vehicle roadmap in place. Assuming production capacity at Normal is 250K vehicles/year, the plant will be hitting full capacity before too long.

Actually plant capacity was 250K/year when Mitsubishi owned it and Mitsubishi was producing small vehicles. So capacity may be lower. On the other hand, Rivian is adding about 400,000 square feet to the existing 2.6 million square feet, so perhaps 250K/year is not a bad estimate.

What do you think the vehicle roadmap will be and how soon will Normal be at full capacity?
 
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EyeOnRivian

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An important variable is not being considered nor can it be and that's the final cost of the configured vehicle. Rivian has indicated on their website, in their confirmation email and in interviews that "fully equipped vehicles with the highest performance level and largest battery pack will enter production first. "

So it's conceivable, and probably very likely IMO, that for example an Apr 2019 pre-order that eventually gets configured for a fully loaded 135 kWh BP can be fulfilled before a Nov. 2018 pre-order configured for a no option 180 kWh BP. Point being we have no idea how Rivian is going weight these variables (final cost, battery pack, order in line, etc.) to determine fulfillment order.

What do you think the vehicle roadmap will be and how soon will Normal be at full capacity?
With regards to the vehicle roadmap, when I spoke to the R1S team lead at the Normal event last October and got talking about a longer bed version of the R1T, he mentioned the next pair of EVs will be shorter/smaller versions of the R1T and R1S. Now that was over 9 months ago, pre-pandemic, and other manufactures throwing their hat into the EV space, and those plans could have easily changed. I suspect it might be Rivian's plan to continue to offer adventure style EVs but at a lower price point.
 

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Coast2Coast

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With respect to a vehicle roadmap, a platform strategy makes the most sense. Rivian's platform is the skateboard, battery packs, battery management systems, and software integration of many sub-systems. If much of that can be kept the same, economies of scale and scope may be realized.

Keeping as much as possible the same, I believe the options are: 1) reduce motors to two, one per axle; 2) stretch the skateboard, 3) scrunch it, 4) leave it the same, but design a bunch of different 'top hats' as Rivian calls vehicles in white. Of course, option combinations are possible, so the number of different possibilities are large.

I don't know how reducing motors to two will affect vehicle dynamics and performance, factors on which Rivian has invested huge amounts of resources, but perhaps a downsized, two motor R1T and R1S make sense. Not as much mass is driven, so four motors are not needed and saving on motors and related gear will bring down the price point, and this is important if Rivian wants to expand its customer base and enter the mainstream market.

The Amazon vans, as far as we know, fall into the fourth option - changing top hats. With the exercise already well under way, the commercial van market for packages and people seems a no-brainer. Mercedes, Ford and Dodge sell a lot of vans.

My point is straightforward. Without a lot of new development and by leveraging what Rivian already has done, a model mix of 8-10 different vehicles seems quite doable. A couple of pickups, a couple of SUVs, a rally car, a sports car, and 3-5 different sorts of vans, all of which are based on Rivian's exisiting skateboard-battery-software platform.
 

johnking

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Hi John, Thank you for the details of your model. I was interested and I'm sure others are too.

My calculations are elementary by comparison. As laid out above, I made these assumptions:
1. Preorders are in the range of 35-40,000 and a certain %, say 10%, will not culminate in orders.
2. Your preorder is roughly number 27K.
3. The Amazon van line will not slow down production on the Rivian truck line.
4. R1S orders will not be appreciably delayed relative to R1T orders.
Thanks Mark for the details and how you are deriving the pre-order #. I agree the lack of any information at this point makes it difficult for us to add any accuracy to the calculations, estimations. Lets keep looking out and circle back if we hear anything reported on the progress Rivian is making.
 

Moonjock

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I asked about the configurator today and received the following reply.

No problem! Yes, I'm happy to share we are tracking for the launch of configurator later this year! Within the configurator, you’ll be able to customize your R1T with your favorite color, trim level, battery pack options, and more. You’ll also be able to see pricing and the delivery window for your vehicle as much of this will be reliant on your configuration.
 

EyeOnRivian

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I asked about the configurator today and received the following reply.

No problem! Yes, I'm happy to share we are tracking for the launch of configurator later this year! Within the configurator, you’ll be able to customize your R1T with your favorite color, trim level, battery pack options, and more. You’ll also be able to see pricing and the delivery window for your vehicle as much of this will be reliant on your configuration.
Thanks for sharing that update. Interesting Rivian didn't say "late summer" but instead "later this year."
 

Moonjock

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I caught that too.
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