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Ford announces $500M investment in Rivian, plans to build a BEV on Rivian's platform


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4 minutes ago, barney9014 said:

Rivian couldn’t sell their own brand with the GM deal? 

Nope.  From Bloomberg:

"Scaringe’s grand plan helps explain why talks that would have given GM a stake fell apart. With both consumers and businesses showing interest, Rivian is rebuffing a deal that may have required a level of exclusivity that would have kept it from building vehicles for others."

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16 hours ago, NLPRacing said:

Maybe Ford will build a city delivery van on the Rivian chassis and sell them to Amazon?

Could be.  One thing I did think of with this - seems like a perfect way for Ford to tie up with Amazon for not only delivery vehicles, but also for that commercial cloud mobility network thing (or whatever it actually is) that Ford has been working on - so even if Ford doesn't wind up providing the vehicle product, maybe they provide the infrastructure system for them?  The same could be said for Rivian products if they are trying to branch into the lifestyle aspect (with trips, gear, etc included) - perhaps the Ford interface/network system is used?

14 hours ago, barney9014 said:

Rivian couldn’t sell their own brand with the GM deal? 

I don't think that would've been it - I'm sure Rivian itself would've been able to sell its own products, but they wouldn't have been able to sell the tech to companies other than GM.  At least that's the impression I got.  This deal with Ford seems to be that they're still able to sell to companies along with Ford.  Though like someone said earlier, Ford has a seat on the board as part of this deal.

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Rivian is the next Tesla except that they are doing it the right way, inviting in a major investor, Ford in for a piece of the action and a manufacturing contract - guaranteed bulk order...

I bet GM came in all strong on the deal, thinking it  would lock out Ford with an exclusivity deal........

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1 hour ago, rmc523 said:

Though like someone said earlier, Ford has a seat on the board as part of this deal.

I think that's more to help them get their manufacturing process in order given that it's Joe Hinrichs who holds that seat. He's been in charge of all things manufacturing for Ford for years now. 

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1 hour ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

I think that's more to help them get their manufacturing process in order given that it's Joe Hinrichs who holds that seat. He's been in charge of all things manufacturing for Ford for years now. 

Yes, I agree.

Rivian probably wanted some expertise in manufacturing (unlike Tesla...) so they were willing to take investment and knowledge from an established car company.

I think ultimately, Rivian decided it was better deal to give a board seat to Ford than being tied to GM exclusively on collaborations. Although as I mentioned before, while Ford appears to not demand exclusivity, by virtue of having a board seat, they have an inside view of everything Rivian does so I'm not sure who else would want to really collaborate with Rivian knowing Ford will know all their EV plans.

 

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4 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Rivian is the next Tesla except that they are doing it the right way, inviting in a major investor, Ford in for a piece of the action and a manufacturing contract - guaranteed bulk order...

I bet GM came in all strong on the deal, thinking it  would lock out Ford with an exclusivity deal........

Rivian would not exist except for Tesla.  An no one would be interested in them except because of Tesla.

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5 hours ago, msm859 said:

Rivian would not exist except for Tesla.  An no one would be interested in them except because of Tesla.

 Tesla deserve a lot of credit for getting  BEVs recognized and established but equally, its choice to build  a compact BEV car and the ensuing production problems and inefficiencies with making an affordable BEV car  has left the door wide open for others to come in and concentrate on building highly profitable BEV Trucks and Utes. 

Rivian does exist,  people are interested in Rivian and it wants to do for Pick Ups and Large SUVs what Tesla did for cars only better, they have Ford in their corner and an opportunity to become a prominent player in electric vehicles.

 

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Let's not forget that at various times both Toyota and Daimler have held 3 - 4% stakes in Tesla, and both sold out. The fact that Ford are getting a basically fully developed EV platform out of this, for half a billion dollars, and then to also get a dividend on what Rivian can sell to other manufacturers? Great deal IMO. 

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22 hours ago, MY93SHO said:

Mentioned here that the first Ford/ Rivian is a commercial vehicle.

 

That makes total sense.

I'm reading the tea leaves here... Look at who is involved: I'm thinking autonomous driving Amazon delivery vans. Ford supply the self-driving software and potentially build it, Rivian supply the skate chassis, Amazon is the guaranteed fleet buyer.

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2 hours ago, bzcat said:

That makes total sense.

I'm reading the tea leaves here... Look at who is involved: I'm thinking autonomous driving Amazon delivery vans. Ford supply the self-driving software and potentially build it, Rivian supply the skate chassis, Amazon is the guaranteed fleet buyer.

If correct, this could also be interpreted as a tacit admission by Ford that the whole premise of using the hybrid Transit Connect as their commercial autonomous vehicle is flawed.

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12 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

If correct, this could also be interpreted as a tacit admission by Ford that the whole premise of using the hybrid Transit Connect as their commercial autonomous vehicle is flawed.

Not necessarily.  Did they actually say it would be a hybrid?  I can't remember.  But it may be necessary to have both hybrid and bevs available depending on the location and use case.  Also the hybrid TC may not be "flawed" but a Rivian BEV solution may just be better/cheaper/faster.

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1 hour ago, akirby said:

Not necessarily.  Did they actually say it would be a hybrid?  I can't remember.  But it may be necessary to have both hybrid and bevs available depending on the location and use case.  Also the hybrid TC may not be "flawed" but a Rivian BEV solution may just be better/cheaper/faster.

I don't recall them saying anything about AV powertrain.

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17 hours ago, akirby said:

Not necessarily.  Did they actually say it would be a hybrid?  I can't remember.  But it may be necessary to have both hybrid and bevs available depending on the location and use case.  Also the hybrid TC may not be "flawed" but a Rivian BEV solution may just be better/cheaper/faster.

Yes they did say it would be a hybrid. Their rationale as they explained it was that they believed a hybrid would allow for a better duty cycle with higher utilization than a pure BEV (I'm paraphrasing from memory).

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1 minute ago, Harley Lover said:

Yes they did say it would be a hybrid. Their rationale as they explained it was that they believed a hybrid would allow for a better duty cycle with higher utilization than a pure BEV (I'm paraphrasing from memory).

Maybe the Rivian platform changes that equation?

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