Rivian in talks for $5 billion Texas plant - codename "Project Tera"

[TessP100D]

[Crossposting from Reddit because I hate this so much]

This is extremely annoying IMHO. Elon says he's here for other EV manufacturers, but we really only see him being snarky on Twitter about how he accomplished the impossible or trash talking. Whatever. Putting Elon out of the way for a second...

Rivian likely has preorders to tide them over for at least two years as well as a contract to deliver 100k Amazon vans. Their runway for the next, let's say, 4 years is pretty clear allowing them to identify when they'll reach capacity of their current plant. We should also remember Rivian isn't public, so we don't know how many more commercial vans they'll make, their future vehicle plans, or, again, their reservations. Maybe they know when they'll hit capacity within a certain confidence interval and this second plant is necessary to meet demand. <--- that's very likely to be the case. It's not as easy to say, "Ah right, in the last investor meeting we know that Tesla needs another factory to build the Model Y," which can create some frustration from those watching, but you'll get that when they IPO

Factories take an extremely long time and this article is saying they're looking at places to expand. They haven't even made a commitment yet. But they have raised investor money to build plants so they should like... probably explore... how they spend... those billions... Tesla's first factory opened in 2010 with their second in 2014. We're probably looking at a similar timeline here with how long construction takes. (Again, ugh I hate Elon's persona so much) For those saying, "They should iron out everything before building something new!" They will. There's a lot to do before the robots start screwing screws.

Tesla under your skin?

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[Eager2own]

Tesla under your skin?

Seems Rivian is under Elon’s skin. Probably a bit peeved about the official delay of the Cybertruck.

 

[crashmtb]

Seems Rivian is under Elon’s skin. Probably a bit peeved about the official delay of the Cybertruck.

Don’t forget a bunch of people ran so fast from Tesla to work at Rivian their former chairs are probably still spinning.

 

[SANZC02]

Don’t forget a bunch of people ran so fast from Tesla to work at Rivian their former chairs are probably still spinning.

A bunch is a stretch…. Rivian has about 7000 employees, last I heard was 178 of them had previously worked for Tesla but only 70 actually came directly from Tesla.

Seems like a very small number considering how small the experienced EV resource pool is.

 

[C.R. Rivian]

Texas is an odd choice given that Tesla can not sell there even though they build there. Customers have to go out of state to get their Teslas...

 

[skyote]

Texas is an odd choice given that Tesla can not sell there even though they build there. Customers have to go out of state to get their Teslas...

Texas is also the most affordable of Rivian's largest potential markets, and billions in investments from Rivian and Tesla will darn sure get direct sales allowed next legislative session.

 

[bajadahl]

Texas is also the most affordable of Rivian's largest potential markets, and billions in investments from Rivian and Tesla will darn sure get direct sales allowed next legislative session.

I really hope so! Hearing that legislature committee member talk about, "but my small town local dealership supports little league." made me think this is never going to get through our legislature. I am wondering if maybe there will be some sort of baby step towards direct sales with cars built in Texas being allowed to be sold here. (Mind you I'm not hoping for this but I do see it as a possible compromise).

 

[skyote]

I really hope so! Hearing that legislature committee member talk about, "but my small town local dealership supports little league." made me think this is never going to get through our legislature. I am wondering if maybe there will be some sort of baby step towards direct sales with cars built in Texas being allowed to be sold here. (Mind you I'm not hoping for this but I do see it as a possible compromise).

The Dealers Association already sees the writing on the wall. We might need a more organized and concerted effort by citizens/consumers leading up to (and during) next session, but I'm confident it gets done.

 

[CarterGee]

Tesla under your skin?

Weird comment.

I don't like Elon Musk, at all, but Tesla isn't under my skin as a company. What irks me about his comment is that it creates a perception that Rivian doesn't know what it's doing because Musk is a subject matter expert. I think that's irresponsible and uncool to sow that perception from someone in his position, especially when he claims to be an advocate for the planet and for other manufacturers. The reason I responded was to share more detail on why what's happening isn't the issue Musk made it out to be.

 

[jplblue]

Weird comment.

I don't like Elon Musk, at all, but Tesla isn't under my skin as a company. What irks me about his comment is that it creates a perception that Rivian doesn't know what it's doing because Musk is a subject matter expert. I think that's irresponsible and uncool to sow that perception from someone in his position, especially when he claims to be an advocate for the planet and for other manufacturers. The reason I responded was to share more detail on why what's happening isn't the issue Musk made it out to be.

I find it odd that some Tesla fans cultishly think that Elon and Tesla are one and the same.

 

[E.S.]

that would qualify as infrastructure concerns.

Fair point.

Well, if they need abundant water, they can't do much better than the site that Georgia is reportedly offering. It's literally in an area close to the Atlantic, a decent-sized river, and a very large swamp.

Same would be for FL, I mean the blasted state is a peninsula. Pick and choose Rivian got loads of water here!

 

[IHScout]

Not just infrastructure, but I do recall hearing there was issues regarding having a consistent and ABUNDANT water supply being just as problematic, but I would have thought them being so close to the sea and Texas, it could have been addressed. I guess it wasn't feasible enough.

Funny enough, there is a water bottling plant just a few miles west of the alleged site. On top of that, the data center that apple runs is close by also. Google is building a data center near there as well, all of which requires a lot of water.?

 

[TessP100D]

I find it odd that some Tesla fans cultishly think that Elon and Tesla are one and the same.

Me too.

 

[TessP100D]

Weird comment.

I don't like Elon Musk, at all, but Tesla isn't under my skin as a company. What irks me about his comment is that it creates a perception that Rivian doesn't know what it's doing because Musk is a subject matter expert. I think that's irresponsible and uncool to sow that perception from someone in his position, especially when he claims to be an advocate for the planet and for other manufacturers. The reason I responded was to share more detail on why what's happening isn't the issue Musk made it out to be.

Ok. Fair. You don’t like Elon Musk.

Look whether you like him or not or his crazy ideas and tweets … he’s a fricken genius to have pullEd off what he has with Tesla. It’s amazing.

Tesla the company has a lot of faults. But they still are awesome Cars

and yes… Elon and Tesla can teach Rivian a lot about manufacturing. You do realize they haven’t sold anything yet… right? Manufacturing to scale is hard. Very hard. Why do you think we haven’t had any sales yet? Because it’s hard.

As for Musk as an engineer and person… well I think he’s in a class all to himself right now. He’s going to go down as one of thr most brilliant people ever to lI’ve on the planet. That. Being said, I also fee stronobly that he’s losing it. Some of his decisions lately are mind-blogging. He’s headed down the path of another brilliant engineer - Howard Hughes.


Tell me I’m wrong.


Otherwise I hope everybody here is happy and excited about the Rivian future and the love their new trucks. Hopefully soooon.

 

[electruck]

As for Musk as an engineer and person… well I think he’s in a class all to himself right now. He’s going to go down as one of thr most brilliant people ever to lI’ve on the planet. That. Being said, I also fee stronobly that he’s losing it. Some of his decisions lately are mind-blogging. He’s headed down the path of another brilliant engineer - Howard Hughes.

It's a fine line between genius and insanity.

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