Who might be swayed to Ford?

[Hmp10]

I had a Mercedes SL55, a C6 Corvette, and an Audi S6 that were in the shop far more times in the two years or less I owned each than my Tesla has been in four years. Twice my Tesla was serviced in my driveway by a mobile technician, and once Tesla had it flat bedded to their service facility from my garage and returned it there. Service-wise, it has been the most convenient vehicle I've ever owned to have serviced. Nor have I been charged a dime for any service, including replacing an underbody panel I tore off by inadvisedly driving the car through debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. I think this is one of the reasons Tesla owners are reasonably tolerant of what reliability problems they encounter.

There was a severe ditch in service response when the early Model 3s hit the road and overloaded the service system, but those problems are quickly being reined in, partly by manufacturing fixes on the assembly line and partly by the continuing expansion of the mobile service network.

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[WTF_Over]

Well, it might be too late to try and turn back to the actual thread topic but l'll try anyway... Yes! Ford could lure me away if what they actually produce is comparable. They have deep pockets and an extensive Dealer and Parts/Supply Distribution Network already in place. Offering charging at their dealerships (Fee based or Free) could have them build out an infrastructure network fairly quickly that would cover a significant part of the US rather quickly. I love (from what limited data I have seen so far) the Rivian but I'm not married to it yet. I think you have to keep your options open in this early and changing market.

 

[ajdelange]

Now that it appears likely that Rivian is going to be assembling the Ford it seems to come down to a question as to whose wrapper you want your truck in - Rivian's or Ford's. The answer to that will depend on whose wrapper is more appealing, which is going to be on sale first and, of course, price differences. It looks as if it's going to be somewhat similar to the situation with Toyota and Lexus.

Of the three segments of the "transportation system" we are contemplating buying we know most about the vehicle segment and have a pretty good idea about the fueling segment but we knew nothing about the support segment until recently. It now looks as if that is going to be Ford. This certainly makes a lot of sense but is, of course, no more than speculation on my part.

As an illustration of how this might work I'll mention that when I bought my last ICE SUV I needed to get it quickly. I went to the Toyota dealer and they couldn't get me what I wanted in time. So I went to the Lexus dealer and they could. Cost me more, of course, but time was the driver. When the Lexus needs repair it can go to any Toyota dealer.

Sales is, in my definition of the segments, part of the support segment and we still don't know how Rivian will be sold. I'm guessing that this function will be done by Ford though that seems a little funny. Toyota keeps Toyota and Lexus dealerships separate and presumably does that for a reason which is, I think, to keep the luxury line separate from the main line. Lexus dealerships have fancier lounges. As Ford has an investment in Rivian now, and I expect that investment to deepen even, perhaps, to the extent of buying Rivian outright, they might do something like opening Rivian sales rooms in the same towns they have Ford dealerships but on the right side of the tracks. More speculation.

 

[Hmp10]

Relying on Ford for service would make a lot of sense for both Rivian and Ford (which could amortize its EV tooling and training investment over more vehicle service visits). Whether Ford would want to put a competing model in its showroom is another matter. For sales, I suspect Rivian is going with an internet-based model, much as Tesla does. In fact, I think we've already seen signals that reservation holders will be asked to configure their final orders over the internet. (Tesla stores are more display and test drive venues than sales venues. A Tesla employee will take an order for a Model S or Model X but do it through the same website you would use at home. If you want a Model 3, you have to do it yourself. They will let you use one of the store computers or you can bring your own laptop, and they will assist you if you ask, but you place the Model 3 order yourself.)

I have bought two Teslas over the internet, and I find it easier and less-harrowing than dealing with salespeople, whom I have sometimes found less informed about the vehicle than I. I even bought one of my Honda Odysseys over the internet after I found the local salespeople somewhat dodgy. With most cars so thoroughly reviewed today and with so many specifications and means to compare available online, I find that the only use of a dealer lot is to sit in and test drive the vehicle. If you can't get to a Tesla showroom, Tesla has a novel way of handling that. You order the car. It gets delivered. If you don't like it, you return it within seven days for a full refund. Actually, this allows a buyer far more test time in far more conditions than one would get test driving a vehicle off a dealer's lot with a salesperson sitting in the passenger seat and telling you which turn to take. I'm pretty sure the cost of an occasional return is far less than the cost of running showrooms in every sizable town.

 

[ajdelange]

... I think the Model X was a colossal misfire ...

Musk himself called it the company's "Faberge egg" and said Tesla would never make anything like it again. Yet it remains, based on this year's data, the second best selling BEV in the US only outsold by the 3. It's the third best selling plug-in if PHEV's are included even though it can be 3 times more expensive than its near competitors (Telsa S, Toyota Prius Prime, Chevy Bolt, Honda Clarity PHEV). It has been spectacularly successful in terms of what it was supposed to do which was to assist in putting Telsa (and thus BEVs) in front of the public and, being a high margin product, boost Tesla's cash position.

 

[ajdelange]

I would never have bought a Tesla without the opportunity to kick the tires and I am not at all sure that I will take delivery of my RIT if that opportunity be denied. You will remember that Tesla pretty quickly reversed its decision to close all showrooms (though I guess they did close some). I did not find the interaction with the "salesman" at Tesla to be anything like the traditional experience with an American automobile dealer's sales staff of yore.

That said, now that I have kicked the tires and know the product I would probably feel comfortable ordering another Tesla on line. But I'm not going to be happy about doing that on a product of which I have never even seen an example on the road.

 

[skyote]

I think the "Ford" Rivian will be a Lincoln SUV. Similar to the difference between Toyota/Lexus, I expect the Rivian will have a more luxury experience.

 

[Hmp10]

I did not find the interaction with the "salesman" at Tesla to be anything like the traditional experience with an American automobile dealer's sales staff of yore.

I did not find Tesla sales staff to be as pushy. However, they were not the best informed on the product. I drove across state to test drive a Model S right after the dual motors came out. The car on the showroom floor had the single motor. The salesman opened the frunk to regale me with how huge the space was. I told him that I was interested in the dual motor, and I asked him how much the front motor would impinge on frunk space. He told me the space was identical. I had read up on the car extensively before my visit and knew better. He started arguing with me, so I pulled him out to the service lot to open up the frunk on a dual motor car that had not yet been prepped.

Flash forward four years. I read Tesla was running a promo in which people who traded in an earlier Model S could trade it for a new Model S Performance and get the ludicrous speed upgrade for free. I started considering trading my Model S P90D and called the local sales store (recently opened) to inquire about a trade-in. When I mentioned the promo for ludicrous upgrade, the salesman knew nothing about it. I asked him to call Tesla HQ to confirm whether the promo was offered. He called back a half hour later to tell me it was, although store sales staff had never been alerted.

I agree that a test drive is indispensable to most buyers and that a return policy might not be a satisfactory substitute, particularly for people who have to involve a third party in financing the vehicle. However, I think a salesperson has become completely superfluous to a modern day buying transaction. Their only real role is to convince people to spend more on a car than they hoped to and to lure them into financing deals on which the dealer gets a cut and high-priced dealer add-ons such as decals and "protective" treatments.

 

[Hmp10]

It has been spectacularly successful in terms of what it was supposed to do which was to assist in putting Telsa (and thus BEVs) in front of the public and, being a high margin product, boost Tesla's cash position.

I do not dispute this. However, "misfire" can mean different things to different people. I have twice test driven Model X's, trying to convince myself they would address the issue of cramped rear seating for older adults in my Model S. (They did not.)

In my view an SUV that has less cargo space than the sedan on whose platform it was built is a misfire.

A modern SUV that has noticeable cowl shake and squeaks going over a smooth railroad crossing is a misfire.

An SUV that has rear doors that trade off torsional stiffness for flashy operation -- and that can leave one standing in the rain while it operates -- is a misfire.

The Model S took the car press by storm and created the impression that Tesla was capable of creating world-class transportation that scored well on many factors other than its revolutionary drivetrain.

In fairly short order, the Model X demonstrated that Tesla could also make a considerably more flawed product that sold at a premium over the Model S in return for little more utility than cramped third-row seats.

 

[ajdelange]

Which I guess is why the X outsold the S in 2018 and so far in 2019.

I'm going out to look for some railroad tracks.

 

[Hmp10]

Sales figures do not necessarily correlate to the presence or absence of the issues we are discussing. Most American carmakers sell more SUVs than sedans, which is more a reflection of body style preference than of the relative quality of the two vehicles. I could see the Model X outselling the Model S if for no other reason than the Model S is really not a suitable distance hauler for more than two adults. I'm in my late sixties, as are most of my friends, and the back seat is abysmal for that demographic in a car of its exterior dimensions. To my mind, it's been the one big shortfall of the car since its introduction . . . and probably nothing we'll see corrected with a redesign, as Tesla is apparently going to continue the current bodies of the S and the X until their sales finally peter out. They have staked their future on the Model 3 and its progeny and entry into truck markets.

I know about the railroad tracks, because you have to cross them to get to the Tesla dealership in Dania Beach, FL. The dealership is approached from the rear, and the tracks run just behind the service lot. The Model X I drove there definitely squeaked and felt looser than my Model S going over those tracks. My brother who drives a Model 3 was with me, and he noticed it, too.

 

[ajdelange]

No, you don't know about "noticeable cowl shake and squeaks going over a smooth railroad crossing" because there isn't any. To be honest, I couldn't picture what "cowl shake" would be but given that the cowl is "The top portion of the front part of an automobile body, supporting the windshield and dashboard." I would presume that the windshield or dash board would shake. And they don't when going over smooth railroad tracks or over rough railroad tracks or down a dirt road with potholes and ruts or over the bumps associated with road work or even over the ridiculous hydraulic barrier ramp the US put into the roadway at the US/Canadian border in Beebe. And they don't squeak, pop, groan, ping, moan or make any other sound I can hear over the road noise either. I was out driving in the country yesterday (probably crossed railroad tracks 20 or so times, did the dirt road and the construction gangs too) and given this discussion was very alert for anything like this. My passenger didn't notice anything either. Some research revealed that cowl shake often manifests itself as vibration in the steering wheel. The only times I experienced this was when the car induced it as a lane warning. I also found that it is most frequently caused by lack of torsional stiffness as in convertible designs and so the fact that it is missing lets the air out of your FWD comment too. As to the rain comment, there is a design trade here. The FWD were put in to attract attention at the expense of a couple of seconds extra rain exposure and, from Telsa's perspective, thus a tremendous success. And from this owner's perspective too. Though I am a septuagenarian I'll still fire them off in parking lots and look around to see if anyone notices. Clearly you are suffering from cognitive bias - desperately looking for some way to convince yourself that your decision to buy an S rather than an X was justified. Perhaps you couldn't afford an X. I couldn't but bought it anyway.

That leaves the rear end configuration which I hope get us back to Rivian, which is what this forum is about, and the OP question. The X is not an SUV. It is a crossover. And an electric one. Thus one of the major design trades is drag. A cross section containing the vertical and longitudinal axes resembles that of a boat tail bullet for a reason - to improve the ballistic coefficient. Thus it's lower in the back. But not in the middle. Six footers are quite comfortable in the second row in an X. Yes, the third row is a joke in a crossover and even an SUV. The space where the 3rd row of seats goes is for dogs, not people. I always have the third row of seats taken out (where that is possible) or, as in the case of the X, don't order it.

The current Rivian vehicles are not crossovers. One is a truck and one an SUV. They have impressive Cd's but Cd is only part of the equation. Without the boat tail they clearly will have higher drag and it looks as if they are going to gulp something like 450 Wh/mi compared to the X at around 300. This, and the 400 mi range, we will pay for with a battery that weighs 80% more than an X's and presumably also costs that much more. Note that the extra weight also has an effect on range. You can't double the range of a BEV by doubling its battery capacity. But Cd and ballistic coefficient do have a major effect and as these depend greatly on what covers the skateboard we are nudged back towards the OP's question. Were the Ford body to raise or lower drag appreciably, or, more to the point, offer greater or lesser range (not only through drag but weight, wheel or other differences) that might influence the choice of some. Probably not for me. I'm old enough to realize that there are no pockets in the shroud, that "nos habebit humus" is closer than it used to be and will probably be swayed mostly by which is available first and which more luxurious. I like the Toyota/Lexus model of earlier posts, am assuming the Rivian is going to be the Lexus and will probably go with that.

 

[Hmp10]

I have owned several convertibles which had minor cowl shake to one extent or another. The only convertible I owned that did not was an Audi R8 V10 Spyder. I experienced cowl shake as a sensation (very noticeable in some convertibles and very subtle in later models) of the front part of the body rotating a bit before and independently of the passenger compartment.

I own a Model S and have twice test driven Model Xs. As you own a Model X and I don't, I will defer to your judgment on what it's like to drive the vehicle regularly. However, I have no agenda against Tesla, have bought two of their cars (for myself and my brother), have toyed with buying a third, and am somewhat in awe of how Tesla has changed the automotive landscape. But I can tell you that driving the Model X over the railroad tracks in Dania Beach felt distinctly different from driving my Model S over them in terms of body flexion. And I and my brother heard creaking that we never heard in our sedans.

I see you own a 2018 Model X. In the first year of production, Tesla had to replace some Model X windshields that were reported to have cracked from body flexion. I read reports that the issue had been addressed, but I never heard how. Perhaps Tesla added some bracing or made other modifications somewhere along the line?

 

[ajdelange]

An additional thought: If the Ford does not have stadium lights I might be driven towards it.

 

[Hmp10]

To my mind, the stadium lights are the least attractive design element of the two vehicles. Even using exactly the same lights in a round shape would be a significant improvement.

I wonder if the plan is to make it a brand signature for future models, such as BMW's kidney grill or Audi's horse yoke.

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