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Rivian has tons of inefficiencies in their system sapping away precious capital Munro had a video [1] just for a single item, seats, and comparing the Ford F15

Rivian has tons of inefficiencies in their system sapping away precious capital Munro had a video [1] just for a single item, seats, and comparing the Ford F150L vs Rivian on a component-by-component basis, and even accounting for slightly higher luxury setting for Rivian, the over engineering and related cost and supply chain issues is astounding. Rivian needs to greatly simplify processes. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV2e1gokYik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV2e1gokYik

runnr_az 4y ago
Yeah... I mean, it turns out, the "old" car makers know how to make cars.
- ryzvonusef 4y ago
  for something like seats, yes, Ford has both its processes, and market understanding pat down (it knows just how luxurious it seats need to be for the segment it's targeting, which material or stitch features are not worth investing on, for example) and can have those seats made in the best possible way. Rivian is making more luxurious seats, so some costs to account for that is understood, but when you four differently sized plastic pieces for each end of the seat, when one same piece could do, (which means four different supply chains instead of one) it really does show the inexperience of new manufacturers. ---- But give a point for the EV side of things too, where old manufacturers are wasting material weight due to legacy frameworks etc (Munro has videos on that too)
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  It is really funny when EV fans are slowly discovering Kaizen and lean production. Wait until they will figure out what is FMEA.
antisthenes 4y ago
Yeah, I think seats are the least of my concerns when buying an EV. I don't want $5000 added to the price tag for fancy seats. Just give me more battery and power. I mean sure, if you make 500+ mile trips frequently, by all means, get yourself a custom car seat, but I just want a frictionless experience of getting from A to B (cheaply)
- dkyc 4y ago
  If you don’t make 500+ mile trips frequently, why is the size of the battery so important (honest question)?
  - zaroth 4y ago
    If someone is questioning battery and power as their key issues for an EV, it’s likely they don’t own one and don’t actually get it. The biggest issue with EV adoption will be access to home charging. If you can charge at home, battery and power is more than already solved. And if you can’t charge at home, no amount of battery can really solve that problem.
  - frumper 4y ago
    I'd also think that someone making 500+ mile trips would be very interested in the seats.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    Because the battery is what should be driving the value of the EV for me, the customer. When the battery starts losing capacity, a larger battery will still have more miles, for longer, than a smaller one. The length of the trip has nothing to do with it, btw, only the total amount of miles driven in the expected lifetime of the vehicle. The second biggest cost factor in an EV is the electric drivetrain. As a customer, I want the manufacturer to spend the most amount of money on the parts of the car that get me from point A to point B (which are battery and drivetrain), not something frivolous like a $5000 car seat, when a $500 one is 99% as good.
- lazide 4y ago
  If you use the car for 100k miles, you’ll spend anywhere from 70 to 270 straight 24 hr days sitting in that seat, depending on your mix of average speeds. (60 to 15 mph for these examples) I can’t imagine a more sure fire way to hate past you than having bad and/or unergonomic seats. But hey, we all have different priorities.
- ryzvonusef 4y ago
  You are talking about the wrong segment of cars, neither Rivian nor its competitor the Ford F150L are trying to capture your segment, if I understand it correctly. but the issue is about the manufacturing process for the seats. Rivian would have five different plastic pieces, for say, the underside of the seat, all requiring individual painting, whereas Ford has learnt that that piece could be one single textured molded piece, ready to go, so that is process engineering, and neither effect the luxuriousness of the seat, but there are still cost savings to be had.
jedc 4y ago
It's also easier to cut costs from a premium-priced product than it is to build that reputation in the first place.
memish 4y ago
That's an under appreciated point. Dealing with inefficiencies is perhaps Elon's greatest strength and why Tesla and SpaceX managed to succeed. Andrej Karpathy (ex-Tesla head of AI) talked about this recently. "I think Elon is a very efficient warrior in the fight against entropy in organizations". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE
- ryzvonusef 4y ago
  Exactly, Elon might be a nitpicking boss from hell, but it does result in some excellent efficiencies in tesla manufacturing process, from the super bottle to the octovalve, some amazing stuff has come out of it.
  - Haga 4y ago
  - misiti3780 4y ago
    super bottle?
    - Tempest1981 4y ago
      Top google result: https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-egg-is-a-fascin-1830992728 https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-e... Part of the cooling system.
      - misiti3780 4y ago
        cool!
    - ryzvonusef 4y ago
      Tesla had a thermal management system called "Super bottle", which later eveolved into the "OctoValve". instead of multiple coolant systems as in other cars, they combined them all into one big system, and gain benefits from that. It was a very clever bit of engineering, and octovalve only improved upon it further. More on the Super Bottle: https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-egg-is-a-fascin-1830992728 https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-e...

runnr_az 4y ago

Yeah... I mean, it turns out, the "old" car makers know how to make cars.

ryzvonusef 4y ago
for something like seats, yes, Ford has both its processes, and market understanding pat down (it knows just how luxurious it seats need to be for the segment it's targeting, which material or stitch features are not worth investing on, for example) and can have those seats made in the best possible way. Rivian is making more luxurious seats, so some costs to account for that is understood, but when you four differently sized plastic pieces for each end of the seat, when one same piece could do, (which means four different supply chains instead of one) it really does show the inexperience of new manufacturers. ---- But give a point for the EV side of things too, where old manufacturers are wasting material weight due to legacy frameworks etc (Munro has videos on that too)
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
It is really funny when EV fans are slowly discovering Kaizen and lean production. Wait until they will figure out what is FMEA.

antisthenes 4y ago

Yeah, I think seats are the least of my concerns when buying an EV. I don't want $5000 added to the price tag for fancy seats. Just give me more battery and power. I mean sure, if you make 500+ mile trips frequently, by all means, get yourself a custom car seat, but I just want a frictionless experience of getting from A to B (cheaply)

dkyc 4y ago
If you don’t make 500+ mile trips frequently, why is the size of the battery so important (honest question)?
- zaroth 4y ago
  If someone is questioning battery and power as their key issues for an EV, it’s likely they don’t own one and don’t actually get it. The biggest issue with EV adoption will be access to home charging. If you can charge at home, battery and power is more than already solved. And if you can’t charge at home, no amount of battery can really solve that problem.
- frumper 4y ago
  I'd also think that someone making 500+ mile trips would be very interested in the seats.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  Because the battery is what should be driving the value of the EV for me, the customer. When the battery starts losing capacity, a larger battery will still have more miles, for longer, than a smaller one. The length of the trip has nothing to do with it, btw, only the total amount of miles driven in the expected lifetime of the vehicle. The second biggest cost factor in an EV is the electric drivetrain. As a customer, I want the manufacturer to spend the most amount of money on the parts of the car that get me from point A to point B (which are battery and drivetrain), not something frivolous like a $5000 car seat, when a $500 one is 99% as good.
lazide 4y ago
If you use the car for 100k miles, you’ll spend anywhere from 70 to 270 straight 24 hr days sitting in that seat, depending on your mix of average speeds. (60 to 15 mph for these examples) I can’t imagine a more sure fire way to hate past you than having bad and/or unergonomic seats. But hey, we all have different priorities.
ryzvonusef 4y ago
You are talking about the wrong segment of cars, neither Rivian nor its competitor the Ford F150L are trying to capture your segment, if I understand it correctly. but the issue is about the manufacturing process for the seats. Rivian would have five different plastic pieces, for say, the underside of the seat, all requiring individual painting, whereas Ford has learnt that that piece could be one single textured molded piece, ready to go, so that is process engineering, and neither effect the luxuriousness of the seat, but there are still cost savings to be had.

jedc 4y ago

It's also easier to cut costs from a premium-priced product than it is to build that reputation in the first place.

memish 4y ago

That's an under appreciated point. Dealing with inefficiencies is perhaps Elon's greatest strength and why Tesla and SpaceX managed to succeed. Andrej Karpathy (ex-Tesla head of AI) talked about this recently. "I think Elon is a very efficient warrior in the fight against entropy in organizations". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE

ryzvonusef 4y ago
Exactly, Elon might be a nitpicking boss from hell, but it does result in some excellent efficiencies in tesla manufacturing process, from the super bottle to the octovalve, some amazing stuff has come out of it.
- Haga 4y ago
- misiti3780 4y ago
  super bottle?
  - Tempest1981 4y ago
    Top google result: https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-egg-is-a-fascin-1830992728 https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-e... Part of the cooling system.
    - misiti3780 4y ago
      cool!
  - ryzvonusef 4y ago
    Tesla had a thermal management system called "Super bottle", which later eveolved into the "OctoValve". instead of multiple coolant systems as in other cars, they combined them all into one big system, and gain benefits from that. It was a very clever bit of engineering, and octovalve only improved upon it further. More on the Super Bottle: https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-egg-is-a-fascin-1830992728 https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-e...