WGLT is reporting Rivian won’t raise the price for existing customers because of the back lash. Losing money on every vehicle sold is better? The Rivian stock price is still down today https://www.wglt.org/2022-03-03/after-backlash-and-canceled-orders-rivian-backtracks-and-wont-raise-prices-for-existing-customers?fbclid=IwAR3ewocgV5DUP_o9H624_U-dCPM3eO6IphJdXTUU8qkXd2DWWUV1DaAEs2w
By: Diane Benjamin
This story is more about interesting things you should know than anything else.
Start with this story: https://www.autonews.com/retail/there-may-be-more-rivians-price-hike-materials-costs
Automotive News is the go-to source for information on the Auto Industry. Subtitle of the story:
Former executive Laura Schwab, in a recent lawsuit, said one reason she was fired was because she questioned Rivian’s pricing.
If this is true, expect lawsuits against Rivian for not disclosing information before their IPO.
The story reports on a completely unscientific poll from a Rivian forum website after price increases of 20% were announced.
- 16.9% are keeping their reservation for a Rivian vehicle
- 42.6 are cancelling
- 40.6 are undecided
One of the key elements needed for batteries is lithium. A company wants to mine it in Nevada: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07112021/lithium-mining-thacker-pass-nevada-electric-vehicles-climate/
That story is a fascinating look at government in action. It is from November of 2021. Even though many people objected to this mine, the Federal Government approved it on 2/25/2022: https://ndep.nv.gov/land/thacker-pass-project
Now, follow the money:
In January 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved the Thacker Pass Lithium Project, granting Lithium Americas, a multinational company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and its subsidiary, Lithium Nevada, the exclusive rights to mine there. Soon afterward, Will Falk, an environmental lawyer representing local tribes, and Max Wilbert, an organizer, set up an encampment at the site of the proposed mine.
The activists are allied with the local Paiute-Shoshone tribes, ranchers and concerned residents. Hundreds of supporters gather at the protest camp for events such as native-led “prayer runs” through towns and rural landscapes to finish at the pass.
Despite its name, and the fact that it is also developing a lithium mine in Argentina, Lithium Americas’ majority stakeholder is China’s Ganfeng Lithium, the world’s largest producer of the element.
This mine is on Federal Land. Drilling for Oil on Federal Land was banned by the Biden Administration, but mining lithium that benefits China is okay. We are importing oil from Russia. Estimates range from 550,000 to 650,000 barrels a day.
That means we are funding the war with Ukraine.
Another excerpt from the Inside Climate Change story:
The proposed project spans 17,933 acres that would hold an open-pit mine and a sulfuric acid plant to process lithium from the raw ore. The mine is expected to have a lifespan of at least 46 years. The mine operations at Thacker Pass will emit 152,713 tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to the emissions of a small city, according to its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). It is expected to consume 1.7 billion gallons of water each year—500,000 gallons of water for each ton of lithium—in an arid region that is experiencing worsening droughts.
According to BloombergNEF, global demand for lithium chemicals will reach nearly 700,000 tons a year by 2025. Thacker Pass is expected to produce 60,000 tons a year.
Sounds green! You should also know that most solar panels are produced in China. We are funding countries that want to destroy us.
We don’t produce enough electricity to charge the batteries. EV’s have nothing to do with Climate Change, just see who is making money. It isn’t anyone who bought Rivian stock.
According to this story: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndorfman/2022/02/22/why-george-soros-is-wrong-about-rivian/?sh=2fc302246534
Soros, who owns close to 20 million shares, paid from about $114 to $172 a share, according to Gurufocus.com.
Rivian was around $51 a share this morning. Will George hold or sell?
Search Thacker Pass for more stories, many are available.
Its hard to talk sense into someone that thinks the more proof you give them that something won’t work, the more virtuous they feel by going forward with it anyway.
It sure seems like you want Rivian to fail
Why
Fail? They are doing a good job of making that happen themselves. The whole idea of forcing us to drive EV’s is ludicrous. The real reason for EV’s is destroying capitalism. We are being played by peopled who don’t have the best interests of American in mind. If Rivian can produce a vehicle people want and can afford they should go for it. It appears they can’t.
I don’t want Rivian to fail, but like it or not, the public-private partnership Koos put us taxpayers in with Rivian makes it our business how Rivian does. If Rivian fails we never get our investment back. So stop complaining when blnnews or anyone is concerned about our “business partner.” If Rivian fails our (taxpayers) investment vanishes.
It’s not that I want Rivian to fail but I think most people figure that $92,000 for an ugly truck ain’t gonna happen. Geesh if you want ugly just go buy an old Plymouth and fix it up.
If you don’t look at the front they are nice!
I am not a business professional or anything but it seems like it would not be a good idea to: Raise the price by $15,000 on folks who gave you money years ago as a downpayment on the product you have YET to produce for them. I get the fact that they want to raise the price on this vehicle, but they should at least keep the original price the same, for the people who ordered with downpayments. I believe this is where arrogance and stupidity intersect. Speaking of the intersection of ignorance and stupidity; Makes me wonder if Mayor Koos owns stock in Rivian? I hope so…
Retirement funds from Texas and California did
The local Rivian Kool-Aid drinkers are incredible. No questions about Rivian are permitted, just photo ops and softball questions. Everything is going great because I took a picture of a Rivian in Downtown Bloomington and posted it on Facebook. And, my brother’s neighbor works there and he says “they’re the real deal.” Ridiculous. This company has not faced any reasonable questioning from the local media (present company excluded, Diane) or politicians. These pom-pom cheerleaders are trying to divide us into teams: either you hate Rivian and the community and want them to fail or you’re with us. Asking questions of the County’s third-largest employer is not rooting for failure, it’s our duty as taxpayers, journalists, and elected officials.
I had hoped that a “real” car company or some other major employer would have located in that building. But we got something the leftists in this town wanted; a green manufacturing facility that will battle climate change. And just like leftists are removed from the real world and really don’t understand business, we got a company that chooses to ignore the real world and apparently doesn’t understand how to operate a business. And this company has a cult of followers who never question anything they say or do. Yes, you Cult of Rivian folks think that you have helped this company by being unquestioning servants of their propaganda machine. Unfortunately, you have become enablers for their arrogance and their continued separation from reality. This all may make you and them feel good but it is not going to sell trucks. It is not going to help this company make money and it will not provide jobs in the future for our area.
The BN Elitist Clique has never cared about any of your accurate observations. Rivian filled the bill of a trendy futuristic company in their minds that would put BN on the national map as forward thinking and a cutting edge community. Never mind that Scaringe and his partners had lied to every other community that they had attempted to buffalo with their unrealistic sales pitches. Only a people with similar moral values could have been duped by another group of BSers. Electric vehicles in the present tense can only survive by government outlawing gas powered vehicles, so that is the end game BN’ s, Illinois’ and the federal oligarchs are no different than Russia’s. It does not matter to any of them that many of America’s enemies are fully invested in Rivian and the EV scam at-large.
Wow I read the WGLT article yesterday and the price jump to over $90K. Even before the price jump they are expensive. I’d sure wouldn’t want to be paying on that and lose my job. You’d likely have a hard time selling it to cover what you owe. No wonder people live beyond their means. I call people like that idiots!. I never buy new. I wonder what full coverage insurance is also. After seeing the State Farm lawsuit against Tesla for the car fire for over $1M you have to wonder what insurance rates are for EV’s….. high???
How many people does Rivian think will pop that amount of money for their EV’s? Sure at first those wanting one will no doubt be a good number of buyers and drop off after that. As more EV makers open up someone will eventually fail.
i really hope rivian succeeds for the sake of b/n and all that work there, including a relative, but i’m not feeling great about that happening without a strategy shift. they appear to have overestimated their appeal to enough of the population to make it work. what happened to building all the ev delivery vans for amazon? that seems like a perfect application for vehicles that need to be charged every 300 miles or so.
I think the price hike was to better their case for Georgia to give them incentives and help push through their new plant. The higher the vehicles cost, the more tax revenue the state will see.
Rivian does not have the build process or production numbers matured enough to know actual costs. At this point the retail price is based more on competition than actual expenses.
DR, I don’t know if you are aware of it or not but the GA plant is facing off with a group of so card environmentalist that are more NIMBYs than anything else. My hope is that they build that plant here.
State took over, locals are tired of opposition locals
Here is Musk Tweeted about Rivian:
I hope they’re able to achieve high production & breakeven cash flow. That is the true test.
There have been hundreds of automotive startups, both electric & combustion, but Tesla is only American carmaker to reach high volume production & positive cash flow in past 100 years.
I understand Dr. Scaringe’s strategy now! Get rid of those pesky “backorders” by screwing everyone who has one and free up resources for the company to capture (free-range) customers. Getting rid of those “I have money that you can have while I wait for you to make my truck” people frees up space in the ordering software, allowing room for the tidal wave of customers headed their way. This man is a genius.
He’s no longer a billionaire, the stock is still dropping.
I did reverse the policy, he isn’t raising prices on orders.
It doesn’t matter at this point. The damage has already been done. The Teflon is peeling off Dr. Scaringe in sheets right now. For some reason, guys like this and leftists, in general, think that they can just ignore the real world. They create their own realities and then expect the world to follow them. Rivian has gotten this huge pass from almost everyone so far. But where the rubber meets the road (or doesn’t when your production is 200 a week) is consistently producing thousands of world-class quality vehicles at a price that is realistic in the market. If you can’t make them and make them at a price that people will buy while making a profit, you are wasting everyone’s time and money. Even their most ardent supporters are realizing this company has “serious” problems that can’t be ignored. And Rivian is now at a point that a BS press release or teaser information tidbit is not going to work anymore. The honeymoon is over… it’s time to do the real work in the real world or go home. So is Normal ready for another mass layoff? They need to be.
I read in the local paper that the Williamsfield School Board just bought 345.000 electric school bus. I think I was told there are about 700 total students K through 12. Correct me if I am wrong. How can I forward your post Diane to try to educate these people.
Copy the link and post it in an email!