Rivian VW joint venture officially launches. VW investment upped to $5.8 billion [Nov. 12, 2024]

[Joules Burn]

Feels like Rivian is going to become a VW brand. Not that that's a bad thing.

Please, no. Remember - Electrify America was produced from the sins of VW. If RAN is integrated with EA, I'm going back to ICE.

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[Donald Stanfield]

Which part of the above is inaccurate Don? Points 1,2 and 3 are facts, not opinion.

Or maybe you were referring to the opinion part?

It’s also fact that Rivian is doing software better than anyone else besides Tesla.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

VW hasn’t ordered any of the parts Rivian is currently using, because they’re not shipping in any cars. Why do you think Rivian has access to special VW pricing “now” on parts VW doesn’t even use yet? This seems like wishful thinking to me. At best Rivian can try to say, “give us a discount or we’ll influence VW to use other parts,” but that’s a huge bluff given that Rivian has poor ability to switch any parts on short notice, and because Rivian doesn’t control the joint venture. VW might get great future pricing because they committed to buying $X worth of parts, but a supplier would be a fool to leave money on the table by giving Rivian the same discount “now” without the same commitments. You are probably long RIVN stock.

And you know this how exactly?

 

[Shavaloo]

VW will own about 25% of Rivian stock at the end of five years, maybe more if there are future additions. If Rivian can’t stem the losses, at a certain point RJ will have no choice but to sell. Rivian’s chance of not being a VW brand in ten years are probably less than even at this point.

 

[Redline]

And you know this how exactly?

I'm guessing someone is getting squeezed this morning

 

[Bullwinkle]

Wassym the new co-CEO? Wow...

I guess if the SW your division produces is constantly filled with bugs, is always promising to release some promised feature from even years back now but never does release them, and now even a Federal Recall issued due to Halloween joke software safety issues.. that somehow qualifies you for the role of co-CEO ?

Big mistake to make this guy a co-CEO, he'd make a better media spokesperson. On the bright side, maybe Rivian OG is going to be better off without him.

Not much more than name calling and opinion here. Rivian makes buggy software because there was a problem with a recent update that was immediately resolved? If you owned a Rivian and had 10+ feature rich updates under your belt, you may have more credibility.

Those VW guys must be real dummies wasting $5.8 billion on this JV. How many recalls has you Jeep been in the shop for?

 

[NY_Rob]

Not much more than name calling and opinion here. Rivian makes buggy software because there was a problem with a recent update that was immediately resolved? If you owned a Rivian and had 10+ feature rich updates under your belt, you may have more credibility.

Those VW guys must be real dummies wasting $5.8 billion on this JV. How many recalls has you Jeep been in the shop for?

FYI- I owned an R1T from Jan 2023 till last month! That's just two months short of 2 full years ownership and tons of updates under my belt. Did you even look at when I joined the forum and my post count? I'm not today's fresh tuna posting gripes hit and run fashion.

My jeep has been flawless so far, thanks for asking. But I don't understand what Jeep SW has to do with Rivian software being buggy? I never ever compared the two because there is no comparison. Rivian is a 100% SW based vehicle right from the drawing board. Jeep is a 1940 design that's had electronics added to it over time, but it's by far still a legacy vehicle. Back on topic.. almost every time a new Rivian SW update is released there are multiple posters here saying "it broke this, or it broke that".

Do your research before posting:
Early "10+ feature rich updates" killed owners air compressors, made vents go wonky, increased vampire drain, messed up saved seat positions, caused the charge port door to act like a guillotine blade, caused icons to disappear from the screen, made the A/C compressor scream like a banshee, caused the vehicle to stop L2 charging if the charge port was in the sun, etc.. and these thing are still happening today. There have been several post update hot fixes released immediately following updates to correct buggy code that couldn't even wait till the next monthly regular update. And now the topper.. a simple festive theme update was buggy enough to make the Fed issue an official software recall due to reduced exterior lighting caused by the buggy theme.

If you prefer to hide your head in the sand and pretend these things didn't happen and everything's great, Be my guest. but when someone posts regarding factual incidents, best to fact check before calling them "opinions".

 

[R1S88]

FYI- I owned an R1T from Jan 2023 till last month! That's just two months short of 2 full years ownership and tons of updates under my belt. Did you even look at when I joined the forum and my post count? I'm not today's fresh tuna posting gripes hit and run fashion.

My jeep has been flawless so far, thanks for asking. But I don't understand what Jeep SW has to do with Rivian software being buggy? I never ever compared the two because there is no comparison. Rivian is a 100% SW based vehicle right from the drawing board. Jeep is a 1940 design that's had electronics added to it over time, but it's by far still a legacy vehicle. Back on topic.. almost every time a new Rivian SW update is released there are multiple posters here saying "it broke this, or it broke that".

Do your research before posting:
Early "10+ feature rich updates" killed owners air compressors, made vents go wonky, increased vampire drain, messed up saved seat positions, caused the charge port door to act like a guillotine blade, caused icons to disappear from the screen, made the A/C compressor scream like a banshee, caused the vehicle to stop L2 charging if the charge port was in the sun, etc.. and these thing are still happening today. There have been several post update hot fixes released immediately following updates to correct buggy code that couldn't even wait till the next monthly regular update. And now the topper.. a simple festive theme update was buggy enough to make the Fed issue an official software recall due to reduced exterior lighting caused by the buggy theme.

If you prefer to hide your head in the sand and pretend these things didn't happen and everything's great, Be my guest. but when someone posts regarding factual incidents, best to fact check before calling them "opinions".

Certainly there have been bugs as all software has but "constantly" seems like your opinion and not a fact unless you describe what you are benchmarking against. I think that is what the others are saying. It's also a fact that Rivian is delivering feature-rich improvements on a regular basis, but are the associated bugs excessive, normal, or better than average? VW thinks the software is worth a lot of money and the bugs are not significant.

 

[NY_Rob]

Certainly there have been bugs as all software has but "constantly" seems like your opinion and not a fact unless you describe what you are benchmarking against. I think that is what the others are saying. It's also a fact that Rivian is delivering feature-rich improvements on a regular basis, but are the associated bugs excessive, normal, or better than average? VW thinks the software is worth a lot of money and the bugs are not significant.

Thank you for the civil tone @R1S88...

My benchmarking of software software bugs are from personal experience over the past two years of ownership and active participation on this forum.

For documented sw bugs, we can refer Rivian tracker https://riviantrackr.com/updates/
Just click on "Read More" on any of the last 10-20 updates and scroll to the bottom to see all the "bug fixes" in every update. Many, many of the "bug fixes" are to correct something that was not problematic before the previous update(s) but now needs to be fixed.

 

[140 degrees]

i

VW will own about 25% of Rivian stock at the end of five years, maybe more if there are future additions. If Rivian can’t stem the losses, at a certain point RJ will have no choice but to sell. Rivian’s chance of not being a VW brand in ten years are probably less than even at this point.

VW has tied themselves to Rivian in a very strategic way. Obviously, none of us know how this will play out . I personally hope that Rivian stays independent.

1) The Rivian short trade is dead. It isn't in VW's interest to let it go bankrupt. They will protect the joint venture from getting into the wrong hands. They have already shown their willingness to buy Rivian stock. There will be a floor at which VW will accumulate Rivian shares. For the shorts, this is dead money, with limited upside and large potential loss. The smart shorts will try to beat the squeeze.

2) VW entered the joint venture because Rivian has shown the ability to innovate well. If they try to merge the R&D team into VW, The Rivian development team will be hampered by VW corporate culture. It is in VW's interest for Rivian to carry on as they are. Rivian will shake out the new technology, and VW can benefit from reduced risk as they move the technology to high volume production.

3) VW is trying to go direct to consumer with Scout. They already have been sued by their dealers. Rivian is doing this successfully. There may be an opportunity for VW here.

4) Costs will come down for Rivian. They will soon have moved a large part of software and hardware development costs to the JV. Their total R&D cost in 2023 was 1.9B. How much of this will be rolled into the JV is unknown to us. It is also unclear how stock options held by the engineers that are transferred to the new entity will be handled. It could show up as a one-time positive on Rivian's cash flow if they are replaced by the JV. Even though the JV is owned equally by the two companies, VW will pay 75% of the expenses.

5) Component costs associated with the SDV implementation will be reduced substantially in the long term. There will be custom VLSI and tooling that reduces hardware cost in anticipation of increased volume. If they are successful in selling the software system to other auto manufacturers, they associated hardware volumes will also increase.

6) Rivian wants to take the R2, R3, and delivery vehicles Europe. The JV will have VW's support in navigating many of the regulatory and localization hurdles.

 

[Rivianready]

Interesting article from Seeking Alpha regarding the JV between VW and Rivian.

Read Here.

 

[Bullwinkle]

Thank you for the civil tone @R1S88...

My benchmarking of software software bugs are from personal experience over the past two years of ownership and active participation on this forum.

For documented sw bugs, we can refer Rivian tracker https://riviantrackr.com/updates/
Just click on "Read More" on any of the last 10-20 updates and scroll to the bottom to see all the "bug fixes" in every update. Many, many of the "bug fixes" are to correct something that was not problematic before the previous update(s) but now needs to be fixed.

I apologize for the tone. I own a 22 Grand Cherokee 4XE. There have been numerous recalls that required a dealer appointment. In fact I was just notified of another. Software fixes and updates are a part of virtually every commercial software product. Go to the App Store and look at most any app--the update history is there to see. It would be more concerning if there were not frequent updates.

 

[Rizzian]

VW folks are gonna be salty when they lose CarPlay.

 

[140 degrees]

VW folks are gonna be salty when they lose CarPlay.

I doubt it. I'm the short term owner of an id.4. I like the car, but the software is poor. Perhaps other vendors do a better job, but IMHO, VW's id.4 integration with carplay is not user friendly. Rivian's user interface is much better. If you look at the id.4 forum, there are lots of complaints about VW software.

As another example, I received notification of an available software update on the id.4. It wouldn't complete the update over the air so I made an appointment and took it to the dealer. They kept it for the day and sent me home without being able to do the update. Still waiting.

 

[mkhuffman]

Three recent vehicles: Ford (Mach-e), GM (Cadillac) and Stellantis (Jeep). The software in all three is pretty buggy. The Cadillac was older, so there wasn't as much going on - it was simple, relatively stable and not great at all.

My Jeep GC software is really bad. When it works, it is sluggish and frustrating. It has bugs out the wazoo, and I only have received one OTA in the last year. The OTA did improve a few things, but none of the bugs have been fixed from what I can tell.

My Mach-e software is better than the Jeep, but also many bugs. The difference with the Mach-e is lots of OTAs, and lots of improvements. They often break something with a release, and then it takes months for that new problem to be fixed.

So yes, the bar is very low.

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