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LaunchGreen

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So, if we look at the amended numbers and compare to social media, most of these deliveries are not posting to social media. They are invisible to the forum and this they obviously must not count, right??

point being, let’s stop thinking that those of us here have any clue what is going on in terms of the business progress
As we have seen, a measurable percentage of deliveries WILL post to social media and it will be a valuable tool in estimating deliveries. I know it probably pains you, but all of us saying there were no significant deliveries were 100% correct.

Why did we see multiple social reports this week? Probably because a bunch of deliveries happened as they crammed them in before the update.

Udoubtedly, those so blinded by fanboyism that they will overlook anything Rivian does without challenge won’t like my comment and that’s fine. Keep being blindly loyal…. and wrong.
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KurtP

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This is extremely disappointing especially if you consider the likelihood that a significant number of "customers" are actually employees.

Employee deliveries do not count as they are not going to be openly criticizing the company (or products of that company) that they work for.

I have a R1S preorder, but depending on how others (e.g. Volvo) executes in 2022, I may switch to another manufacturer.
 

CharlieSA

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Anyone got a comparison with the early MS Tesla ramp up? Just trying to get a comparison point
 

NashvilleR1S

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Do you think the R1S will ramp up at the same pace? Or will it be faster since the R1T line will(hopefully) be humming by then?
 

svet-am

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Employee deliveries do not count as they are not going to be openly criticizing the company (or products of that company) that they work for.
I legitimately do not understand why this is the criteria for a delivery to "count." A delivery is a delivery regardless of whether the person taking delivery is going to be critical or not. It sounds (to me) like what you're really wanting is a review. In terms of feedback/review, I agree that I'd like to see non-employees get their hands on one. Still, deliveries have happened regardless of whether or not we can get a "review" out of it.
 

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It's possible they stopped producing them for a few days in order to work out some issues too.
I assume they run a small batch through the entire line, stop it and do a much more detailed (than normal) QA review of both the finished product and the mfg processes. Using this data, they make a number of adjustments to the line in an attempt to optimize throughput efficiency and product quality (as well as safety). Rinse and repeat. (The initial deliveries may also yield data that is factored into production line adjustments.)
 

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Do you think the R1S will ramp up at the same pace? Or will it be faster since the R1T line will(hopefully) be humming by then?
The R1S startup will go faster since it's maybe 70%+ common with R1T, but it will still have it's own challenges. At a minimum, more worker training, QA/QC procedures, component staging logisitics, etc. plus assembly learning curve challenges. Also, it's anyone's guess as to whether they will schedule production of R1S at the same rate as R1T. Will they initially run R1S for a day - a week - a month - to get caught up? My guess, based on a lot of startup experience, is that during R1S initial production, they will run the R1S exclusively for a few weeks, even if the ultimate goal is to run both on the same line on demand. The goal is always to minimize variables and start/stop cycles during a production line startup.
 

Zoidz

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This is extremely disappointing especially if you consider the likelihood that a significant number of "customers" are actually employees.

Employee deliveries do not count as they are not going to be openly criticizing the company (or products of that company) that they work for.
It's ony disappointing because you have set your own expectations which in hindsight were not realistic. Rivian committed to starting deliveries in September but never specified any production counts, and everyone has been discussing for months that employees would likely get the first deliveries. Just as Rivian is offering order holders pre-IPO stock, Rivian almost certainly opened pre-ordering of vehicles to employees before the general public. They were in line before us. Why shouldn't they get their vehicles first?

From a manufacturing, financial, business and legal viewpoint, Rivian vehicles are being delivered to customers. They are paying for the vehicles and registering them in multiple states. Rivian is receiving income from the sale. And I'm pretty sure the Rivian employees who have taken delivery consider themselves customers as well, especially when they make the car payment each month.

Because they may not openly criticize the product does not in any way disqualify them as being a customer.
 

Zoidz

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I agree this is disappointing. I think all of us hoped that the factory switches would be turned on and hundreds of vehicles would be produced this month.
I understand the hope that the turning on the switch would result in hundreds of vehicles rolling out the door immediately, but that's not how it works in real life, starting up any manufacturing operation.

Even in a "cookie cutter" process such as chocolate bars, it takes months to get up to full production rates. I've worked on multiple projects for a global food manufacturer (hint: "the very best - chocolate"). They had been making the products for decades on multiple dedicated lines. It took 18 months to build the new production line, and 3 months to get to 80% production on the first of several products the line could manufacture. When krunchy rice was added to the product, it was a whole new effort. Just that "little" change of adding krunchy rice to the chocolate forced dozens of changes to the process. The line had an automatic mold changer for different products names/sizes. The first time it was used to change product molds on the fly (even though it had been dry run for hundreds of hours), it failed spectacularly, and took a week to get it working properly. Some sizes failed to release from the mold properly. This is conceptually what Rivian is experiencing right now as they ramp up.

It takes time to ramp up.
 

Rhidan

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From a manufacturing, financial, business and legal viewpoint, Rivian vehicles are being delivered to customers.
For investors, there’s a material difference whether Rivian is making sales to the public or employees.

We could easily call these sales from “a legal viewpoint” sham contracts undertaken to give the appearance of business activity prior to an initial public offering. I don’t think that’s what Rivian is doing, but let’s stop the nonsense that sales to employees are the equivalent to sales to the general public. They are not.
 

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Canthoney

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I’m not concerned. I actually spoke to RJ at the First Mile Event back in September, and he told me they’re building a delivery experience center behind the factory for customer deliveries. It sounds like they want to do everything right before they start full retail customer units
 

timf

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Anyone got a comparison with the early MS Tesla ramp up? Just trying to get a comparison point
I do not have exact numbers, but the overall ramp up feels very similar to past Tesla ramp ups. The first 2-3 months seem excruciatingly slow, and then things finally open up to the masses. I expect we'll see a run of actual customer deliveries from December onward.
 

stumptown85

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That’s just a placeholder, they’ll update the amount prior to the IPO. Most likely the amount will be several billion.
My broker at Wells Fargo told me it’s $8b when he looked it up in their system, which is massive for an IPO.
 

3l3c7r1c

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I do not have exact numbers, but the overall ramp up feels very similar to past Tesla ramp ups. The first 2-3 months seem excruciatingly slow, and then things finally open up to the masses. I expect we'll see a run of actual customer deliveries from December onward.
I am concerned about using the same line for R1S. They possibly have to ramp up on that again for the SUV. Or maybe they simply delay R1S and focus on delivering as much in first couple of quarters. For IPO, first 2-3 quarters are very crucial.
 

Friscorays

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Bummer about March 1, 2022.
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