Story: Rivian Adventure Network (RAN) Scaling for R2 and Beyond

[therealcmj]

These are stations with high utilization that become profitable quickly.

I am very skeptical of this claim.

I've run the numbers myself and can't seem to get the numbers to pencil out for them to be profitable completely on their own. They do work as an amenity at places like rest areas, coffee shops, and quick serve restaurants; in that case they don't need to be profitable on their own since they increase other revenue for much more profitable things. Which makes them very much like gas stations.

According to a study conducted by the Rocky Mountain Institute [25], the cost range for a 50 kW DCFC station falls between $20,000 and $150,000. In contrast, data from the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project, which are self-reported by site applicants seeking rebates from the California Energy Commission (CEC), show a total project cost per DC fast charger ranging from $75,841 to $118,131 [26,27].

from: https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/91021.pdf

It takes an awfully long time to recoup $100,000 per charger by marking up electricity even 10c per KWh.


There's another slightly newer one at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666792425000514 with simiilar numbers


As their own standalone business I certainly wouldn't invest.

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[tivoboy]

I am very skeptical of this claim.

I've run the numbers myself and can't seem to get the numbers to pencil out for them to be profitable completely on their own. They do work as an amenity at places like rest areas, coffee shops, and quick serve restaurants; in that case they don't need to be profitable on their own since they increase other revenue for much more profitable things. Which makes them very much like gas stations.



from: https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/91021.pdf

It takes an awfully long time to recoup $100,000 per charger by marking up electricity even 10c per KWh.


There's another slightly newer one at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666792425000514 with simiilar numbers


As their own standalone business I certainly wouldn't invest.

While true, it’s a bit easier to get to break even or profitability than might be expected from simpler calculations.

Most businesses, that are going to be high volume consumers can buy in bulk wholesale rates, so they aren’t just paying what pricing we could see as consumers.. part of that is that in the end they are able to negotiate larger bulk purchases, and don’t pay as much of the inherent distribution fees that easily double the sourced energy price.

Then they mark That up and often pretty darn high so their spread could Be easily 2-3x the .10$ you might have used to calculate..

For a tesla, they have moved their SC’s to profitably a few years back and a big part of that was simply driving utilization but also driving third parties who pay an even HIGHER premium per kWh. So instead of say .44$ per kWh (or .31kw for lower demand periods) they can charge 65-70cents and that’s just all margin.

Getting to break even Is of course easier than making profit..

I once read though, that one of the ways Tesla first got to profitability was having increased the sizing of stations well about the 1-2std. Expectation, for the 3std days like holidays, which pushed major higher margin volume usage. It’s like saying one only makes money in the stock market if they are IN the market for the top 10 days.

Rivian doesn’t really have any of these types of stations, or high third party users, but they might start rolling out different station model types and locations to try and make it as least a break even model.

I was hoping that when Tesla downsized their SC staff, that Rebecca Tinucci who had been the head of that unit would move to Rivian.. but it wasn’t to be.. that would have been a key hire but was probably premature at the time.

 

[Zathras]

I don’t know of an alternative. But it just seems like Rivian is employing the same Tesla playbook from 10 years ago, when EV tax credits/discounts and regulatory credit sales were big tailwinds.

Now that these govt policies don’t exist, I just don’t know if sticking to this same Tesla playbook is a winning strategy.

So they lost the incentives last September. They were optimistic anyway. Now there's a war and gas here in So. Cal. is higher than $6 with no end in sight. (Fingers crossed.) If you don't anticiapte a bumpy road, you're going to get thrown.

 

[Jeremy3292]

With Tesla basically everywhere and now IONNA scaling rapidly, why does Rivian feel the need to invest a lot of $$$ into their own dedicated RAN network at all? Isn't DCFC charging not really a profit maker? They could just add themselves as a member to IONNA like other automakers have.

I like the RAN L2 charging in state parks and DCFC in remote areas is awesome also, but their pricing is worse than Tesla usually anyways.

Feel free to educate me!

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