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Stack

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Sounds like Farley is whining and trying to put Rivian down. Sure it would be great for Rivian to go for a larger volume buyer, but they can't produced them fast enough for Amazon, so what's the point. Every single Amazon delivery van driver I talk to have nothing but praise the the Rivian vans. They hate the Mercedes and Ford vans. This van is really a great design and I'm sure they will eventually sell to other people, but they have to make their quota to Amazon first. Camper van would be a great idea!
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EBEG

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In my opinion, the main reason big time CEOs are in the position they are in, is because they are great at identifying and manipulating people who can help them get recognition. In other words, they are great politicians. These statements feel purely political.
 

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Farley all over the news these days. He will be dreading the day that the Rivian EDV goes public and competes directly with his Transit vans. From what I've read, these small fleet contractors absolutely LOVE electric and lowers their overall running costs significantly vs gas/diesel.
 

Longreach

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In my opinion, the main reason big time CEOs are in the position they are in, is because they are great at identifying and manipulating people who can help them get recognition. In other words, they are great politicians. These statements feel purely political.
Very true. Auto industry CEOs are under heavy pressure during this electrification transition period, so have to say the things Wall St wants to hear. They all understand it’s part of the job.

Some CEOs have a friendly relationship like Farley and Musk, so they understand talking points are just things that need to be said for the benefit of a audience. Some have past close interactions, like Farley and RJ before Ford divested, so their comments may be candid observations based on intimate knowledge, but of course spun for their company’s benefit. And some live in an isolated internally focused world, not having a relationship with anyone, like Mary Barra.

Ford comes from a position of commercial market dominance, so Farley’s comments have some merit. But it’s nothing RJ doesn’t already know, or has heard before when Ford was on the board. As a small start up, he had to pick and choose from his limited opportunities, which is what he did.
 

Longreach

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Farley all over the news these days. He will be dreading the day that the Rivian EDV goes public and competes directly with his Transit vans. From what I've read, these small fleet contractors absolutely LOVE electric and lowers their overall running costs significantly vs gas/diesel.
To be fair, Ford has electric Transit vans too. At the end of the day, commercial users are driven by TCO, so Rivian’s main challenge is to ensure they are cost competitive with e-Transits, Brightdrops, e-Sprinters and any other e-vans coming down the pipeline.
 

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Guy

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Sounds like Farley is whining and trying to put Rivian down. Sure it would be great for Rivian to go for a larger volume buyer, but they can't produced them fast enough for Amazon, so what's the point. Every single Amazon delivery van driver I talk to have nothing but praise the the Rivian vans. They hate the Mercedes and Ford vans. This van is really a great design and I'm sure they will eventually sell to other people, but they have to make their quota to Amazon first. Camper van would be a great idea!
They can produce them fast enough. The problem is Amazon only want 10k this year and Rivian can make many more since the EDV line is half the capacity of the factory and running at only 10k for the year is inefficient. Hence why they want the exclusivity lift early.
 

zajak1

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Wouldn't you rather get a large order vs chasing down all the plumbers, especially given the time and effort to corsal all those cats...You're producing 100,000 EDVs, that are all the same specs etc...One model...Sure sounds like a better way to go from a resources perspective. In addition, you also have ongoing services revenue from the Amazon client...what do you get from a bunch of plumbers...Wall Street is actually assigning addition value for this revenue stream. And you have Fed-X, UPS, USPS, more Amazon orders etc...and who says commercial isn't going EV....I'd go with Amazon's opinion on logistics before I'd listen to the CEO of F.
I question the legitimacy of F comments..First, they are angel investors, then they decide to electrify the F150 and dump the R stock...Sure sounds like they have EV Truck envy.. Good luck with your ICE legacy business, the constant recalls that Ford and others seem to have (without OTA fixes) and the crappy balance sheet that you have along with it.
 

HaveBlue

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Certainly Rivian and Amazon have to sort out delivery volume and adjust. If you watch the video on the EDV design and see how much thought was put into it down to the height of the seat, you realize that a Ford Transit and other old style truck are not going to be that great getting in and out 100 times per day and locating a package in comparison.
 

CascadianApe

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Source: Detroit Free Press

This is what Ford CEO Jim Farley recently had to say about Rivian's van strategy:

“Rivian has one customer. Amazon.”​
“Rivian only has a van for delivery. 95 percent of the commercial industry is small-medium sized business with like 1,000 different locations. Last-product-delivery is like tiny, tiny. … I mean, FedEx, UPS, they’re great. But I want the plumber who’s got five vans. They don’t have a fleet manager. Everything is super confusing to them. They don’t even have time for the vehicles to go to a dealer and schedule it. They’re really underserved. The big fleets are overserved. They can do it all themselves. They’re huge.”​
“I always told (Rivian CEO) RJ (Scaringe), ‘Are you sure you want to bet on Amazon? Don’t you want to go after all the real customers?’ But, that’s what he decided to do,” Farley added. “Rivian and the reality of the commercial business couldn’t be more different. Also, most commercial customers aren’t going electric.”​

You guys agree or disagree with Farley?

Absolutely agree 100%. The amount of interest there is for the smaller EDV500 was insane yet RJ and leadership have ignored it and even talked down about it internally. They signed their soul and hitched their way to Amazon. This was to gain a large amount of capital extremely quickly.

No is going to like this, but RJ is a TERRIBLE leader! They've hired the wrong people and allowed those poor hires to drive away the talent that once occupied Rivian. Internally it's really a shell of what it was between 2020 and mid 2022. They had the best talent and tons of money, but squandered it on toxic leadership and weird projects internally.
 

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Absolutely agree 100%. The amount of interest there is for the smaller EDV500 was insane yet RJ and leadership have ignored it and even talked down about it internally. They signed their soul and hitched their way to Amazon. This was to gain a large amount of capital extremely quickly.

No is going to like this, but RJ is a TERRIBLE leader! They've hired the wrong people and allowed those poor hires to drive away the talent that once occupied Rivian. Internally it's really a shell of what it was between 2020 and mid 2022. They had the best talent and tons of money, but squandered it on toxic leadership and weird projects internally.
Would you happen to have any supporting evidence or is this one of those trust me bro type posts.
 

CascadianApe

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Chet...where do u get this insight from?
Spent sometime on the inside and my NDA expired so yeah. It's a hot fuckin mess in their. Had a great time with my team and learned a ton, but yeah the brass is a total shit show. The amount of potential the company had was amazing, but greed and refusal to see reality has really hurt their long term viability.

I hope they're super successful cause portfolio, but I'm not confident with the current leadership of the company. They'd do better if they got a business professional in charge instead of an engineer.


The RT was soooooooooooooo cool!!!!!
 

WooHoo!

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In the last three weeks I have twice seen a Rivian delivery van fully painted in FedEx colors in active use. Each time it was delivering packages to offices in Newport Beach CA. Maybe it's the same van. Has anybody else seen FedEx driving a Rivian? Have you seen any other firms using Rivian delivery vehicles?
 

zajak1

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Spent sometime on the inside and my NDA expired so yeah. It's a hot fuckin mess in their. Had a great time with my team and learned a ton, but yeah the brass is a total shit show. The amount of potential the company had was amazing, but greed and refusal to see reality has really hurt their long term viability.

I hope they're super successful cause portfolio, but I'm not confident with the current leadership of the company. They'd do better if they got a business professional in charge instead of an engineer.


The RT was soooooooooooooo cool!!!!!
Sorry but by definition, insiders who are now outsiders/whistleblowers have an axe to grind.
Clearly, someone, RJ ?? pissed you off…
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