No, it’s advertising.
I don't really recall too much that was critical from the Munro team during the R1T teardown. There were plenty of times when they said something to the effect of "Why use three screws here when one would do?" I don't know that I would characterize that sort of constructive suggestion as negative feedback. In general, the Munro folks seemed to be positive about the R1T, as far as I could tell. I think Rivian is looking for advice on how they can weld something once rather than twice and reduce the amounts of raw materials used in a certain subsystem by 10% or some such thing. Bringing in a consultant like the Munro team will probably be valuable in iterating the current R1 model right on the production line and preparing process improvements for the R2 platform.
That was what I said in my 2nd sentence …
I prefer overbuilt vs underbuilt. If I recall, Sandy bought one for himself because he was impressed by it. Hopefully his advice results in improved production rate while maintaining or improving quality.
Sandy is an expert at simplifying and cutting costs. My only concern is that he is also a big fan of Tesla. Simplifying and cutting costs isn't always best for the consumer. Sandy is coming in from an OEM perspective. I just hope he doesn't turn Rivian into Tesla because the quality difference is night and day.
I absolutely agree with you. His job is to show a manufacturer ways they CAN cut costs and become more efficient. It’s Rivian’s job to decide what and how much of his advice to take. Musk apparently took all of it, but perhaps Rivian implements 75% of his suggestions and still benefits from increased production and possibly increased revenue.
And for this reason, you have my vote for the next Head of Rivian Manufacturing!
It can’t be any harder than trying to get 30 Gen Z’ers to pay attention to one thing for 60 consecutive seconds without pulling their phones out of their pockets!
