? *BREAKING* Rivian & VW Announce Joint Venture -- VW Investing $1B in Rivian and another $4B to form JV for next gen EVs

[Nano]

ACCESS TO THE QUANTUMSCAPE SOLID STATE BATTERY BEING TRIALED BY VW WOULD BE AMAZING

I agree. VW is a huge investor in this company and the timing of when their batteries are set to come to market should be perfect for R2. 0-80% SOC in less than 15 mins! Yes please!!

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[savethemanual]

Win win. VW has lots of cash, Rivian has a great dev team.

VW just made up for a decade of software neglect with a cash infusion to Rivian. It would have taken them years (that they don't have) to try and do it organically, and why would they for the price of a few billion when they have $70b cash on hand give or take.

Volkswagen also has manufacturing expertise in terms

Rivian is teasing another R1 Gen2 vehicle in there.

and a R2/R3 type vehicle. Plus 3 mass market vehicles.

looking forward to the speculation!

R1X??

 

[White24Lightning]

I’ve never purchased stock in my life and last week purchased 1,000 shares of Rivian stock. ?

 

[Davethadog]

There’s lots of speculation but the terms of the agreement are pretty clear. This is for the zonal architecture and associated software only. Rivian offloads some of its IP to this JV and VW and Rivian buy the products from that venture. In exchange Rivian gets a buttload of cash to see them through to r2/r3 production. I’m sure there will be other soft benefits along the way but this as much seems pretty clear.

 

[R1Sky Business]

Hello fellow optimist.

Sometimes u have to laugh when there are no more tears left.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

This is really huge. VW is the largest in terms of revenue in the world and if you look at units its 2nd to Toyota.

 

[HaveBlue]

VAG knows how to build cars that are solid, reliable and perform well. Most of their computer CANBUS modules are Bosch though. With the exception of Porsche and probably the exotics, they share those platforms. It's a legacy design that works but can't handle or keep up with technology. The MMI Multimedia interfaces uses QNX (Blackberry) on non EVs and they are slow to boot and struggle to handle modern media or apps. For all I know the EVs use it too. I haven't plugged my laptop into one to see if the CANBUS stuff is all the same.

The Scout was my alternative to the Rivian because of how capable some of the Touregs were. They had transfer cases and dual locking differentials. Quite a sleeper. I figured the Scout had a chance.

 

[HighVoltOverland]

PLEASE MAKE A RIVIAN BRANDED E-BUS

 

[Dustyshades]

Will be good for VW. All the former ID.4 owners here know that VW EVs are absolute trash solely because of the software

 

[mkhuffman]

My $9 share price entry looking very nice right now ?

My $125 entry is looking less disastrous.

 

[Zoidz]

There’s lots of speculation but the terms of the agreement are pretty clear. This is for the zonal architecture and associated software only. Rivian offloads some of its IP to this JV and VW and Rivian buy the products from that venture. In exchange Rivian gets a buttload of cash to see them through to r2/r3 production. I’m sure there will be other soft benefits along the way but this as much seems pretty clear.

This part of the shareholder letter confirms what your are saying, but also mentions "In addition to the $5 billion of capital to Rivian ... future revenue opportunities associated with the joint venture" which leaves a fairly wide door open.

"Today’s announcement is expected to create a robust capital roadmap to support our future growth. We believe the opportunity ahead is significant. The initial and planned investments by Volkswagen Group in addition to our current cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments are expected to provide the capital to fund Rivian’s operations through the ramp of R2 in Normal, as well as the midsize platform in Georgia – enabling a path to positive free cash flow and meaningful scale. In addition to the $5 billion of capital to Rivian, we anticipate incremental benefits through material cost savings, operating expense efficiencies, and future revenue opportunities associated with the joint venture."

 

[Yota2R1T]

Or the Ford.

Basically Rivian is just a Minion looking for its evil master.

Ford, Amazon, and now VW.

VW is kinda evil, but its not like Amazon level evilness.

Diesel emissions fixing.
Never forget.

 

[Yota2R1T]

Yuck. Boo.

 

[mkhuffman]

First of all, to me this is huge.

I have decided to buy a Tri Max T (without wife approval), but I am waiting until am fairly confident Rivian will not be bankrupt in a year or two. If they continue losing $3.5B a year, I can't go in. So Q2 and Q3 results are critical to me. I figured I needed to wait until the Fall to see if they are really on track to be cash flow positive.

If the GM on a G2 R1 is -$10k, that is a loss of $1B per year (from production of 100k R1s). While that is horrible, it means they can survive for 3-5 years while they get cash flow positive. So the Q2 investor meeting coming up is very important. Based on the G2 changes, what do they think their GM per vehicle will be?

So I was prepared to wait and be patient. Now? Now $1B from VW changes the entire equation.

I suspect VW knows what will be reported in a few days, and I suspect they know Rivian is on very good footing. And $1B with a GM of -$1B give Rivian another year. Maybe the GM per vehicle will be better than -$10k, and it gives them an even longer lifeline.

No wonder RJ is smiling so big!

This means I am about ready to put $3k in on my new T. It all depends on what happens in the investors meeting. Do I need to tell my wife first?

 

[Guuma]

I wonder if this is going to help speed up the R2 development! Regardless, I recall RJ saying they were going to be strategic with their partnerships when all Apple partnership buzz was happening - maybe this is what he was talking about.

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