Reading up on the Laura Schwab case really chased me back from Rivian. While the acusations about her treatment and what that says about management were bad enough what really hit home was her claim that Rivian knows its products are underpriced. Being of a background in design and manufacturing in an automotive adjacent industry I had doubts from the beginning about Rivians pricing. four motors means four controllers (even if in the same box). While it eliminates a differential it adds an extra planetary reduction gear at each end. Motor and controller price does not scale with capacity as you might expect. each controller and motor needs cooling. A 100kWh+ battery costs what it costs. I saw a Rivian and it has a Very nice interior. All of that stuff costs. It costs a lot. I cannot see how the base R1T can be sold for less than $100k. Maybe with economies of scale, which they do not have.
I know from painful and costly experience how easy it is to price an item based on assumptions of ideal cost. It is really easy to think you can build a long range cheap stainless Cybertruck on the cheap, and really embarrassing when you can't. Maybe Rivian has some magic sauce I never learned in a manufacturing career. It is more than possible. Nevertheless I did not buy one, their stock, and I never expect to see hundreds of them all over my neighborhood replacing the F-150s and Explorers that are there today, not even replacing the Navigators and Land Rovers. I suspect Rivian has painted itself into a corner.
reservations to push up the stock.
