ŠITNER: Carmakers among millstones. Electric cars are partly a virtue of need |
This is slightly less than the Volkswagen Group, but more than, for example, Daimler, GM, Ford or BMW. Rivian’s value is even half that of the Stellantis group, which includes dozens of leading brands Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Maserati, Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Jeep, Dodge and Ram.
It’s a story about how a technical student built a car company, as well as a huge hunger of investors for companies that have focused on electromobility from the beginning. Tesla, whose value has already exceeded a trillion dollars, is even more proof of that.
Three years from model to production
The company was founded in 2009 by Robert Scaringe, then 26, better known as RJ Scaringe. Shortly before, he received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from Boston’s MIT. In 2011, he decided to focus on autonomous electric vehicles, similar to Tesla. At the beginning, it also had a vision of autonomous cars and, like Rivian, it started with sports models in which electric propulsion showed its advantages.
But while Tesla had been selling Lotus bodybuilders for a few years, Rivian threw the entire development, including functional prototypes, into the trash and set off in a different direction. Tesla was found in premium limousines, Rivian bet on the popularity of SUVs.
However, investors, among them Ford and Amazon, gained mainly by visioning and developing towards autonomous cars and ideas for sharing them. In 2015, the company was able to step up its development and research, and two years later it even bought a factory where Mitsubishi previously produced cars for the American market.
Since then, Rivian has focused on preparing for series production. On the basic skateboard platform, he prepared an R1T pickup truck, the R1S SUV derived from it, as well as electric vans about the size of a Ford Transit. One hundred thousand of them have already been ordered by Amazon, but since they are to be delivered by 2030, they do not count among the current orders.
In September this year, three years after Rivian unveiled its R1T at the Los Angeles Auto Show, its series production finally began and the truck reached its first customers and journalists. It is a model that corresponds to American taste. In Europe, but also in China, this type of vehicle is practically not sold at all.
Busy competition
With a price that matches the most expensive thing in the US in this category, Rivian won’t have it easy. Customers can choose there whether to buy a larger luxury truck with an eight-cylinder petrol engine, or electric variants from Ford, Tesla or Hummer. While Tesla benefited from virtually no competition for the first decade, Rivian enters a market where he will no longer be alone.
Rivian’s ambition is to sell 20 million cars a year by 2030. The first reviews have not yet revealed any major functional or manufacturing defects. But there is no longer experience with them. The absence of a sales and service network is also criticized. However, Rivian cannot yet offer a similar background as Tesla, although it has ambitions to build a similar network.
Another similar American carmaker, Lucid Motors, entered the stock exchange in October. Investors have so far valued the company, which started producing its luxury electric limousine, at $ 70 billion. So again, a huge amount against the values of traditional cars.
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