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which will ship first?

Which ships first?


  • Total voters
    30

sdTom

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given Model Y is now ''fall of 2020", that puts it at same time frame as Rivian R1T. we know nothing about tesla truck but sure seems like it will be late to the party.
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Rivian1

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I'm voting that RJ is a pragmatic guy and would not disclose anything in public that he did not have data to back up his words.

If he says late 2020 for the first Rivians, I tend to believe him right now given the work he's done over the last 9 years.

That said, manufacturing a car is a hard thing to do for a new car company, just ask Tesla. It won't be easy for any of the startup EV manufacturers to meet their dates.
 

Aurum

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@Rivian1 im with you on that one. I also agree RJ seems to be very down to earth and back up what he says. Regarding the new car company, it’s true the company is new but it’s very nice to see so many of the employees who are definitely NOT new to the car making business. It’s not just a bunch of EV nerds trying to mass manufacture a car, but instead a bunch of car industry nerds trying to make a big change in their lifelong industry. I am hoping this lends them much fewer troubles in the manufacturing process. These vehicles’ components (besides the skateboard) I could easily imagine as something found in any normal car that would be designed today, which makes me think it will be much easier to source and mass produce. *hopes*
 

bathbunny

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@Rivian1 im with you on that one. I also agree RJ seems to be very down to earth and back up what he says. Regarding the new car company, it’s true the company is new but it’s very nice to see so many of the employees who are definitely NOT new to the car making business. It’s not just a bunch of EV nerds trying to mass manufacture a car, but instead a bunch of car industry nerds trying to make a big change in their lifelong industry. I am hoping this lends them much fewer troubles in the manufacturing process. These vehicles’ components (besides the skateboard) I could easily imagine as something found in any normal car that would be designed today, which makes me think it will be much easier to source and mass produce. *hopes*
They will definitely have learned from Tesla not to set their sights too high, but, although they have a factory and they have experienced car people, so did Tesla when it set out to manufacture Model S, and again when it started out with Model X, and again with Model 3 -- but each time they had new surprises and new challenges. Audi and Mercedes, both with long experience in manufacturing quality cars in very large volumes, had to delay the start of sales of their first EV model (an SUV for each) because the production models were not performing well. So I doubt it's going to be smooth sailing for Rivian, although I am confident they have the will and the brains to get it done.
By normal US auto industry practices, Rivian is already too late to produce the R1T by end of 2020 -- the standard approach to tooling up the production chain is very slow, in part because it does a "dry run" of some small number of cars first with somewhat ad hoc tooling, then places an order for the final version of the tooling, has to wait for it, install it on the factory floors, test it, etc. Tesla was roundly criticized for not doing that back with Model 3 in mid-2017 and some commentators have attributed quality issues in the first 6mos of Model 3 production to their using a single round of tooling and correcting issues as they were producing. No idea which approach Rivian will choose, but if they choose the "industry standard" approach, they are almost certainly too late now for a late 2020 start of production and if they go the "Tesla road", they are likely to encounter unexpected issues.
On the other hand, Rivian is not shooting for volume production, so it can probably afford to fix whatever comes off the line, even if a third of the vehicles need some fix. (That's what Tesla did early in the production of Model S and again early in the production of Model X, but what they could not do at volume with Model 3.)
Model Y has very little new compared to Model 3, which Tesla has well in hand. and Tesla is building up two factories for its production (one well under way in Shanghai and the other yet to start as, presumably, an extension to Gigafactory 1), so I think Tesla this time has been conservative with its timeline and that Model Y will come out of the production line on schedule (or even early) in Fall 2020, ahead of the R1T.
 
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GoWest!

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I voted for R1T because I’m biased but also because I anticipate when the R1T does come out, it’s going to be fully baked and nothing short of amazing.

If anything else is pushed out just to compete I sure hope for the other company’s sake that their product is ready. From a marketing perspective it would be an absolute disaster to prematurely push to distribution just to go up against Rivian which has taken its time to get things right and has a great influx of money to get things right.
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