Tick Tick Tick...

[SeaGeo]

Pre-ordered in March 2019. I'm trying not to be pessimistic and believe if Rivian is making deliveries to employees and not to pre-order holders, it's because the velocity of issues with the vehicles found in the field by employees at this moment would provide a poor initial ownership experience and overwhelm their fledgling repair and support network. There is likely some baseline of quality they have to hit in terms of day 1 issues before they can consider end customer deliveries. So, I hope they sort out whatever is preventing them from ramping up customer deliveries soon and get the pipeline open, however small. In other news, have a Lightning, Cybertruck and Fisker preorder so heads up Rivian, first in wins. In a practical sense though, I hope Rivian wins. Lightning would be fine but that truck is pretty huge. Cybertruck....yeah. Fisker is kind of a "hail mary" but the Ocean is visually appealing. I just hope a viable option shows up this year. I'm not buying another ICE vehicle and I want a truck.

That's the logical assumption - but if that's the case you'd think that we'd pick up on that from say.... @Iwantatesla's experience with his truck. Or the truck that a non-employee has on the RS site. I haven't heard him running around talking about having a bunch of issues. It just seems fishy to me.

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[r1t_kev]

Same boat. I actually took my chances with CSS earlier this week to try to glean something new from them and had an exceptionally frusterating experience with them on chat; borderline hostile. The agent was far and away the worst I've interacted with. Went to bed that day with a very uneasy feeling about the rest of the month.

The frustration is definately building, even for the evangelists amongst us--which is why I believe they've got to start making meaningful deliveries. Even if there are a couple dozen in the last two days of february that bleed over into march, thats not gonna hack it for alot of people.

I don't think I'd read a negative customer service experience as a company-wide execution fail. As someone who sits between manufacturers and customers with special orders, I get salty with people occasionally. Those employees are human and are at the mercy of the information (lack thereof) they have. It's clear from this thread and other similar ones that the natives are restless, which is understandable, but it doesn't change anything. That's a hard point to communicate effectively to someone who's patience is wearing thin - it's just as likely that customer service's patience is wearing thin too. Seems reasonable. The constant bugging for updates when there are no updates would have to be tiresome. If I were in their shoes, I'd be in marketing/IT's office daily asking for the online order tracker update tout suite.

 

[GaryL]

This may be frustrating, but it's neither unforeseeable nor existential,

Not frustrated but you said it yourself the challenges are neither unforeseeable or existential. I'm more concerned about managements skill level and the remainder of my RIVN holdings

 

[stynes]

I'm not sure why we all act like this is some big surprise. We've known since well before the Normal plant was fired up that scale and logistics are the hard part.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, now... don't say plant and fire in the same sentence. WAY too soon.

 

[bd5400]

The end of December delivery rush had me feeling pretty positive about things. If they have an issue getting trucks on trucks, maybe have a bunch of people go pick trucks up in Normal like the employees did in December?

While most have spoken of production delays, I've been wondering how well shipping has been going for them. It seems like there are issues in the market in general with getting enough truck capacity. We have a Ford Bronco that was built in early January that is still "waiting for shipment". Ford keeps bumping the date back and now we're being told it's late February for dealership arrival.

 

[IPTV65]

While most have spoken of production delays, I've been wondering how well shipping has been going for them. It seems like there are issues in the market in general with getting enough truck capacity. We have a Ford Bronco that was built in early January that is still "waiting for shipment". Ford keeps bumping the date back and now we're being told it's late February for dealership arrival.

They key statement is "now we're being told it's late February" At least they told you something...which is better than nothing. BTW...sorry you are having to wait for that one as well. It seems to be how it goes these days but some semblance of customer service is helpful.

 

[Rivian_Hugh_III]

The employees are the Beta testers of this brand new electronics device. I noticed that several of the negatives that FTL brought up in their videos were fixed through software updates within two weeks.

I think they're iterating *fast* and trying to get to a level that is high quality before giving anything to anyone outside of NDA.

You could argue that high quality first impressions will be essential to Rivian's long term success. They're going to need every truck sold to inspire 5 more orders among their family and friends. That means initial quality must be excellent.

Also, they don't have the most robust service team in place yet. So, doing on-sight updates for people would take for ever (for the tonneau, for example).

I think they're right to keep putting us off, for the sake of delighting us when the delivery finally comes. Only... I hope Rivian knows when the time is right to say "good enough." You can't keep tweaking for ever.

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[IlliniRivian]

You could argue that high quality first impressions will be essential to Rivian's long term success. They're going to need every truck sold to inspire 5 more orders among their family and friends. That means initial quality must be excellent.

To me that's important, the terrible lack of communication - particularly for R1S - already has me less likely to encourage friends to order. At a minimum, it would come with a big warning. At this point, it will take a lot for Rivian to fully win back my trust because I think receiving a high quality vehicle is the expectation when spending $75k+. If I get a car without issues, I won't deal with Rivian directly for a long time and they won't be able to win back my trust on certain issues. If I am dealing with Rivian directly, they can win me back on customer service but only because the vehicle itself has numerous quality issues. In other words, Rivian has blown it as far as I am concerned on brand trust (and yes, I will keep my reservation because it is an awesome vehicle and nothing on the market compares yet).

For comparison, I know Land Rover's have a bad quality reputation but I have had 3 Land Rover vehicles with minimum issues. And, importantly, I have been treated exceptionally well by my local dealership in addressing each issue and I would recommend that dealership without hesitation based on my experience as a result.

 

[Trandall]

Pre-ordered in March 2019. I'm trying not to be pessimistic and believe if Rivian is making deliveries to employees and not to pre-order holders, it's because the velocity of issues with the vehicles found in the field by employees at this moment would provide a poor initial ownership experience and overwhelm their fledgling repair and support network. There is likely some baseline of quality they have to hit in terms of day 1 issues before they can consider end customer deliveries. So, I hope they sort out whatever is preventing them from ramping up customer deliveries soon and get the pipeline open, however small. In other news, have a Lightning, Cybertruck and Fisker preorder so heads up Rivian, first in wins. In a practical sense though, I hope Rivian wins. Lightning would be fine but that truck is pretty huge. Cybertruck....yeah. Fisker is kind of a "hail mary" but the Ocean is visually appealing. I just hope a viable option shows up this year. I'm not buying another ICE vehicle and I want a truck.

Welcome to the forum.
We just instituted a new rule, you must now get 3 more preorder holders to join and 1 new person to place a preorder.
Joking. In all seriousness this is a good place to get the latest Rivian scoop and learn about ev's in general even if it takes a bit of sorting.

 

[crashmtb]

I can confirm with 100% certainty, that mine has not arrived.

Thst was this morning. It’s late afternoon now. Could you have a peek outside for us?

 

[LaunchGreen]

How come you can state all of this but Rivian can’t? Your sentiments aren’t wrong but they are a version of the same old arguments and apologies that people have been making for Rivian for months.

The frustration comes from the lack of guidance and communication from Rivian. It borders on the disrespectful to miss a promised timeframe with no notification to the customer.

No amount of supply shortages, Covid etc prevents a company from treating its customers with even a minimum amount of respect.

Why does it just “border on” disrespectful?

 

[moosehead]

......We've known since well before the Normal plant was fired up that scale and logistics are the hard part. We saw Tesla almost go bankrupt because of this same part. Even assuming the R1T is perfect and no assembly line challenges, nationwide fulfillment is still a hard part. Trucks take weeks, not days, to get from assembly line to customer in the best case. And of course, the assembly line will have challenges, the supply chain does have challenges.....

Kinda sounds existential.

 

[kylealden]

Kinda sounds existential.

Well - in the sense that shipping at scale is existential, yes. But week to week or even month to month slips for orders in the single digit hundreds and thousands are not the issue.

Let's not forget that Rivian is in a much stronger cash position than Tesla was at the Model 3 launch, too. The Model 3 ramp was a crisis because the company wouldn't make payroll much longer and had no real bailout plan; Rivian has a little less acute pressure.

 

[kylealden]

How come you can state all of this but Rivian can’t? Your sentiments aren’t wrong but they are a version of the same old arguments and apologies that people have been making for Rivian for months.

The frustration comes from the lack of guidance and communication from Rivian.

I guess I'm confused on what you want them to say. "You still don't have a truck, manufacturing is hard?" Something tells me wouldn't actually feel better.

I really do think we're all reasonably frustrated because we hoped it would be sooner and it's not. That feels like a communication problem because we want to be told something to feel better. But there's little Rivian can actually tell us to feel better that doesn't put them at risk, since what we want is more forecasting (and maybe a dollop of trade secrets and/or privileged information that the SEC might have opinions about).

It sounds like an easy problem because words are easy, but accurate projections are not easy. I genuinely don't think anyone on this forum, if made Communications Director at Rivian tomorrow, would be particularly likely change a damn thing upon getting the lay of the land.

I'm really not trying to apologize for Rivian here, so much as suggest a dollop of empathy. It's perfectly fine to be frustrated; the truth is you're buying a truck at the bleeding edge from an unproven company in a particularly challenging manufacturing environment. If you don't have the appetite for that, the correct answer may very well be to back out and buy something else. (Which, you'll find, is not necessarily easier.) That doesn't mean you should be happy with Rivian, but it also doesn't mean they are fumbling some obvious play here.

It borders on the disrespectful to miss a promised timeframe with no notification to the customer.

Look, I get this, and I even think Rivian flirted with the "promise" line a bit more than I'd like (especially in the most recent "delivery timeline" mail) - but it's important to remember that nobody here has a promise. We've placed a deposit that Rivian has no legal obligation to reward with an order at any particular time, or even at all. Check your preorder agreement.

I'm not saying that removes anyone's right to be frustrated here. It certainly doesn't. But I think it's important to view everything Rivian has said about timelines as a best-guess projection based on their information; viewing it as a promise both sets you up for disappointment and frustration, and misrepresents the actual relationship between parties.

 

[TexasBob]

Let's not forget that Rivian is in a much stronger cash position than Tesla was at the Model 3 launch, too. The Model 3 ramp was a crisis because the company wouldn't make payroll much longer and had no real bailout plan; Rivian has a little less acute pressure.

Ahhh the Model 3 Launch. I remember those days well (seems like long ago but it was only four years ago when Bloomberg was counting units every week and publishing how far behind they were - it took from August until April to get the first 10,000 units out the door and this was not their first vehicle!). I was a pre-reveal reservation holder and it was delay, after delay, after delay. There was deafening silence on the Tesla side. When cars finally started shipping there were issues after issues after issues. Don't even get me started on the multi-week trek from California to Texas where one of the vehicles somehow got lost in a black hole. After they arrived, within six months we had a motor blow out, lost two media control units, and had a bunch of annoying fit and finish issues.

Four years later, the problems are all fixed, the cars have performed great, and the company is doing well. It is just the roller coaster of being a pre-launch reservation holder.

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