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Vehicle Life Expectancy

Temerarius

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I'm not worried about the battery much. Good care and driving, and I'd expect it to clear 300k.

The crap that will break is the stuff you interact with most... like your drivers seat will get loose and squeaky, the air bags/compressor will have issues... etc.

The actual battery and drive train (such as it is) will probably out live your ownership.

That said, manufacturers like Tesla are smart... load the car with all the hardware to all of the things (and then just use software to enable/disable features, or add net new ones). Make the hardware easily upgradable to support changes.

They can then resell that same vehicle over and over again and resell those features (FSD for example). It turns a car into a subscription (longer term revenue).

Thus, it behooves them to make them as durable as possible.
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PastyPilgrim

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With Rivian's warranty, I wonder if there's really any incentive to micromanage the battery for longevity. If you didn't play the battery preservation game day in and day out, it would seem that there'd only be one of two outcomes: either it does result in a significant hit to longevity such that Rivian will replace/etc. the batteries or it doesn't result in a significant hit and you saved yourself a lot of head space and effort over the years. Though I guess there's a third option in that it does have a significant effect but not so significant as to trigger the warranty (e.g. with micromanagement you have 90% after 8 years and without micromanagement you'd have 70%), but such a significant effect may hinge on actively working against your battery rather than just avoiding any tedious micromanagement.

Not that Im advocating to exploit Rivian's offer, just that the offer to me seems to carry with it a lot of confidence in the hardware that may indicate that it's not necessary to plan your life around what's best for your car's battery.
 

Trandall

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With Rivian's warranty, I wonder if there's really any incentive to micromanage the battery for longevity. If you didn't play the battery preservation game day in and day out, it would seem that there'd only be one of two outcomes: either it does result in a significant hit to longevity such that Rivian will replace/etc. the batteries or it doesn't result in a significant hit and you saved yourself a lot of head space and effort over the years. Though I guess there's a third option in that it does have a significant effect but not so significant as to trigger the warranty (e.g. with micromanagement you have 90% after 8 years and without micromanagement you'd have 70%), but such a significant effect may hinge on actively working against your battery rather than just avoiding any tedious micromanagement.

Not that Im advocating to exploit Rivian's offer, just that the offer to me seems to carry with it a lot of confidence in the hardware that may indicate that it's not necessary to plan your life around what's best for your car's battery.
I'm expecting that as consumers become accustomed to buying used EV's the current usable range displayed will be one of the main points that is looked at. With that in mind it seems prudent to take reasonable care of your battery so you are closer to 90% than 70% after 8 years as you state.
I've been reading/ watching about what has been found in real world cases with EV batteries since 2012 with the model S and the Leaf and it seems like keeping the battery cool, depth charge/ discharge are more critical to battery health than charge speed. Tesla's with thermal management even when charged frequently at 75-150KW between 20-80% capacity have faired well, Leafs (Leaves?) without thermal management charged only at 7-9KW between 5-100% capacity have not faired well.
 

Mjhirsch78

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Battery life is strange. We bought a Model Y in March. We have put 16k miles on it. We did a 6k road trip. We have towed. We have hit the slopes in the cold. We have seen 3 miles lost in projected range. That loss appeared this past month. No loss before then.

We have supercharged on trips, but don’t go above 80% on those charges.
We keep it at 80% and plugged in most of the time.
We have gone to 95% a few times.

This Model Y will easily last us the 15-20 years we intend to drive it at this rate. It hit this mileage because we are a 1-car family until the Rivian gets here. 3 miles/yr over 15-20 yrs is really a pretty light hit, all things considered. We haven’t been inconvenienced and babied this thing. We live our life and the car works. I expect the same or better from the Rivian.
 

Dohmar

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With any luck, all of the opening and closing components will have their open/close cycles actually registered within the ECU/BCU and so when they start failing, Rivian will have a great selection of statistics to draw estimates from.
 

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Rivian_Hugh_III

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I'm not worried about the battery much. Good care and driving, and I'd expect it to clear 300k.

The crap that will break is the stuff you interact with most... like your drivers seat will get loose and squeaky, the air bags/compressor will have issues... etc.

The actual battery and drive train (such as it is) will probably out live your ownership.

That said, manufacturers like Tesla are smart... load the car with all the hardware to all of the things (and then just use software to enable/disable features, or add net new ones). Make the hardware easily upgradable to support changes.

They can then resell that same vehicle over and over again and resell those features (FSD for example). It turns a car into a subscription (longer term revenue).

Thus, it behooves them to make them as durable as possible.
The SEC filing makes it clear that Rivian has a million ways from Sunday to make money on existing Rivian owners. Thus, their incentive is to build a cash cow that will still be kicking 40+ years from now.

These include insurance, new features, in dash services, improved charging curves, FSD, vehicle service, etc.

This is to their benefit, as they make continued money on their vehicles, and it’s to our benefit as we get vehicles engineered to last for the long term. I envision the Rivian like a 747. It could still be kicking in 100 years, with just a few renovations along the way.

This continued income os why the vehicles are so cheap. Compare the cost to a Hummer and you see what I mean.

We’re getting a deal on this vehicle and it should last a *long* time.
 

KeithPleas

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I have been pondering exactly this issue - my GX470 has 214K miles…generally consumables plus every now and then an eye popping mechanical repair. I could certainly drive it for another decade. I’m now 61 so my years for an “adventure vehicle” are finite - but I’d like like to think that I could use this vehicle for say the next 20 years.
 

crashmtb

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With any luck, all of the opening and closing components will have their open/close cycles actually registered within the ECU/BCU and so when they start failing, Rivian will have a great selection of statistics to draw estimates from.
“Open the gear tunnel bay doors, HAL”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that @Dohmar”
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