They're also going to be really upset when Rivian only tells people in June when they are going to let them into the configurator.
Demand is also purely anecdotal until the orders are actually placed and the cars actually delivered. Rivian needs demand to be continuous and steady over the next 2 years, not just a bunch of people buying a launch edition and then demand falls off a cliff. They really aren’t in a position to try and eek every dollar out of potential consumers at this point in their company arc IMO. I mean it’s not like the cars are cheap. The LE is $60k after delivery fees. That’s a lot of money for most of America. They just need to build the cars well, ramp up nicely, and sell a solid amount every month for the next 24 months or so as the different trims keep coming out.
My guess is test drives come after deliveries start. They will have a lot of people willing to take delivery without a test drive. I never drove an R1S before I picked mine up, will have no issues doing the same with the R2.
Household income of 120k/year here: this car is a financial stretch for us at 57k, whereby we’d normally just get the model y or 3. If they started nickel and diming and made it 70k, both me and my husband will turn around and get Teslas instead. Them being price competitive is the only thing keeping their interest afloat right now. If this prices above an EX60 for example, you’d be nuts to not just get the Volvo.
The Cybertruck was a failure because they never hit their price/performance targets. The appearance is polarizing, but they got a sh*t ton of orders when people thought the price was going to be lower than it turned out to be.
This
