In 4th year of waiting ... beginning to question if the wait is worth it

[stynes]

I get the frustration with delays (I'm impatient too); but I don't understand when people say, "Rivian promised me that they would...." I've been a pre-order holder since 11/26/2018. Rivian has never once promised me a delivery date. They said that they hoped to start producing vehicles in December of 2020. They slipped that date during the height of the pandemic impact to July 2021. They then slipped the beginning of production two more months to September 2021. None of those dates (12/2020, 07/2021, 09/2021) were guarantees that I would get my truck by those dates. Those were the timeframes to begin production. The closest that Rivian has given me to a delivery "guarantee" was March/April 2022...and in fact, they explicitly identified that timeframe as an "estimate" and not a "guarantee." I don't get why people feel that they were promised something and that Rivian has broken said promise. I've never been promised anything. I've been given estimates that have slipped (for pretty good reasons, I think). I'm frustrated that I don't have my truck. I think Rivian is not good at communicating with its customers. But no one at Rivian has broken any promises to me.

I think you're splitting hairs. If that helps you, great - you do you. I don't fault you for that. The way I see it, having ordered 7 days after you, my expectations of when I would take delivery were based largely off when production starts. I knew I wouldn't take delivery the day or even the week or month but I knew I was pretty early in line and my expectation (and by *my* expectation, what I really mean is, "I think *any* reasonable person would expect this) was to take delivery soon after production started. But to your point, it's been delayed numerous times with poor communication. Call it a broken promise, call it a missed expectation, I say a rose by any other name...

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[EVTrucking]

I bet all of us agree that Rivian is all hands on deck to ramp up. Why wouldn't they be? And I think most (or all) of us understand that covid+new company+ambitious multi-vehicle launch+omicron means delays are inevitable. I'm really only pushing back on those who seem to believe the ramp up is going as planned.

I agree with you…. the ramp is slower than expected and my contention is that it is not due to Rivian. Hence, we have no other choice but to wait.

I further add that I think Rivian’s communication Is reasonable given the complexity of the overall situation.

 

[Friscorays]

Bummer about March 1, 2022.

 

[SASSquatch]

This is silly. Nobody is assuming that everyone is a registered poster and nobody said that. What we are saying is that if there are actually 200 non-employee deliveries a week, you’d think there would be more than one poster on the forums who’s taken delivery in the last month.

Any way you slice it a lack of activity on forums isn't proof that deliveries haven't been happening.

I for one am grateful to everyone who has been extremely generous with their time like @Iwantatesla who have gone out of their way to document their experience. The majority of owners aren't going to do this or post at all.

 

[Zoidz]

This is silly. Nobody is assuming that everyone is a registered poster and nobody said that. What we are saying is that if there are actually 200 non-employee deliveries a week, you’d think there would be more than one poster on the forums who’s taken delivery in the last month.

Looking at the members link on this site, as of right now, it's easy to see that there are about:
- 4,700 registered users.
- 3 out of 20 per page have more than 10 messages posted
- 2 out of 20 per page have more than 50 messages

- I estimate 700 *active posters* at most (I think it's really less than that).
- 70,000 reservations at this time (estimated)
- 1% of the total orders are active posters here
- 200 per week ship rate? that's a RECENT announcment - "RAMPING TO"
- We know they shipped 1200 last year, and the line was down for part of January.
- That means 2 deliverys here per week IN THE FUTURE ASSUMING 200 per week.

With all the, uh, "enthusiasm" here, it's likely some(?) many(?) of those won't post about their delivery. @Iwantatesla has put up with being bombarded with questions. Lots of people have no interest in dealing with that.

So all in all, I'm not surprised that we have only a few active members who are willing to post about their delivery.

 

[Iwantatesla]

Looking at the members link on this site, as of right now, it's easy to see that there are about:
- 4,700 registered users.
- 3 out of 20 per page have more than 10 messages posted
- 2 out of 20 per page have more than 50 messages

- I estimate 700 *active posters* at most (I think it's really less than that).
- 70,000 reservations at this time (estimated)
- 1% of the total orders are active posters here
- 200 per week ship rate? that's a RECENT announcment - "RAMPING TO"
- We know they shipped 1200 last year, and the line was down for part of January.
- That meams 2 deliverys here per week IN THE FUTURE ASSUMING 200 per week.

With all the, uh, "enthisiasm" here, it's likely some(?) many(?) of those won't post about their delivery. @Iwantatesla has put up with being bombarded with questions. Lots of people have no interest in dealing with that.

So all in all, I'm not surprised that we have only a few active members who are willing to post about their delivery.

the crew ain’t bad here. I had it worse when I had the Model 3 lol

 

[paariv]

Any way you slice it a lack of activity on forums isn't proof that deliveries haven't been happening.

I for one am grateful to everyone who has been extremely generous with their time like @Iwantatesla who have gone out of their way to document their experience. The majority of owners aren't going to do this or post at all.

Nor could I ever prove a negative, of course. It’s an absurd burden to place on people who are drawing reasonable conclusions from the apparent lack of activity.

But do you really think there are significant numbers of deliveries taking place? And is your support for that belief simply that we can’t prove nothing is happening?

That is not a strong evidentiary position to be in.

 

[SASSquatch]

Nor could I ever prove a negative, of course. It’s an absurd burden to place on people who are drawing reasonable conclusions from the apparent lack of activity.

But do you really think there are significant numbers of deliveries taking place? And is your support for that belief simply that we can’t prove nothing is happening?

That is not a strong evidentiary position to be in.

When you can show me evidence for the relationship between forum activity and actual deliveries I will show you the evidence for the relationship between the rate of donkey births and PhDs issued in any given year.

 

[SoCal Rob]

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the In-N-Out fast food chain, but they have a VERY limited menu: hamburgers and cheeseburgers (with lettuce, tomato, raw or grilled onions, and a few condiments), french fries, and drinks. When you place your order you get a number and as food is ready they call out the numbers. They almost NEVER call out the numbers in order.

If a burger place with a VERY limited menu, all raw materials on site, and in-person delivery doesn’t produce orders first in/first out, then I don’t have any expectation that a vehicle manufacturer will, either. I never resent the wait at In-N-Out because the food is good and the prices reasonable for what you get that it is completely worth the wait.

 

[Diddy123]

I can honestly say I never expected to see Rivian manufacturing compared to some teens flipping burgers at a fast food joint ?.

If I waited three years for my animal-style fries, I'd be pretty frustrated with them as well.

 

[Zoidz]

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the In-N-Out fast food chain, but they have a VERY limited menu: hamburgers and cheeseburgers (with lettuce, tomato, raw or grilled onions, and a few condiments), french fries, and drinks.

Animal Style Burger!!!!!!

 

[yizzung]

I signed up on 12/21/2018, order #4700, so now I am starting on my 4th year of waiting for my R1S and I am beginning to question if the wait is worth it. I had one year on my Land Rover Discovery when I ordered the Rivian so I had that vehicle to enjoy during the wait. I have had a test drive in the R1T and that renewed my enthusiasm but now my patience is growing thin. Many other EV's are coming to market and will be readily available before it is my turn to have an R1S. Is anybody else getting tired of waiting?

Can certainly appreciate some frustration or at least just boredom at this point but the reason I’m not tired of waiting is that there’s literally nothing else that interests me (yet).

Rivian is both very lucky in that nobody else has come to market with anything interesting for many of us and very unlucky that they started a new car company before a global pandemic that has thrown global supply chains into chaos.

Hell I’d settle for an electric Nissan or Toyota pickup but they don’t exist… My delivery is supposed to happen in July and that’s fine by me. If it got pushed out by six months, I’d probably just keep my spot and wait. I’d be bummed but I have a perfectly good car to last me for as long as need be. Ask me again when something really interesting hits the market.

 

[SeaGeo]

This will probably get my blocked by several people but...

Five guys > In-N-out

? (I do very much enjoy teasing my California raised friends about In-N-Out)

 

[bowhunter]

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the In-N-Out fast food chain, but they have a VERY limited menu: hamburgers and cheeseburgers (with lettuce, tomato, raw or grilled onions, and a few condiments), french fries, and drinks. When you place your order you get a number and as food is ready they call out the numbers. They almost NEVER call out the numbers in order.

If a burger place with a VERY limited menu, all raw materials on site, and in-person delivery doesn’t produce orders first in/first out, then I don’t have any expectation that a vehicle manufacturer will, either. I never resent the wait at In-N-Out because the food is good and the prices reasonable for what you get that it is completely worth the wait.

Your analogy forgot to include the employees enjoying taste-testing all the food while the customers watch waiting for their turn ?

 

[SoCal Rob]

Your analogy forgot to include the employees enjoying taste-testing all the food while the customers watch waiting for their turn ?

While I might be hungry for their product, if they think they need to do taste-testing to be sure there aren’t any bugs then I’m okay with that. Rivians, too,

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