Rivian increases prices by up to $16,000

MisterJJ said:

I expect there will be a China sub-compact EV around $25k at some point. It will do about as well as all the other sub-compact cars have done in the last few years... poorly. Americans will want even bigger vehicles when they don't have to buy gas for them.

Click to expand...

Maybe, you must be a young guy who wasn't around during the 60s and 70s. The American cars of old where big big big. Then came the oil embargo, expensive gas and no gas and due to emissions regulations the cars didn't run well or perform at all. LOL they didn't accelerate but rather gently gathered speed. Small cars became vey popular to the point GM came out with the Vega and Ford the Pinto. For 20 years or so cars were much smaller then they started to get bigger again and the SUV craze began. Now gas is expensive again and interest rates are going up again - what's old is new again or something like that.

Back in the Vega times GM took a big car and made it small. Toyota took a tiny Japanese car and made it bigger. Hint, it's easier to make a small car bigger than a big car small. However the Bolt is a great small car so GM clearly have learned how to make a good small(er) car.

Tesla has clearly made it from a startup to a legitimate manufacturer. Rivan and the other it remains to be seen and Rivan's latest dumb move was not good for their future. They and others are trying to emulate Tesla's business model. Start with an expensive halo vehicle and make it successful then build a less expensive vehicle to launch from the halo image. Problem I see for Rivan and others is Tesla hit the market at a good time with essentially no competition. Now Rivan is coming to market just as it seems like every manufacture has an EV in their price range that is coming onto the market. Competition for materials and funding will really be getting intense which will make it more difficult for a small manufacture like Rivan to stand up their production and compete. Getting all of the components designed or bought and incorporated is one thing but getting the mass production and supply chain organized working and scaled up is something else. Ford, GM, Toyota, VW and all those folks know how to do that very well.

Dealer gouging, nothing new about that. I still have a negative opinion of Honda cars and SUVs due to the rampant prices well above sticker when demand was high. Was glad to see Ford and others taking a stand about dealers marking vehicles up above invoice. I get the market price argument but that doesn't mean I'm going to pay it. I'm always looking at cars and prices and in January of last year when the Bold prices got stupidly low I bought one even though I didn't need a new car. At the time I thought it would be a long time before I saw prices that low again and I am amazed at what has happened since then.

Not sure about lawsuit but do think they may be a takeover target but have to look at the price. What would it cost and what would the buyer get? Stock price probably too high now but Rivan is working on that

Had to look up production numbers. Built about 1,000 last year. Looks like they have a factory in Illinois that should be able to build 150,000 per year. Reservations for 71,000 - wahoo that number just dropped. So if they build just 100,000 this year then they will need to "sell" an additional 29,000. Next year say 150,000 but they have a plant in GA that will be online in 2024 and build 400,000 vehicles. Somewhere in the midst of all this they have to design and get into production another vehicle - presuming they SUV will be in production very soon.


How many customers are out there for $95,000 vehicles? Market looks pretty crowded when you add in the ICE vehicles in that range. Ford backed out of the planned vehicle co-development with Rivan. Maybe they saw something that alerted them. Who knows how good the leadership team at Rivan really is. Some CEOs are good talkers and some know how to get the job done. Competition is pretty fierce for existing proven talent with other manufactures jumping into EVs. Add this to the difficult task of ramping up production and it is a very difficult road. Rivan has some interesting tech and design but think they have a long road ahead and some troubling signs.

Will be interesting to watch, Im predicting a good opportunity for shorts.