Rivian is sourcing cells and making their own packs in-house.
Rivian doesn't buy turnkey battery packs. They make their own. If you read the link I posted, you'll see that the cell price estimate does take into account demand and raw material costs increases. Cell price represents approximately 82% of final pack price. So even using the highest projected cell price ($138 per kilowatt hour) your final pack cost is only $7500. They're charging $10k. Rivian is not losing money on Max Pack even under the most pessimistic cost analysis.
Rivian incurs a cost to make their own battery packs. Unless they're receiving free labor, equipment and pack assembly materials? The prices you quoted are for the cells only.
I didn't take a screen shot at the time, but the pre-configurator Rivian website absolutely indicated that the 180 kWh battery was planned to be offered on both the R1S and R1T. When the configurator went live, it was not shown as an option for the R1S however, which is why I configured my order for an R1T Max.
45kwh*$138=$6210. That's for the additional cells needed for the Max Pack using a very high per kWh estimate. The cells represent approximately 82% of the final manufactured pack cost. .82x=6210. X=$7573. That's the estimate for final pack cost including labor and materials, etc.
I've got a 4/19 Max reservation (with Camp Kitchen) and admit to wondering whether I should reconfigure to a Large (without CK). But I don't think Rivian will cancel the Max because if they do, depending on what a comparable Silverado prices at, I think a lot of preorder holders will just cancel and buy the Silverado instead, especially with the longer bed.
Spoiler: The following opinion is not in the best interest of the community
I hope you are correct, but I don't see evidence of this. I believe only the Hummer is offering a 200 kWh pack right now, and I have not seen any announcements from any other manufacturer regarding a similar pack size.
Agree with you. 135 kWh packs are for premium vehicles and will continue to be rare for a few years. The price increase of Rivian further underscores this. Even the EQS which is coming from a premium brand who could charge whatever they want is still around 108k kWh. There will continue to be outliers like the Hummer/Silverado but mainstream vehicles won't hit 200 as a standard for a while (if ever hopefully). I'd personally rather have more efficient solutions than strapping on more batteries and weight to increase range.
There is some logic to this. It is not financially attractive for Rivian to deliver an R1T Max to a pre-March reservation holder at $81,500 when the same vehicle now fetches $106,500. The cynical view is that Rivian is deliberately dragging their feet on the Max, to get early reservation holders to either accept the LR, or cancel their orders completely. I prefer to believe that Rivian is not doing this, but there is nothing that prevents them from adopting the strategy, and in fact a strong argument for it from the shareholder value perspective.
Maybe they don’t release Max until it’s needed to compete with the Silverado and Cynerteuck?
GM has gone through how the Ultium pack will scale. I don't know that we've got specifics on the EVlanche, but GM has patents on a double-decker dual charging battery (which BYD has already put into production) and no doubt the "best in class" title is going to continue in the contest between GM and Ford (and RAM) pickups.
I would be with you all the way except that they ok'd a price hike on all existing reservation holders and were shamed so badly they almost immediately walked it back. So by comparison only impacting X% of the user base in MP orders vs. 100% of all orders is an improvement for them.
I do think that dropping the max pack is a good strategy if the goal is to eliminate unprofitable pre 3/1 preorders. The issue for Rivian is that max pack is right at the heart of their primary market position and messaging.
The Silverado EV is getting the exact same battery that the Hummer EV has. The Hummer SUT has a 24 module battery by default, the SUV has a 20 module battery. The 20 module battery is likely going to be an option on the Silverado as well, and I anticipate them using the same 20 module battery case for a 16 module base range model, since they can arrange the modules for better weight distribution. It will still have ~140 kWh of usable battery. I don't think they will produce any in single stack for the trucks, but the switching hardware is going to be optional. Maybe they will make 12 module packs for fleet sales to keep the base cost as low as possible, but I'm kinda doubting it.
