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Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says too many carmakers are copying Tesla
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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This is modestly interesting. My brother worked here before they had layoffs about two years ago, and had a generally favorable opinion of the company and leadership.
Fundamentally, while I think RJ seems like a sound businessman and technologist, and I like the company's taste a bit, I will never be able to reconcile his views with mine. He very openly views cars as computers and software and services that happen to move you around, and I would like it to be a machine over which I have as minimal a relationship as possible with the manufacturer after I acquire the product.
Still, I wish them luck.
Yeah no my relationship with my vehicles manufacturer should pretty much be "PART BAD SEND NEW ONE."
Sadly that era of the vehicle industry is gone. Even if we completely forget electric vehicles, getting parts for any car is becoming harder, because the manufacturer is trying to sell you assembled bundles of things, rather than individual items.
But then we have electric cars. Swapping the battery in these is insanely costly, and if you need other repairs, brands like Tesla would purposefully go out of their way to ensure you only replace things at Tesla certified shops
Funnily enough, the Rivian CEO talks about exactly that in this interview
So when one small thing stops working, you now have to buy their proprietary, expensive ECU instead of a cheap little microcontroller.
I have an 01' Volvo. It has an alarm siren under the bumper. They put a nicad battery in the siren so that even if the main battery is cut the alarm can go off. This battery is prone to going bad, leaking out, and ruining the control board. This will cause the sunroof to not work. The rest of the car is still fine. You will get an error message about the security system, but the car will start. You just can't use the sunroof.
If you catch the problem in time, you can cut the siren open and replace the battery, there is also some way to eliminate the alarm feature through reprogramming I think. I have also seen an aftermarket board that will take it's place.
I just live without the sunroof as it's not worth fixing.
And if your nav system crashes, so does your car
I suppose I'm shilling here, but check out rockauto.com for car parts. They carry an insane number of car parts for basically wholesale prices. A lot of times you can still buy the individual parts instead of entire assemblies.
That's why God made the BBSHD.
The what?
Its a popular mid-drive ebike motor conversion kit made by Bafang.
If you make sure to not charge the battery to 100% all the time, the battery of an EV will easily last for 300,000 km. There will be a slight reduction of overall capacity, but nothing that will impact your day to day life (unless it consists of driving 24/7). Overall, EVs are way more robust than ICE cars.
But yeah, if you're out of luck, then repairs are expensive because of the reasons you mentioned.
Ugg ..no they are not. Stop this. They're good for certain things, like smaller commutes and cheaper cost per mile, but they are not more robust, not by a long shot, 300k miles not km is normal for an ICE car and then some. I've got multiple cars with 300+k on the clock and I'd drive them across the nation tomorrow.
The average lifespan of a car is 200k miles, not 300k. While it's not uncommon to see cars going higher than that, it's rare to see them get to 300k. I've had 2 Toyotas that died between 230k and 260k. There are more citations in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity
Given that 300k km is ~186k miles, I think OP made a pretty reasonable comparison.
As for robustness, how do you even define that? Repair costs per year/mile? Frequency of repairs needed? In either case, there's a much bigger gap between a Jeep and a Toyota than between ICE and BEV.
Sure but then you need to average in shit EVs if you're going to lump in shit vehicles. You also need to take into account maintenance. A lot of cars are not properly maintained, so they end up dying before they should, and even then usually a motor rebuild and they're back up and driving.
It sounds like you think if ever car was "properly maintained" it would last 300k+ miles. Are we talking about average use or the top 10m? You keep mixing statistics that mean different things, and adding in anecdotes to back them up.
The majority of vehicles can do 300k+ miles with proper maintenance easily. This isnt anecdotal evidence. This is just a fact. EVs are not doing 300k miles without replacing the batteries at least once, which is not cheap.
Okay but you understand what you call proper maintenance is not the average maintenance. People aren't neglecting their cars, they dont have the time to spend on it. The only people that talk about proper maintenance like you are the people who grew up with a mentor or mechanic in their life.
Having a car make 300k is a sign of privilege or exceptional design.
This is complete bullshit. The majority of people who take care of their cars are either wealthy or poor. The poor do it themselves and the wealthy just take it to the dealership.
I grew up in poverty, all our vehicles were 20+ years old and used. And all had 200k+ miles on them easily. All my poor friends same thing. Hell if someone's car had issues the community would usually step in and the guys who knew how to work on the cars would do the maintenance or fix the issue. Even today now that I've got a well paying career I don't buy new and I still work on my cars.
Privilege has nothing to do with keeping a car properly maintained. That's just ignorant.
Those cars in your poverty stricken area were meticulously maintained? Or is it more likely they were just endlessly repaired.
Those are two entirely different arguments. Poor people repair cars because thats their only option.
Poor people dont maintain cars well because they can't afford it. You ride shit until it breaks and fix it the best you can.
Apparently everyone in your neighborhood worked in the auto industry.
The ADAC (German Automobile Club) has deemed EVs more reliable than ICE cars. I'm fairly ambivalent in this regard. EVs are still way too expensive for me. Next car will be a used ICE vehicle. Maybe after that one we'll go for an EV, simply because it makes sense for us (PV on the roof), but vehicle2home or vehicle2grid has to be the standard by then.
Older, mechanical cars are very reliable, I'll give you that. I imagine the cars you have aren't exactly the newest models.
Anyone can make that claim, but reliability comes with real world scenarios, and not some hypothetical numbers. How many EVs do you see on the market with 200k+ miles? Vs how many ICE cars hitting this mark?
EVs will get there, but they're not to this point yet
I absolutely get what you mean. It's just that there aren't many components in an EV that can fail. If they do fail however, it's no doubt going to be expensive. I'm looking positively into the future though.
There is still a decent amount, it's just as you said, if it breaks...it gets really expensive quick.
So while that’s true in some circumstances, you need to realize that you’re an outlier. I happen to share your view on cars - if you take care of them, they’ll take care of you… but the vast majority of the country (and the world, to a somewhat lesser degree) seems to have come around to the “my car is just an appliance” mindset. Yes, it’s tragically wasteful, but that’s what people think nowadays.
EVs are going to be even worse if that's the case. That $1200 bill from the mechanic is now going to be 10k for batteries or 5k for a drive motor....or even worse. People really are going to start throwing these away when faced with those types of costs.
Or companies will continue to design easier to repair systems and the price will continue to drop.
Are you really assuming we are done innovating in the EV industry?
Companies are fighting right to repair and continue to create stuff that doesn't last as long...the fuck you mean companies will make it easier to repair lol
Yeah, people want inexpensive EVs. Especially with all we now know about how much of our data all manufacturers are selling. Even if the Chinese companies are blocked from selling here, someone will eventually make affordable EVs. Hope companies like Rivian are ready...
Rivian is also firmly planted in the luxury segment, with prices to match their clientele. We need manufacturer(s) to make EVs for us common folk in a price range we can actually afford.
Any new automobile manufacturer has to do that initially in order to make enough money to get the manufacturing and supply chain developed enough to create a car for the masses. They start with a lower volume and higher priced car to get the excitement for the product. Once they have that, they are able to start assembling a larger volume at a lower price.
Uh... Yup. That's pretty much what I said!
That's a take I haven't seen before, but I have to agree with it. I was looking forward to my next vehicle being an EV, hoping that would simplify the multitude of problems that I've been having with ICE cars (most notably, transmissions).
What are the options now, when both gas and electric cars are more computer than automobile?
Ev conversion. You just get a new motor and batteries, everything else stays the same
I know that this exists, but does anyone have an estimate on the real price? How much a conversion kit costs + how much installation costs - how much you can get from the engine and parts that are removed? With the current cost of even used cars being fairly high, how worth it/reasonable is this really?
How much money you're getting from your parts I guess depends on the car you have.
The costs for the conversion kit also depend on the car and how much performance you want from it. There some companies selling the basic stuff (battery, BMS, inverter, motor) but the you must figure out how to put it, fabricate parts etc. So I'd say it's a rich people hobby...
There used to be a french start-up that was building a standard conversion kit for the most sold cars, but it disappeared :(
I've done stupid engine swaps. Unless your vehicle has a kit, no chance you get it done for under 20k. The amount of planning to get shit to fit must be hundreds of hours. If you want to figure out the engineering you'll get in under 15k probably. I doubt it'll ever be cost efficient to convert most models.
Haha a bike.
I hold out hope, actually, that as the right-to-repair movement continues to grow, eventually repairability and control will become more common consumer interests, in the same way that vehicle safety wasn't something people thought about when buying a car before the 70s, and now it's one of the main influences when buying a car.
Once people start caring -- and again, I believe this is the direction we're heading -- it will become something manufacturers have to design for.
Saw a post on YT yesterday by a guy who had put 150k on his rivian truck doing real truck shit - towing, hauling stuff. Two years in and he still loves it. It comes with a great warranty.
JerryrigEverything?
Whew. I'm glad he's happy with his purchase. I can't ever imagine having enough money that I could drop that kind of cash on a toy, no matter how neat I think it looks.
I've never looked up the price. Someone should say what they cost for those curious enough to wonder but lazy enough to not look it up. I offer them one vote of approval redeemable nowhere.
They start at $70k. And they are actually still losing money on each sale.
Why would it be considered a toy? Actually asking
It's largely marketed as a recreation/sport vehicle. It's for going camping and off-roading.
That isn't too say that it can't also get you to and from work, or even be used for constructive uses. But at the price and feature set, I think anyone would agree it's designed to be a fun luxury first and foremost rather than a practical tool.