Customer Service letter on price rollbacks

[RoadRunner]

The sense of entitlement from Rivian is amazing to me. They need us A LOT more than we need them. And they showed that by backtracking on their surprise price hike when we collectively revolted. They are now trying to figure out just how much they need to do to keep us. They created this problem with their hubris and it is now costing them a lot more to fix it.

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[Lil'Dave]

No letter yet for me. Cancelled on March 1st, reinstated on 3/3 via chat.

 

[astonius]

I think this says more about the people on this forum than the communication from rivian.

How so? As others have said, Rivian actively encouraged playing around with the configurator and explicitly told us configurations we’re not locked in until after we spoke with our guides. Had we known price increases were imminent and given fair warning we would have been more thoughtful and landed on a final configuration. The fact this email doesn’t clarify what, if any, changes will be allowed at the old pricing is concerning.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

If they want to charge the new prices for config changes, then I think they should give us an opportunity to dial-in our configs before the new pricing takes effect. I was on the fence about color and wheels, so I had "placeholder" options selected. I understand there needs to be some give/take and a config lock is reasonable in exchange for locking in the old pricing -- but I want to lock in the config I actually want to order, then.

 

[drivetorun]

I think what they are doing is completely fair. They are basically eating the 12k cost difference in the quad motor and large battery pack. No one is locked into a config, if you want to change your paint color go ahead.. But it may cost more. We always knew the price could change.

The sense of entitlement from some people is amazing to me.

If you don't like it you can always cancel.

I don’t think it’s a sense of entitlement; it’s a sense of asking them to be courteous/professional. Not saying Tesla is the model behavior, but in the early days, Tesla often would announce when price increases were coming so people had the opportunity to square away their order before doing so. I would’ve been fine if Rivian had announced that they will be changing options pricing (not saying specifically what’s changing), so any changes made on/after xx date will be at the new options pricing. That way nobody could’ve “gamed” the system. Unfortunately, they let the “cat out of the bag”, and may now be asking us to deal with the consequences of that.

At the end of the day, they’ll make whatever decision they make, and we’ll all make a corresponding one. Maybe I’m naive, but I think 90%+ of the people still will just configure the car that they have always wanted. Will 10% “take advantage”…maybe, but is it worth making a policy just for the 10% at this stage? Also, if they priced things like most automakers, any options in general are at a higher margin than the base vehicle themselves, so Rivian should WANT people to option up their vehicles, even if it’s at the “lower price”. I’d be willing to bet that an R1S with the Adventure trim has a higher margin than one with the Explore trim, whether on the new or old price book. I certainly could be wrong on that, but I’d be surprised…

 

[Mister Person]

I find it funny that the price increases all happened in like a day but the roll back will take several weeks. I'm honestly still on the fence about getting the TRX instead.

Makes sense to me. They had the new pricing structure in development for a while and rolled it out in a day. Now they have to figure out how to have varying structures apply to different customers based on reservation date, saved config, etc. It's a rather complicated change to make. It also kills any conspiracy theory out there that they were planning this all along.

 

[jjswan33]

Unpopular opinion. I actually think this makes sense. I’ve always said people should just build the truck they want and leave it alone;

allowing people to make changes at this point allows people to take advantage of Rivians concessions now that we know where the biggest cost drivers are.
I could see allowing people to change their exterior color

But that isn’t what they told us, they told us we could finalize our configuration when our guides contacted us to confirm our configurations. I don’t see why they should punish us for listening. Let’s not mention that CS was telling us something different all week either.

 

[jjswan33]

I think what they are doing is completely fair. They are basically eating the 12k cost difference in the quad motor and large battery pack. No one is locked into a config, if you want to change your paint color go ahead.. But it may cost more. We always knew the price could change.

The sense of entitlement from some people is amazing to me.

If you don't like it you can always cancel.

We’re entitled because we didn’t lock in our configurations even know they said we didn’t have to, we’re entitled because we listen and believe what CS tells us?
Sure makes sense

 

[Texasrivian]

No letter yet for me. Cancelled on March 1st, reinstated on 3/3 via chat.

I spoke with CS on chat this morning to get an update on the order reinstatements. They told me wait a few weeks until you see your build back on your account with the original pricing. Looks like cancellations will be waiting a bit.

 

[Taycanfrank]

You can still change your configuration, it'll just cost more if you do. Not that I agree with it but the "they told us we could change our configurations before delivery" is still true.

Hopefully they allow exterior/interior color and wheels to be changed through CS for free, but we'll see.

The whole thing is a shitshow.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

How could we know what we want if we’ve never seen an R1 in person? I’m not accustomed to spending $80K on something I’ve only seen in pictures.

Come to Vancouver and buy a house. $1 Million site unseen gives you a real thrill.

 

[SoCalKal]

did you get in touch with customer service to get reinstated? I am trying to see what is the difference between people that got the letter and those who didn’t.

Did you check other folders? In my Gmail account, the email went to Promotions folder. I would be surprised if the email is not sent to all people. I am at the bottom of the line, registered last fall and still getting all the emails.

 

[Joints4Sale]

Same. I never canceled my R1T. I'm a 12/8/2018 preorder, how about you?

12/15/18 Reservation

 

[Joints4Sale]

did you get in touch with customer service to get reinstated? I am trying to see what is the difference between people that got the letter and those who didn’t.

Requested for my Max Pack R1T to be reinstated via chat couple of days ago.

 

[AxelR]

I'm confused by their phrasing on delivery timing - Max Packs = your delivery date could be pushed 'Forward'? As in possibly sooner (starting in 2023) than a Large Pack order?

Agreed, it sounds weird.
However, he meant 2023 which in my case would be pushed back rather than forward.

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