"A mirage take shape Feb 19" - Rivian teasers [for new California Dune color?]

[EVtowing]

Tesla really should clear up that confusion either by changing the look (color change would work) of the NACS pedestals or putting NACS compatible labels on them.

(Not a Rivian owner, yet) I thought that the Rivian in-car nav showing charging stations would only show Superchargers that are compatible so the driver won’t try to navigate to a non-compatible station?

Of course that assumes the driver is, you know, thinking…

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[George Kaplan]

I'm not missing the point, nor do I disagree with anything you're saying. Rivian does need to make a turn to profitability because that VW money won't last forever nor will their reserves so there has to be a change.

The R2 and the R3 will probably also have really thin profit margins that Rivian hopes to get back on Volume alone, but there's still the overall question mark that is the EV market as we go into this new government (in the US at least) that is very anti EV. So the R2 isn't a 3 pointer quite yet (to piggyback off your basketball analogy), but it's expected price point is a lot more enticing for those people who've been on edge.

And for sure, new colors can help refresh the image of the car to a lot of buyers who've been on the fence. When Tesla added that Silver color to their lineup last year a ton of people who were waiting for SOMETHING different made the move and now, in Seattle at least, I see at least 2 silver Model y's or 3's on the road every day.

But my idea is far from a longshot or a bad business model. Would it only apply to a small volume of buyers, sure when you compare it to the rest of the lineup, same way that an F150 Raptor only has a small percentage of F150 buyers. And absolutely another $100k+ electric vehicle in a market that seems overly saturated with them is not going to be a volume seller, but if you take some things that you already have that take up minimal developmental time overall, but can generate a lo† of buzz and maybe (juusstttt maybe) convince those diehard "petrol heads" to give up their gas off-roaders then it could be worth it. If nothing else, in the same way the R3X probably wont sell at the volume of the R2 or maybe even the standard R3, it will get people into the Rivian spaces and a true trained sales person can say "well, do you need all of these things? For $30k less you can get a dual motor R1S that has 80% of the capability but better range, let's test drive it and you can see just how capable the standard model is".

I also wish they sold the RCV to the public. A conversion camper van one of those with the long body would be amazing for off grid camping.

The key difference in the Ford analogy is any flavor of the F-150 is ridiculously profitable for Ford—it has been that company’s workhorse to gain overall corporate profitability. If it then decides to build a high-zoot derivative for a niche audience, that’s OK—the company may make money on the derivative, and if it flops and they’re sold at cost, the overall lineup is still making a ton of money.

Rivian doesn’t have that same opportunity with the R1 series.

As far as the RCV is concerned—I have zero interest in any kind of off-grid camping, God bless those who do. But the RCV is still a purpose-built vehicle. It doesn’t have the ground clearance or suspension to take on anything worse than a dirt road in good shape. It was designed for paved urban and suburban roads, which is what a delivery van would travel.

And even if the buyer spent thousands to change the suspension on the truck, the battery size is still limited (same pack on the 500 and 700 models) and increasing the pack size at the factory—I don’t think this can be done 3rd party—adds even more cost to the build. Rivian seems to price additional battery capacity the way Apple prices additional memory, so maybe 8K to $10K more there.

It feels like the van will be over $100K before the inside gets kitted out. Is that still a bargain? I don’t know since I don’t track this sector. It feels like this starts out as the wrong tool for the job. Maybe some enterprising 3rd party builds a business retrofitting the RCV into a camper van.

The good news is, you can take the first step towards innovating RCV into campers by creating your own LLC and then ordering your own RCV. It’s nice that they will allow quantities of 1.

 

[VandalSibs]

(Not a Rivian owner, yet) I thought that the Rivian in-car nav showing charging stations would only show Superchargers that are compatible so the driver won’t try to navigate to a non-compatible station?

Of course that assumes the driver is, you know, thinking…

There's a filter (in both the map display and actual route planning settings) that allows you to see incompatible chargers, but it's off by default. I never turn it on - because why?

 

[SANZC02]

(Not a Rivian owner, yet) I thought that the Rivian in-car nav showing charging stations would only show Superchargers that are compatible so the driver won’t try to navigate to a non-compatible station?

Of course that assumes the driver is, you know, thinking…

It does only show compatible ones. You can search the Tesla site and filter only on NACS or in the Tesla and Rivian apps. However I’ve personally been at 3 different locations with my Tesla and had to tell people that location won’t work with the adapter.

 

[bmedfo1]

I keep seeing "news" about this announcement coming up using the verbiage "major announcement" and "R1X" has been said quite a few times (be it by speculation by outsiders or not). If this is anything less than the gen 2 Quad launch its going to be a big disappointment and marketing blunder.

 

[jn bot]

I know somebody way up in the company and it turns out it’s glow in the dark valve stem caps. Ok sorry

 

[FooF]

I know somebody way up in the company and it turns out it’s glow in the dark valve stem caps. Ok sorry

Glad they increased the ignore limit to 5000!

 

[dleepnw]

Could easily be done with software (keeping both or all wheels spinning at same speed)

i doubt its easy to do via software at least in the current quad motor. if it was Rivian would probably have had that feature by now. there's clearly offroad use cases where 4 motors don't perform well but vehicles with lockers do. it may be a limitation of the bosch motors that Rivian can't enable locking via software.
so its possible the new in-house motors do have some virtual locker, which would then make the quad motor R1 the ultimate stock offroad vehicle.

 

[SANZC02]

i doubt its easy to do via software at least in the current quad motor. if it was Rivian would probably have had that feature by now. there's clearly offroad use cases where 4 motors don't perform well but vehicles with lockers do. it may be a limitation of the bosch motors that Rivian can't enable locking via software.
so its possible the new in-house motors do have some virtual locker, which would then make the quad motor R1 the ultimate stock offroad vehicle.

I don’t see how the hardware would prevent the software from synching the motors. If they can configure a tank turn, seems like lockers would be easier.

I’m guessing some other issue like concerned about someone using the lockers on pavement. certainly would be curious if they even tested the concept, strange we never heard anything from Rivian on this subject.

 

[beyond]

Interesting timing of this and apple's "Get ready to meet the newest member of the family." happening on the same day. I know it won't happen but wouldn't it be interesting if they announced a buyout on that day

 

[savethemanual]

Interesting timing of this and apple's "Get ready to meet the newest member of the family." happening on the same day. I know it won't happen but wouldn't it be interesting if they announced a buyout on that day

Hahaha.....CarPlay would finally happen then

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Hahaha.....CarPlay would finally happen then

Just like the ink blot tests... people seeing what they want to see, not what is actually there to see.

 

[TexasBob]

Interesting timing of this and apple's "Get ready to meet the newest member of the family." happening on the same day. I know it won't happen but wouldn't it be interesting if they announced a buyout on that day

Oh please no, not now not ever. The last thing Rivian needs is for its software to be infected by Apple "Intelligence."

(Despite being a dedicated iPhone user since launch day in 2007, the Apple Idiocy features have me on the edge of abandoning the platform altogether.)

 

[DeafPug]

Oh please no, not now not ever. The last thing Rivian needs is for its software to be infected by Apple "Intelligence."

(Despite being a dedicated iPhone user since launch day in 2007, the Apple Idiocy features have me on the edge of abandoning the platform altogether.)

To disable the new Apple Intelligence features totally, go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and turn off the Apple Intelligence toggle switch. Siri still works like it previously did with this toggle turned off.

If you don't want to turn off all Apple Intelligence features, you can turn off some of the new Apple Intelligence features in Settings by navigating to Screen Time > Content & Privacy > Toggle on, Intelligence & Siri > adjust the features as desired.

 

[TexasBob]

To disable the new Apple Intelligence features totally, go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and turn off the Apple Intelligence toggle switch. Siri still works like it previously did with this toggle turned off.

If you don't want to turn off all Apple Intelligence features, you can turn off some of the new Apple Intelligence features in Settings by navigating to Screen Time > Content & Privacy > Toggle on, Intelligence & Siri > adjust the features as desired.

Done and done. You can turn them off, but not make them less awful, and you cannot fix the horrible slow-down and poor performance on Siri. Hopefully Apple gets it act together soon on this.

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