8 ms·
Rivian is valued at $7 billion, and has not shipped a product ever? Crazy.
by w0mbat 8y ago
Rivian is valued at $7 billion, and has not shipped a product ever? Crazy.
- TremendousJudge 8y agoTypical. Magic Leap was valuated at 6.3B[0] less than a year ago [0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/11/att-takes-strategic-stake-in-ar-company-magic-leap-in-its-latest-push-into-digital-media/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/11/att-takes-strategic-stake-...
- eanzenberg 8y agoHahahahaha, oh wow, thanks for the laugh :)
- DeonPenny 8y agoI know someone who worked there. Its a scam
- leesec 8y agoNor do they seem to even have a real product at this point. Not that they wont in 2 years, but still.
- gamblor956 8y agoThey definitely have a real product. They demoed their EV truck at the LA Auto Show this past year. They haven't made it in mass quantities, so at this point its more like the original Tesla Roadster, but at least one of their products actually exists.
- sixQuarks 8y agoMusk says it's at least 100 times harder to build EVs at scale, then it is to build a few prototypes.
- gamblor956 8y agoMusk says a lot of things that aren't true because he's unwilling to listen to expert advice. A lot of the "hell" that Tesla has been through the past year--especially with the logistics--are nonissues for everyone else because the solutions are either industry SOP are such basic tasks that expertise isn't required (like properly labeling your imported products...). Rivian will be building products with Ford's assistance (and Ford will be building products using Rivian's tech). Ford has been building cars at scale for more than a century, and I'd bet a pretty penny that Rivian will take their advice on how to structure their manufacturing process.
- moduspol 8y agoIf Musk listened to expert advice, Tesla wouldn't exist.
- gamblor956 8y agoTesla would absolutely still exist. Tesla wasn't founded by Musk, it was founded by two other guys as an EV boutique manufacturer that was profitable selling handmade EVs based on other carmaker's frames. Indeed, Gwynne Shotwell over at SpaceX shows what a Tesla without Musk would look like: functional, industry-leading, and with a history of actually reaching its goals on the timelines set forth.
- sixQuarks 8y agooh come on. The guys that started Tesla would have never gotten this far.
- notfromhere 8y agoMusk is an arrogant blowhard who is trying to cover for his failings. The Musk ventures that are going well, like SpaceX, aren't managed by him on a day-to-day basis. He's not a good CEO and from information publicly available has no business managing people.
- leesec 8y agoThey have a shell and some technology right now. Has a real person driven one and can confirm it does 410 miles? Or the claimed 0-60? I haven't seen that anywhere and I've been looking, would be happy to be wrong. I get uneasy when I see a company without proven tech spend more time on marketing videos than showing off the car. If it works, where is the footage of it working up to par?
- gamblor956 8y agoAs a general rule automakers don't normally show off prototypes of future production vehicles in action, except for test vehicles not intended to be produced in quantity. The reasoning is that there is very limited positive upside from showing off an ugly prototype with all its beta-testing flaws, but a huge potential for a bad demo to kill the market prospects for the model.
- cptskippy 8y agoActually most automakers do show off prototypes but they usually classify them as one of the following: Concept: Might as well be cardboard cutouts. A physical representation of pie-in-the-sky design with little basis in reality. An example would be the VW ID Buggy. Functional: Usually a Frankenstein vehicle cobbled together from catalog parts with intended purpose of vetting a design or idea. An example would be the EV and Hybrid variants of the Porsche 718 Boxster. Manufacturing: Very close to the final production model but still with a few kinks. Examples would be the Honda e Prototype, or the Ford Mustang Shelby S560 Rivian doesn't give any clear indication of what they're showing off but want you to believe it's the later when it could be the former.
- leesec 8y agoWould be pretty easy to make a vid showing the acceleration or long range mileage while still overlooking the prototype-esque flaws. I just want more than an overhead shot of it driving through a forest with cuts every half second.
- davej 8y agoThat's insane. One-third of Tesla's market cap and they seem to be far behind in self-driving, battery tech, charging infrastructure and product development.
- village-idiot 8y agoBehind where Tesla claims to be in self driving, or behind where Tesla is with self driving?
- gamblor956 8y agoBut unencumbered by Tesla's billions in financial, technical, and logistical debt... As with Tesla, Rivian is being judged by its hoped future successes, not its actual track record to date.
- martythemaniak 8y agoAs Russ Hanneman would say, they're a "Pure Play". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo
- NotSammyHagar 8y agotesla owes something like 9.5 billion in loans. i think they can just sell some more stock. instead they seem to want to raise capital.
- linuxftw 8y agoCompare Tesla's market cap to Fords. Tesla is far behind in producing cars in volume, service centers, repair parts, product development, making actual profits on a sustained basis. It's lunacy.
- cptskippy 8y agoFord did after all have a 100 year head start. Is it realistic to expect a 16 year old company to have the same level of everything as a 116 year old incumbent?