TWRAPS Mud Guards Installed on R1S Pics

[darren1f]

I definitely want to do that one day but not now. The reason is this - we only sell what we make. We don't drop ship or outsource manufacturing. For that reason what we sell is limited by what we can make. I started TWRAPS 2 years ago (having spent the previous 20 years as a software entrepreneur) having no clue whatsoever on how to make physical products...happy to say we've grown quite fast and now we've mastered quite a few technologies and I keep adding more (latest addition is a humongous thermoforming machine which I am yet to utilize). With all of that said - what you are asking for would require an injection molding machine and I am not there yet. I've researched extensively about injection molding and while the machines are not that expensive (~$100k-$200k), the tooling for them costs a small fortune. Something the size of the mud flaps would cost over $100k in tooling only and then there is the issue of storing said tools. For reference, the tooling for these mud flaps would weight several thousand lbs so storage, re-tooling etc is not a trivial task. Given the low volume of this, it's unjustified to invest that amount of money into this product (also forgot to mention - we're entirely self-funded...no banks, no investors and I very much like it to stay that way...but that also means - no reckless spending). So that's the reason I don't anticipate us doing this particular product with injection molder anytime soon. Perhaps one day when both Rivian and TWRAPS have matured more, Rivian is popping millions of vehicles per year and TWRAPS has a ginormous factory where I can store tooling that's the size of the car for each separate product, then I'd do it, but until then you are 100% correct - this is a flat plastic piece. We get ABS sheets and machine them with a CNC to produce this product.

Love your products and that you are active in the conversation here.

Not to pile onto this any further, but I am also not a huge fan of the flat cutout design of all of the aftermarket Rivian mud guards. Have you considered creating a 3D printable version of a more integrated design, then simply selling a downloadable STL file with hardware list and installation instructions? I'd gladly pay $20 for a tested design that I could print out myself.

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[twraps]

Love your products and that you are active in the conversation here.

Not to pile onto this any further, but I am also not a huge fan of the flat cutout design of all of the aftermarket Rivian mud guards. Have you considered creating a 3D printable version of a more integrated design, then simply selling a downloadable STL file with hardware list and installation instructions? I'd gladly pay $20 for a tested design that I could print out myself.

That's an interesting idea...haven't thought of 3D printing those, but I might play with it when I have some time. I am generally skeptical that it will be rigid enough due to high likelihood of layer separation (as they'd need to be thin where the screws are or we'll need to be replacing screws with longer ones as we do for the rear mud flap brackets currently). Another option is to 3D print with another material such as Nylon CF, Polycarbonate (pretty glossy though) etc. But then the cost would be higher as these materials are more expensive than ABS.