Online Auction vs New?

[EVnut]

My R1T has been getting delayed over and over for the past year and a half. The price Rivian is requesting is $98k with my options. The question I have is, when Rivian finally tells me, "for real this time your are getting your new R1T." How at that time will I be able to justify paying $25,000 to $30,000 more vs the one's selling online with only 1,000 to 3,000 miles!?! When used cars are 25% or 30% lower than retail they have at least 15-20,000 miles on them. These used R1T's, with only a thousand or so miles on them are going for 25%-30% less than what my new price is? Am I missing something here? What's the difference? Why would any reservation holder pay that much more? Thanks!

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[Firstlast]

Get a used one that you will be happy with. No need to pay retail when a used one has a fully intact warranty.

 

[HighVoltOverland]

A huge driver of this is the existence of pre-price adjustment vehicle owners.

Used cars SHOULD be lower, COVID scarcity and weird Tesla value made people erroneously think that vehicles were investments, not liabilities.
"New" may be worth 20-30k for some folks still
At one point people were paying 120k+ on the secondary market, people do silly things.

 

[edman007]

Pre-price hike buyers are still flipping their vehicles.

My R1S cost me $78k, after tax and other junk, I paid about $90k and got a $7500 tax credit, so $82k was the cost to me. MSRP today (excluding the bit that my config is discontinued) would be $98k, so I paid 17% under MSRP after tax. If I was in a state without sales tax I could make a profit selling it 25% below MSRP.

 

[COdogman]

My R1T has been getting delayed over and over for the past year and a half. The price Rivian is requesting is $98k with my options. The question I have is, when Rivian finally tells me, "for real this time your are getting your new R1T." How at that time will I be able to justify paying $25,000 to $30,000 more vs the one's selling online with only 1,000 to 3,000 miles!?! When used cars are 25% or 30% lower than retail they have at least 15-20,000 miles on them. These used R1T's, with only a thousand or so miles on them are going for 25%-30% less than what my new price is? Am I missing something here? What's the difference? Why would any reservation holder pay that much more? Thanks!

If you are seeing similar configurations for that much cheaper that is the route I would go. Some people just have to have brand new vehicles. I have always purchased slightly used and had great luck.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

I haven't seen many dual motor vehicles come up on the used market so if you want dual motor you may have to buy new.

The facts that used car prices are crashing and Rivians are still holding their value this well is pretty amazing and speaks volumes about what a great product Rivian puts out.

With that said I think a lot of folks are selling them because of affordability issues. When Rivian started production interest rates were darn near 0. Cash buyers are a pretty low percentage of the market. Now that rates are higher many folks either flipped them (not really feasible now) or bought them and then realized the payment is out of their comfort zone.

Many of them can afford to sell for less because, as said above, they had pre March 22 pricing.

Our R1S is pre price hike so we saved a LOT on that one. Paid $77,500 and same truck is $94,500 today. BTW it's worth every bit of that $94,500!

The R1T I bought used with 200 miles on it for 84k before tax. When you add MD tax it cost me 90. So I saved about 4k off new MSRP and I also saved $2,000 is destination and doc fees. So I saved $6,000 on the R1T in May of 23.

I hadn't planned on purchasing the R1T but I had problems with my Tesla and they bought it back. Wife said why don't you get a Rivian ... Who was I to argue with her ?

Do you due diligence of course but if you don't mind a few miles and that it's been titled before I say go used. Conditions are certainly more favorable now. I expect used prices may get a bump in the spring (tax time).

 

[Santa Cruz Rivian]

Read the fine print with the used online trucks. I started to go down that road and was surprised with almost 10k in BS fees (undercoating (they really still try that), paint protection, accessories fee). If you break down the numbers on leasing it is also a good deal, $7500 tax credit plus being able to buy the vehicle for 60% MSRP after 3 years.

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