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Cosmacelf

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Ok, so that's an interesting thought that I can get on board with. That being said, there are a lot of companies using prismatic cells.

Agreed. I hadn't heard that GM had outsourced the actual pack design.
Yep, now that I looked it up, LG not only supplied the cells, but the battery pack too. Made it easy to apportion blame from a supplier perspective.

I realize prismatic cells are being used by everyone else, but that doesnā€™t make them better.
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Iwantatesla

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We have IwantTesla sharing info!
Yea bro. Iā€™m filming something that I think will be cool. Recovered from COVID and I got some gear arriving. Iā€™ve had a lot more time with the car and am getting the tonneau cover fixed. I hope to have something very soon.
 

Riviot

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Cavalryscout18

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Uh, whatā€™s with this screenshot?
Thatā€™s from when they tried to silence me :). Jk. Iā€™m the Mod in that thread. Last week, I asked about the need for Apple Car Play or Android Auto in the R1 models but someone informed me that there was no need for this topic again since a thread had already covered the topic. Obviously they were wrong since 1/4 of this thread is on that same topic. I thought it was a valid point considering that the original post was very old and based on outdated info before the truck was even released.
 

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cmiller

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So then how many "customer" vehicles did rivian really get out? I didn't see Sony counting ps5's they sent to game developers to test t as sales before release ?.
 

Attesan997

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Thatā€™s from when they tried to silence me :). Jk. Iā€™m the Mod in that thread. Last week, I asked about the need for Apple Car Play or Android Auto in the R1 models but someone informed me that there was no need for this topic again since a thread had already covered the topic. Obviously they were wrong since 1/4 of this thread is on that same topic. I thought it was a valid point considering that the original post was very old and based on outdated info before the truck was even released.
Since I'm in that caption I'll just add at this point I'm more amused with the AA/CP discussion than anything else. It's not hurting anyone so who am I to discourage it. I would never have guess there'd be continued discussion this late in the game, it's been a while since Rivian confirmed it wouldn't be an option.
 
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Dbeglor

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So then how many "customer" vehicles did rivian really get out? I didn't see Sony counting ps5's they sent to game developers to test t as sales before release ?.
I don't think many are being given to employees to test at any technical level (most employees of the company are not equipped to do so). I think in many cases they are just simply below the standard Rivian wants to provide their third-party customers. If you know that an unacceptably high % of the output as you start production will be flawed in some way, you have a choice where to send those vehicles as an emerging brand with only one chance at a first impression.

How should we re-count the true number of Model 3's and Y's delivered by Tesla? How many thousands (tens of thousands?) of each were delivered in early production that in Rivian's approach would have gone to employees, but instead just went to "real" customers? Should most of the Bolts be stricken from the record as never delivered because they were defective? Should any recall campaign render those vehicles as having not existed?

By some's logic, there will be numerous Rivians ultimately delivered to non-employees that are also "beta" in some form or fashion (we'll all be in software beta for several years), and I dread the debate that will take place on here when that time comes when someone will inevitably claim their own personal delivery should not "count" because it wasn't flawless.
 

cmiller

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I don't think many are being given to employees to test at any technical level (most employees of the company are not equipped to do so). I think in many cases they are just simply below the standard Rivian wants to provide their third-party customers. If you know that an unacceptably high % of the output as you start production will be flawed in some way, you have a choice where to send those vehicles as an emerging brand with only one chance at a first impression.

How should we re-count the true number of Model 3's and Y's delivered by Tesla? How many thousands (tens of thousands?) of each were delivered in early production that in Rivian's approach would have gone to employees, but instead just went to "real" customers? Should most of the Bolts be stricken from the record as never delivered because they were defective? Should any recall campaign render those vehicles as having not existed?

By some's logic, there will be numerous Rivians ultimately delivered to non-employees that are also "beta" in some form or fashion (we'll all be in software beta for several years), and I dread the debate that will take place on here when that time comes when someone will inevitably claim their own personal delivery should not "count" because it wasn't flawless.
If they are not counting them as test vehicles and they are actual customer vehicles then rivian should expect that those customers will post reviews in forums. I get that this particular person was not the owner, but if rivian didn't want stuff to come out then they should not have released them as "customer" vehicles until they were satisfied with the release. Unfortunately no matter how well a vehicle is released there will people complaining about something and can be blown out or proportion.
 

paariv

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How many non-insider deliveries have there been? (Saying ā€œinsiderā€ rather than employee to encompass families, former employees, etc.) I know @Iwantatesla got one, and I feel like I saw 1 or 2 more here or Reddit, but as this and the reddit thread show, we canā€™t be sure that people are who they say.

I have some suspicion (and owners need not answer if theyā€™re not comfortable doing so) that every delivery thus far has some strings attached or arose under special circumstances. We havenā€™t heard any owner talk about the details of their purchase - like when they first ordered, when they first heard from a guide, what their original delivery date was (if they even had one), or the like.

Of course not everyone posts about deliveries, but it is still quite odd to me that despite ā€œnon-employeeā€ deliveries beginning, no longtime members of this forum or reddit have gotten an R1T, or even a more firm delivery date now that we are in the new year (recall that some had Jan-Feb dates from the Thanksgiving emails). And there are no signs of ā€œnon-customerā€ deliveries continuing this year. Feels a bit like the September ā€œdeliveries,ā€ where a handful of vehicles went out to satisfy a deadline, but real production continued to lag.

As always, Iā€™d love to be wrong about this.
 

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Dbeglor

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If they are not counting them as test vehicles and they are actual customer vehicles then rivian should expect that those customers will post reviews in forums. I get that this particular person was not the owner, but if rivian didn't want stuff to come out then they should not have released them as "customer" vehicles until they were satisfied with the release. Unfortunately no matter how well a vehicle is released there will people complaining about something and can be blown out or proportion.
Why do that when you can control the narrative and not have people publicizing issues that aren't even relevant to the audience because they won't exist on the vehicles that will be delivered to them later?

Here's one example, which is just hypothetical, though somewhat rooted in a known issue:

Monday morning leadership meeting sometime in October, they let RJ know that there is an issue with the power tonneau. They've identified the fix, but due to current circumstances it will be a few months until replacement parts can be sourced and delivered to incorporate into builds.

Option A: stop production until the new parts are in, because they don't want to deliver defective trucks and deal with the bad press and brand hit with customers. Not to mention their infrastructure isn't developed enough yet to handle a recall of 100% of trucks delivered to fix the tonneau later. However, headlines will follow that read "Rivian halts production over issues with XX...." and all the follow-on damage that creates which could undermine the entire business and the chance to be successful at a critical juncture.

Option B: keep the line running, because that's why we have the strategy to deliver early production to employees, who are more than willing to accept flawed vehicles because they were told this upfront and know they will be fixed and are getting a large price discount in return. Keeping the line running enables them to stay on track tweaking and tuning all the thousands of other processes so that they don't lose several months and delay everyone's vehicles.

RJ: Option B, duh. Next?


If Tesla was at the same stage as Rivian and releasing the Model 3 as their first vehicle today, I believe the way they handled it would have had a different outcome. They were in a unique position of no competition back then, which afforded them the breathing room to push product out believing that they would push through it all before any competition arrived. A physically flawed EV was still far better than any other ICE option for the early adopter audience. I don't think that would have been nearly as successful in today's world.
 

Iwantatesla

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How many non-insider deliveries have there been? (Saying ā€œinsiderā€ rather than employee to encompass families, former employees, etc.) I know @Iwantatesla got one, and I feel like I saw 1 or 2 more here or Reddit, but as this and the reddit thread show, we canā€™t be sure that people are who they say.

I have some suspicion (and owners need not answer if theyā€™re not comfortable doing so) that every delivery thus far has some strings attached or arose under special circumstances. We havenā€™t heard any owner talk about the details of their purchase - like when they first ordered, when they first heard from a guide, what their original delivery date was (if they even had one), or the like.

Of course not everyone posts about deliveries, but it is still quite odd to me that despite ā€œnon-customerā€ deliveries beginning, no longtime members of this forum or reddit have gotten an R1T, or even a more firm delivery date now that we are in the new year (recall that some had Jan-Feb dates from the Thanksgiving emails). And there are no signs of ā€œnon-customerā€ deliveries continuing this year. Feels a bit like the September ā€œdeliveries,ā€ where a handful of vehicles went out to satisfy a deadline, but real production continued to lag.

As always, Iā€™d love to be wrong about this.
I don't have strings attached. What do responses actually achieve? People are going start extrapolating their delivery dates based on order date because of one data point. Short sellers are going to start creating their own story lines based on this (no demand, production issues, etc.). For those with Tesla we've been here before. It is an enormous distraction.

This is silly and needless to rile oneself up on. Also, because we are dealing with cars there are SO many other variables that are out of Rivian's hands (main one being government entities) that control the timeline for people. Then there's service infrastructure. Do you really want a car with no capability to service if something were to go wrong?

Manufacturing is hard and in our current logistics environment things are significantly more difficult. It's an estimate for a reason. Sometimes I wonder if it's better that company's don't provide any prospective delivery date (kind of like what GM is doing right now for myself and my other car where I keep refreshing the app but nothing happens). OH but I can't line up financing or plan my vehicle fleet accordingly. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

There's nothing wrong with delivering to employees first. Internally, it's a huge morale booster because they can see what their work manifests itself in (uh oh... some MBA/Org Psych speak) and it will be a net positive for a consumer so we don't have to be the guinea pigs.

With the PS5 analogy it doesn't make sense. Developers don't pay for the units. Employees paid for the car. It's a sale.

Anyway, rant over.
 

Iwantatesla

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Why do that when you can control the narrative and not have people publicizing issues that aren't even relevant to the audience because they won't exist on the vehicles that will be delivered to them later?

Here's one example, which is just hypothetical, though somewhat rooted in a known issue:

Monday morning leadership meeting sometime in October, they let RJ know that there is an issue with the power tonneau. They've identified the fix, but due to current circumstances it will be a few months until replacement parts can be sourced and delivered to incorporate into builds.

Option A: stop production until the new parts are in, because they don't want to deliver defective trucks and deal with the bad press and brand hit with customers. Not to mention their infrastructure isn't developed enough yet to handle a recall of 100% of trucks delivered to fix the tonneau later. However, headlines will follow that read "Rivian halts production over issues with XX...." and all the follow-on damage that creates which could undermine the entire business and the chance to be successful at a critical juncture.

Option B: keep the line running, because that's why we have the strategy to deliver early production to employees, who are more than willing to accept flawed vehicles because they were told this upfront and know they will be fixed and are getting a large price discount in return. Keeping the line running enables them to stay on track tweaking and tuning all the thousands of other processes so that they don't lose several months and delay everyone's vehicles.

RJ: Option B, duh. Next?


If Tesla was at the same stage as Rivian and releasing the Model 3 as their first vehicle today, I believe the way they handled it would have had a different outcome. They were in a unique position of no competition back then, which afforded them the breathing room to push product out believing that they would push through it all before any competition arrived. A physically flawed EV was still far better than any other ICE option for the early adopter audience. I don't think that would have been nearly as successful in today's world.
Much more eloquently put than what I wrote :)
 

cmiller

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Why do that when you can control the narrative and not have people publicizing issues that aren't even relevant to the audience because they won't exist on the vehicles that will be delivered to them later?

Here's one example, which is just hypothetical, though somewhat rooted in a known issue:

Monday morning leadership meeting sometime in October, they let RJ know that there is an issue with the power tonneau. They've identified the fix, but due to current circumstances it will be a few months until replacement parts can be sourced and delivered to incorporate into builds.

Option A: stop production until the new parts are in, because they don't want to deliver defective trucks and deal with the bad press and brand hit with customers. Not to mention their infrastructure isn't developed enough yet to handle a recall of 100% of trucks delivered to fix the tonneau later. However, headlines will follow that read "Rivian halts production over issues with XX...." and all the follow-on damage that creates which could undermine the entire business and the chance to be successful at a critical juncture.

Option B: keep the line running, because that's why we have the strategy to deliver early production to employees, who are more than willing to accept flawed vehicles because they were told this upfront and know they will be fixed and are getting a large price discount in return. Keeping the line running enables them to stay on track tweaking and tuning all the thousands of other processes so that they don't lose several months and delay everyone's vehicles.

RJ: Option B, duh. Next?


If Tesla was at the same stage as Rivian and releasing the Model 3 as their first vehicle today, I believe the way they handled it would have had a different outcome. They were in a unique position of no competition back then, which afforded them the breathing room to push product out believing that they would push through it all before any competition arrived. A physically flawed EV was still far better than any other ICE option for the early adopter audience. I don't think that would have been nearly as successful in today's world.
I get that, but if they are delivering actual customer vehicles then they are publicizing actual issues that are relevant since they are considered customer vehicles. It's only not relevant to customers if they are test vehicles. If people know of the issues for customer vehicles they can be on the lookout and see if the fix rivian did has worked. Bottom line is that if they are calling them customer vehicles then the issues are relevant.
 

Canthoney

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Yea bro. Iā€™m filming something that I think will be cool. Recovered from COVID and I got some gear arriving. Iā€™ve had a lot more time with the car and am getting the tonneau cover fixed. I hope to have something very soon.
I just wanted to say after being off the forums for a couple of days and coming back to all this, after seeing the original post. I appreciate all your guyā€™s dedication to protecting somebody who was wronged. It was a shitty thing for that Redditor to do that, and hopefully Rivian can see the nuance in this situation and not affect this personā€˜s employment.

And I wanted to say to @Iwantatesla, we all appreciate you freely offering up information and answering our questions, (admittedly some dumb ones, Iā€™m sure lol). Iā€™m hoping we all can keep up the positive and encouraging environment on this forum, (letā€™s not turn into Reddit! Lol) and look forward to meeting some of you in person at some Rivian events in the future!
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