Munro comparison: Rivian seats vs Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Tesla

[Zoidz]

You've never had to run your own 12V power for an accessory device before? It's all part of the adventure

Hah, yes I have done that many times for higher power devices like radios, amps, etc. But I should not have to do it for a 2 amp accessory outlet that every modern vehicle in the world has as factory stock.

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[Aag12]

I'm sure rivian is aware of where they can cut costs but made the choices they did to either add luxury or increase speed to market.

Speed to market probably trumped so much for their initial launch. As they scale they'll get more supply, different suppliers, and more time to engineer correctly!

 

[SoCal Rob]

You've never had to run your own 12V power for an accessory device before? It's all part of the adventure

I’ve added plenty of 12v accessories without incident over the course of decades, but I would be very hesitant to do that with a Rivian.

Given the lack of documentation and the issues with 12v batteries sometimes dying, and the fact that it isn’t always possible to revive an R1 with a discharged 12v battery system, it seems like a much higher risk than in any car I’ve owned before.

I could see Rivian denying warranty coverage of a 12v battery failure because of modifications made to 12v wiring. I’m pretty sure that Magnuson Moss would allow that denial, too. I wouldn’t want to be on the hook for the parts, labor, and towing costs associated with that.

 

[Ducky]

After watching the video I have mixed feelings, as I know others do about the Munroe team. I respect everything he said, but to me it was myopic in the bigger picture and way too focus on cost at the expense of brand value and manufacturing capacity. He didn't go into the possible reasons that the Rivian seat is different, overbuilt, labor vs material cost, etc. If you are going to call Rivian out about the things you do know, you also need to acknowlege the things you don't know that may have led to Rivian's choices:

- First and foremost, brand image luxury. I don't want an Ionic seat in my Rivian. Rivian wanted to have a unique design. You can't make a unique seat design if you don't change something! This is specific to the seat back assembly comments he made. Two mounting holes are not used and they used two different snaps. If they needed to do that to make a unique product, so what? The Rivian seat is visually so much better than the Ioniq seat.

- Startup design costs - There's little doubt that at the time the seats were being designed, to save startup costs, Rivian worked with Hyundai to select existing Hyundai sub-assemblies, as opposed to custom designing and fabricating the entire seat. Rivian saved hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, by doing that. Stamping machines did not need to be built, safety testing could be reduced, etc. Pay a lot less up front, pay a fraction more for each seat later.

- Startup company/volume - I'm guessing some of the design was cost compromised due to Rivian being a startup and the relatively low production volume of the seats. It would not surprise me at all if Hyundai said "we can't do this, we can't do that..." because production volume was not high enough. Hyundai certainly dictated a lot of the seat design and fabrication based on their factory capabilities, available capacity, etc. It's entirely possible that hog rings were used not at Rivian's request, but rather because Hyundai told them "that's the way we have to do it because...."

Informative video, yes, but one sided.

Completely agree and and very well stated!

 

[Dark-Fx]

I’ve added plenty of 12v accessories without incident over the course of decades, but I would be very hesitant to do that with a Rivian.

Given the lack of documentation and the issues with 12v batteries sometimes dying, and the fact that it isn’t always possible to revive an R1 with a discharged 12v battery system, it seems like a much higher risk than in any car I’ve owned before.

I could see Rivian denying warranty coverage of a 12v battery failure because of modifications made to 12v wiring. I’m pretty sure that Magnuson Moss would allow that denial, too. I wouldn’t want to be on the hook for the parts, labor, and towing costs associated with that.

As long as your accessories are cutting off way before the batteries are drained, I see no harm at all. I'd put the absolute limit at 12.5V or higher just to be overly safe.

 

[PaulPlacerCounty]

Removal of the 12 volt outlets annoys me more than any of the other changes. There are a gazillion car accessories that use 12 volt outlets and they saved maybe $10 - $20. What the hell are they thinking? There was a Rivian comment that it was a supplier constraint issue. OK, but these things are widely available. Find another supplier and let me do a self install after the fact, sheesh.

Rivian's initial explanation on removal off the 12v outlets was that they "surveyed" and found these outlets were under utilized and so warranted removal to streamline production. Surveyed whom and when was not said.
If Rivian is now falling back on supply chain issues, then we now have the new and improved explanation.
12v outlets are not a game changer. But it is kind of annoying and, not having a straight and consistent answer from Rivian, we're left to guess.

 

[SoCal Rob]

As long as your accessories are cutting off way before the batteries are drained, I see no harm at all. I'd put the absolute limit at 12.5V or higher just to be overly safe.

That’s fine, but even after we’ve done everything right, if there is a 12v issue which we think is unrelated, Rivian can still say that our modification caused the problem. I don’t know how much work it takes on the part of a consumer to get a Magnuson Moss dispute resolved, but I suspect that it’s more than I’d want to do, if given a choice.

 

[SoCal Rob]

Rivian's initial explanation on removal off the 12v outlets was that they "surveyed" and found these outlets were under utilized and so warranted removal to streamline production. Surveyed whom and when was not said.
If Rivian is now falling back on supply chain issues, then we now have the new and improved explanation.
12v outlets are not a game changer. But it is kind of annoying and, not having a straight and consistent answer from Rivian, we're left to guess.

I won’t be surprised if it’s a combination of factors so it could be both lack of demand from the people surveyed and supply chain issues. There could be other factors involved, too.

Cost reduction is another likely reason.

It could be that the 12v system isn’t as robust as we’d like it to be and Rivian reduced the opportunities to add load to it to avoid warranty claims related to 12v problems.

 

[Mathme]

Spend the money on the seats...that's the part of the vehicle your customers will interact with the most.

 

[Rivdog]

Spend the money on the seats...that's the part of the vehicle your customers will interact with the most.

Yep. And the steering wheel, literally the most-touched item in a car. That should always be extremely high quality if you’re selling a premium vehicle. Put high quality materials where we interact with them the most.

 

[SeaGeo]

There was a Rivian comment that it was a supplier constraint issue.

does anyone remember where this comment was? I feel like I remember seeing it as well, but it could also be a fake memory half of us have...

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

does anyone remember where this comment was? I feel like I remember seeing it as well, but it could also be a fake memory half of us have...

Some users claimed it.... But afaik no one could provide any evidence that Rivian ever released that information, officially.

Personally, I don't buy it. It's a cigarette lighter socket. They're not retooling parts because they can't get the socket. If it were temporary, we'd see a plastic plug and the frunk tub/dash would have remained unchanged.

 

[CO-rayman]

Spend the money on the seats...that's the part of the vehicle your customers will interact with the most.

I agree 100%.

I just rented a Kia EV6 from Hertz yesterday and am assuming the ionic 5 has the same seats.

While it's a nice EV overall, I would never buy one because of its front seats. Compared to the R1T, the seats are made of much harder cushion material, don't provide much side to side support, and the bottom cushions are just too short to provide any support for people over 5' 8".

I wish the reviewer would have sat on the seats for 20 mins before taking them apart. I bet he wouldn't fit comfortably on the Hyundai seats for more than 5 mins.

 

[SASSquatch]

Sandy sat down to talk with Elon Musk a while ago. The video is on YouTube somewhere. One of his questions for Elon was whether or not he had thought about using carbon fiber in the Tesla like BMW did with their i3. Sandy loves the i3 so much so that he gave away his report on it (he normally charges OEMS tens of thousands if not more) for those reports because he wanted OEMS to adopt aspects of the i3 design.

Elon's expression was priceless. It was pretty much like, "What you smok'n Sandy?"

Here is where I don't get Sandy. He gushed over the i3, the high quality interior, the design breakthroughs, even the battery cells. Yet, the i3 is premium, expensive, and BMW never really made money off them but used the platform to launch its electric vehicle lineup of the future.

So he isn't always entirely consistent with how he views penny pinching.

 

[COdogman]

Sandy sat down to talk with Elon Musk a while ago. The video is on YouTube somewhere. One of his questions for Elon was whether or not he had thought about using carbon fiber in the Tesla like BMW did with their i3. Sandy loves the i3 so much so that he gave away his report on it (he normally charges OEMS tens of thousands if not more) for those reports because he wanted OEMS to adopt aspects of the i3 design.

Elon's expression was priceless. It was pretty much like, "What you smok'n Sandy?"

Here is where I don't get Sandy. He gushed over the i3, the high quality interior, the design breakthroughs, even the battery cells. Yet, the i3 is premium, expensive, and BMW never really made money off them but used the platform to launch its electric vehicle lineup of the future.

So he isn't always entirely consistent with how he views penny pinching.

There always seems to be Sandy the manufacturing expert vs Sandy the car lover. Just like us he probably wants to get as much as possible for his $ but that is likely not the advice he gives his clients.

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