Letter from RJ coming at noon...

[electruck]

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...cation-from-rj-expected-today.1775/post-43302

thanks! didn't see that useful tidbit because, like most threads around here these days, I finally got sick of it and hit ignore.

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[LoneStar]

drug lord sourced a new fix...

 

[E.S.]

This essentially just makes official what we already suspected.

We, as customers eager to purchase this product, shouldn't need to 'suspect' something and wait for it to come true later on. Rivian as a company pushing out a product needs to be more forth coming regarding timely communications. I'm glad he (RJ) acknowledged his company needs to do a better job at communicating, but now we need them to act on it, not say it.

 

[_evtrk]

as a launch edition holder I'm disappointed. I did expect some delays, but with covid I thought this would have been the perfect excuse to work around them. The first 6 month delay should have bought them enough time to get the facility ready, and to run some vehicles through the production line to work out the initial kinks. I mean look at at tesla, they are building a factory and are on pace to start producing vehicles by October. They will have built and opened a factory in 15 months, Rivian in my opinion is lacking.

Now i know component delays are beyond control, I work in an industry that is going through severe constraints because the lack of supply and the heavy demand that was unexpected and we also had to deal with a couple of curveballs thrown at us from the D.O.E. with new regulations as well as some other natural disasters that caused issues in some states.

But again, I'm not too surprised but disappointed, initially i think Rivian should have never said at the beginning of the year that all launch editions would be delivered by end of year. then when the delay was announced by a month, it should have never been just 1 month, it should have been a few months delay and hope they catch up and start sooner than expected, this i think would have had a better reception from reservation holders.

the one think that i am very surprised with is the lack of and how far behind the service center buildout is. no blame can be given to covid on this end, I live in Miami and the amount of construction that have been going on here through out covid has been incredible. I think service centers should have been ready to go a long time ago. and this alone tells me that they were expecting to have a long delay from the beginning, just like building out a manufacturing plant takes time, individual service centers can take some serious time from design, survey, approval and permitting to actual construction can have many delays as every city, county and state can require different things for the approval and building process.

They should have told everyone, "hey we originally planned late 2020 but this is going to get dragged out to late 2021 and we may not be first to market with a truck, but we will have the best truck, so hold on for a bit and we wont disappoint you."

 

[timf]

They should have told everyone, "hey we originally planned late 2020 but this is going to get dragged out to late 2021 and we may not be first to market with a truck, but we will have the best truck, so hold on for a bit and we wont disappoint you."

Last I checked they are still likely to be the first to market. Perhaps if one of the half dozen other planned electric trucks was ready to be delivered they would feel more pressure, but at this point Rivian is still in the driver's seat.

 

[SeaGeo]

the one think that i am very surprised with is the lack of and how far behind the service center buildout is. no blame can be given to covid on this end

This isn't entirely fair. In the construction industry. We have a ton of construction going on, but contractors I work with are suffering really weird delays on even basic materials that catch me off guard. For example, on one job it's an 8+ week lead time to just to get (what's essentially) new rebar lengths, so we've had to creatively jump around that constraint to try and avoid (yet another) delay.

 

[cohall]

For example, on one job it's an 8+ week lead time to just to get (what's essentially) new rebar lengths, so we've had to creatively jump around that constraint to try and avoid (yet another) delay.

Buy longer ones and then cut them down to size.

I'll PM you my Venmo for payment on my consulting services

 

[garthkoyle]

Are they delaying the Amazon van deliveries too?

 

[SeaGeo]

Buy longer ones and then cut them down to size.

I'll PM you my Venmo for payment on my consulting services

lol, practically I agree with you. And I had the same comment. But it's not helpful after the fact. They bought lengths to the design length, and during field verification their install techniques seem to have resulted in less capacity of what the "rebar" is reinforcing. So a length change throws a wrench in their supplies.

Really the point is that if something changes for construction (which it will inevitably), random shit will throw a wrench in plans.

 

[electruck]

This isn't entirely fair. In the construction industry. We have a ton of construction going on, but contractors I work with are suffering really weird delays on even basic materials that catch me off guard. For example, on one job it's an 8+ week lead time to just to get (what's essentially) new rebar lengths, so we've had to creatively jump around that constraint to try and avoid (yet another) delay.

Agreed. These days, there are all kinds of weird delays impacting many different industries and with different causes. Last weekend I was at a brewery / pizza restuarant in Wichita, KS that ran out pizza dough due to the current wheat shortage (apparently due to drought in the Northern Plains). And passport renewals are taking an extraordinarily long time (up to 18 weeks by mail). Home builders are cancelling contracts out from under customers so they can make price adjustments to offset rising materials costs. It seems very little in the world is operating "as expected" right now.

 

[Sdvictor]

Agreed. These days, there are all kinds of weird delays impacting many different industries and with different causes. Last weekend I was at a brewery / pizza restuarant in Wichita, KS that ran out pizza dough due to the current wheat shortage (apparently due to drought in the Northern Plains). And passport renewals are taking an extraordinarily long time (up to 18 weeks by mail). Home builders are cancelling contracts out from under customers so they can make price adjustments to offset rising materials costs. It seems very little in the world is operating "as expected" right now.

I currently work in Supply Chain with one of the world's largest hyperscale computer fleet (not Amazon) with double-digit billions of spend a year. you would think we of all people would have priority when it comes to semiconductors. Haha..NOPE.

People who complain have zero clue how supply chains and manufacturing happens.

 

[_evtrk]

This isn't entirely fair. In the construction industry. We have a ton of construction going on, but contractors I work with are suffering really weird delays on even basic materials that catch me off guard. For example, on one job it's an 8+ week lead time to just to get (what's essentially) new rebar lengths, so we've had to creatively jump around that constraint to try and avoid (yet another) delay.

what you say is true, in my industry we have felt this, but for a company in the middle of a buildout, they too should be aware of this and should have tried to get ahead with the service center buildouts imo, especially with the way they are doing the deliveries based on service centers. I just think they dropped the ball somewhat. for example the service center in may area is still in the bidding process for contractors, i drove by a few days ago and the current tenants are still receiving deliveries at the facility.

 

[SeaGeo]

what you say is true, in my industry we have felt this, but for a company in the middle of a buildout, they too should be aware of this and should have tried to get ahead with the service center buildouts imo, especially with the way they are doing the deliveries based on service centers. I just think they dropped the ball somewhat. for example the service center in may area is still in the bidding process for contractors, i drove by a few days ago and the current tenants are still receiving deliveries at the facility.

hindsight...

 

[_evtrk]

Last I checked they are still likely to be the first to market. Perhaps if one of the half dozen other planned electric trucks was ready to be delivered they would feel more pressure, but at this point Rivian is still in the driver's seat.

i agree with you on this, they are still in the driver seat, i feel like maybe because of how far ahead they are from the next truck they have the luxury to make sure all is fine and not rush, I just feel like they could have just gone through everything they still needed and made a more realistic time frame, i dont really see how you could think you only need 1 more month and then be like "wait we actually needed 3 months, not 1" . also my comment was based of teslas timeframe on their Texas factory going online, if they finish ahead of schedule we may see a photo finish for first to market. even though i still think Rivian will be first by a long shot.

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