What if the long-delayed max pack R1T comes with great new feature(s)?

[elfordon]

Rivian has made us wait years for the max pack R1T, moving us from the front of the line (initial info from Rivian was the max pack would be the first truck config produced), to last in line behind preorder holders, and now we are last in line behind brand-new orders.

What if part of the delay is to give us new features, like 800v architecture, a heat pump, or a working powered tonneau cover? (I'm not sure making us change from quad to dual motors is a gift.)

Or maybe the delay is to get us used to only getting 50 miles more in range than dual motor + large pack?

It's nice torture to be part of this forum in the meantime. (First world problems, I know!)

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[uthatch]

I'm very tempted, and likely will, place another reservation very soon. I'd like to have the range of the Max Pack/Dual Motor combination. I'm hard pressed to believe it will only be 50 miles additional...I'm hoping they are setting low expectations so that they can overdeliver.

But I doubt there will be a bunch of additional functionality or upgrades, certainly not this soon. Currently Rivian needs to scale and optimize and the additional complexity of a completely different architecture seems unlikely. Probably in a mid-cycle refresh in 4-6 years from now we'll see big updates would be my guess.

I'm thinking about a Model 3...it's had tons of improvements since it was released but the overall car is largely the same for 6+ years now. They needed to learn how to make volume so that the company would survive. Because of this the car received very little change and the Model S/X also saw little change. Now that the entire Tesla lineup is scaled, the 3 is being updated this year. I picture this roadmap very, very similar to what Rivian will be following, meaning I think we should all get used to how the R1 looks because we're going to be looking at it for quite a few years.

 

[COdogman]

All of those things would be a well deserved reward for all who waited, but I doubt most of it will happen. In fact I think Rivian was asked about the 800v architecture at some point on Reddit and said it wasn’t happening. Take that for what it’s worth, but other than a nice range benefit I doubt it will add much else.

 

[itselectric]

The max pack probably has much better margins. I think Rivian would love to push customers into buying one.

I don't think they spent a lot of time or additional investment in the things listed, sadly. The goal was to significantly increase price while reducing cost as much as possible.

More batteries is expensive, yes, but reducing motors and producing your own, along with a large jump in price vs pre March preorders should help them.

I have no problem with any of that as long as it helps get them on the road to sustainability.

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