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


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https://twitter.com/MikeMartinez_AN/status/1121021923767590917

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/business/ford-rivian-investment.html

 

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Ford Motor has agreed to invest $500 million in Rivian, an electric-car start-up that is widely seen as a potential rival to Tesla, Ford announced on Wednesday.

Rivian, based in Plymouth, Mich., plans to begin producing a pickup truck and a sport utility vehicle by the end of next year. Both will be powered by battery packs and are designed to be luxury vehicles that could appeal to many of the consumers drawn to Tesla and its upscale models. The retail giant Amazon led a $700 million investment in Rivian in February.

Ford is counting on the partnership to accelerate its efforts to field a range of electric cars and trucks, while it also pushes to streamline operations, slash costs and increase profitability. The company’s turnaround effort has shown little tangible progress since Jim Hackett became chief executive two years ago. Ford’s stock has fallen about 9 percent since his arrival.

 

Edited by Anthony
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13 minutes ago, akirby said:

Ok, so this isn't being used for the F150 BEV which will compete with Rivian's truck?  Confusing.

Maybe they are looking at adding a 3rd/4th pickup?

All it states is this:
The company plans to use Rivian’s skateboard chassis to produce additional models

Maybe they are looking at that as a shortcut to electrify the Ranger/Bronco also

The funny/interesting thing is everyone was saying GM was going to do this-I guess Ford saw an opportunity to learn or at least control a possible rival 

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Wow, didn't expect this! Then again, with General Motors' decision recently to forego an investment in Rivian, this great opportunity presented itself to Ford.

Anyway, this is very good news for Ford (and Rivian too) as it desperately needs partnerships in order to stay relevant in the future of the automotive industry .

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3 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

Wow, didn't expect this! Then again, with General Motors' decision recently to forego an investment in Rivian, this great opportunity presented itself to Ford.

Or maybe Rivian said no to GM and yes to Ford.   Ford didn't make this deal in a few short weeks.   You gotta stop taking everything you read at face value.

Edited by akirby
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11 minutes ago, akirby said:

I was expecting to read that this WAS the BEV F150 since they already said it was on a different platform.  Maybe this came after they developed the in house version and Ford will switch or merge the two platforms.

From a cursory look at Rivian's plans-their pickup is more mid-sized then full-sized, which makes me think we are looking at something more alined with the Ranger. 

i'd expect Ford to maybe use the BEV truck with the SD line also in some cases. 

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I got the impression that Rivian's truck is going for a more luxurious market than the BEV F-series (or Ranger). VW is also separating their basic and luxury plataforms/architectures for EVs within the group.

Edited by passis
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22 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

Wow, didn't expect this! Then again, with General Motors' decision recently to forego an investment in Rivian, this great opportunity presented itself to Ford.

From what I read, Rivian walked away from GM.  

"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."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/amazon-backed-rivian-spurned-gm-with-plans-to-build-for-others

Edited by mackinaw
clarification
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1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

From a cursory look at Rivian's plans-their pickup is more mid-sized then full-sized, which makes me think we are looking at something more alined with the Ranger. 

i'd expect Ford to maybe use the BEV truck with the SD line also in some cases. 

Based on a few of those walk around videos that popped up I got the impression the Rivian truck was literally somewhere between mid and full size 

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Wow, that was rather unexpected.  From what we've heard about the Mach-E and the BEV F150, not to mention the partnership with VW, I would have thought they had things set from a BEV standpoint.  Was this nothing else but to avoid competition and keep GM in Ford's mirrors?

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16 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Based on a few of those walk around videos that popped up I got the impression the Rivian truck was literally somewhere between mid and full size 

The R1S is roughly the size of an Explorer lengthwise -198 inches

the R1T  is 215.6 inches long 79.3-inch wide and has 135.8-inch wheelbase 

the Ranger is 210 inches

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1 minute ago, fordmantpw said:

 Was this nothing else but to avoid competition and keep GM in Ford's mirrors?

Well 500 million is cheap to develop a new platform-I'm assuming Ford is going to use their skateboard platform for something. I just wonder what the extent of the cooperation is going to be.

Is this Ford buying something more or less off the shelf to use for its product, or is it going to be something more with Rivian? With the investments Rivian is getting from Amazon and now Ford, I guess what they have developed is mature and they have their ducks in a row with development/production. 

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14 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

With the investments Rivian is getting from Amazon and now Ford, I guess what they have developed is mature and they have their ducks in a row with development/production. 

Yes sir. Rivian has a manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois (former Mitsubishi Motors) that's ready to go.

With this announcement, I'm convinced Ford + Rivian will beat Tesla when it comes to releasing a BEV pickup truck.

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3 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

Maybe they are looking at adding a 3rd/4th pickup?

All it states is this:
The company plans to use Rivian’s skateboard chassis to produce additional models

Maybe they are looking at that as a shortcut to electrify the Ranger/Bronco also

The funny/interesting thing is everyone was saying GM was going to do this-I guess Ford saw an opportunity to learn or at least control a possible rival 

It sounded to me that F-150 was already far along with the BEV, so another product makes more sense to me.

2 hours ago, akirby said:

I was expecting to read that this WAS the BEV F150 since they already said it was on a different platform.  Maybe this came after they developed the in house version and Ford will switch or merge the two platforms.

Seems pretty late in the game to switch something like that, no?  I mean, unless the F-150 BEV was secretly developed with Rivian from the get-go with a future deal in mind?  Didn't they use F-150 bodies for their test mules?

1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

Well 500 million is cheap to develop a new platform-I'm assuming Ford is going to use their skateboard platform for something. I just wonder what the extent of the cooperation is going to be.

Is this Ford buying something more or less off the shelf to use for its product, or is it going to be something more with Rivian? With the investments Rivian is getting from Amazon and now Ford, I guess what they have developed is mature and they have their ducks in a row with development/production. 

From what I gather, basically Ford will use the skateboard platform for some new product.  What that product will be, I don't know.  And it sounds separate from what Ford already has in the pipeline, no?

Interesting......Borg did mention the new talk of a larger 3-row BEV coming for both Ford/Lincoln on top of Mach E.  Could this be related to that?  This announcement doesn't come out of thin air, and with the reduced timeline for creating/approving projects, perhaps those two BEVs could've been green lighted with this deal in mind?

Edited by rmc523
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At first I wondered if this was the affordable “approved in 12 weeks” vehicle that was hinted at recently...but now I doubt it. I’m excited though, as both announced Rivian products look like potential winners. 

I wonder if this program will be a Lincoln? It seems to me like a skateboard platform would make for a wonderful EV sports car or sedan.

Edited by Jqa1824
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1 minute ago, rmc523 said:

 

Seems pretty late in the game to switch something like that, no?

From what I gather, basically Ford will use the skateboard platform for some new product.  What that product will be, I don't know.  And it sounds separate from what Ford already has in the pipeline, no?

Interesting......Borg did mention the new talk of a larger 3-row BEV coming for both Ford/Lincoln on top of Mach E.  Could this be related to that?  This announcement doesn't come out of thin air, and with the reduced timeline for creating/approving projects, perhaps those two BEVs could've been green lighted with this deal in mind?

How many BEV's does for need right now? 2-3 years? 5-10? Don't start putting out a lot of BEV's when demand and infrastructure are missing. Let's just focus on the Mach E and see how that works out before rolling out more and more. 

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25 minutes ago, Moosetang said:

Interesting news to be sure, and an extra layer on this is that Ford seems to have  passed up the option to do some sort of investment/partnership with Lucid. Rivian must have really impressed, and/or offered enticing terms.

 

Being locally headquartered probably helps. It's only a 30-40 minute trip from Dearborn to Plymouth where Rivian is headquartered 

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9 minutes ago, jcartwright99 said:

How many BEV's does for need right now? 2-3 years? 5-10? Don't start putting out a lot of BEV's when demand and infrastructure are missing. Let's just focus on the Mach E and see how that works out before rolling out more and more. 

They have to put them out whether warranted or not, otherwise they're perceived of as being behind.

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