Shogunade

I'm sure you guys have heard about it.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/volkswagen-rivian-5-billion-software-joint-venture-investment/

jstap808

As I said on another thread, it only furthers the German brands efforts towards adopting hybrid/ev models. Granted rivian is a poorly run company and hemorrhaging money and VW isn’t exactly good at managing its portfolio without screwups so who knows how this will go… high end soccer mom ev suvs? Isn’t that what macan and cayenne are for? TBD…

nyca

$5B - they will burn through that in a year. An EV future means China owns the auto industry. The Western countries have to decide whether they want to sacrifice their auto industries to attain their climate agenda.

M3Inline6

This! ^^

shrimp money

The answer is, yes they will.

nyca

We shall see. Luckily I am old enough to stay in the pre-owned ICE market if I choose, for what remains of my life. Let the auto workers and the younger generation battle it out.

2SG5

doubt it. VW groups latest EV tech trickles down from RIMAC. This most likely just opens the door towards an acquistion of Rivian down the line if it proves itself worthwhile.

RatherJaded

I cannot see that playing out. I believe there are greater odds of Apple purchasing Rivian than VW. Regardless, nothing is happening anytime soon,

GTS2022

Why to give up so early on US EV automotive future. Whether we like or not, train has left the station, even though ev sales have been sluggish, but year over year EVs are gaining more and more share of the automotive market.
Giving up means, let china do whatever they want to do and let them rule. Just because they have cheap labor and raw material for now doesn’t prevent western economies to embark on technological advancement in batteries that may revolutionize EV market in favor of west.
In terms of relationship between VW and Rivian, former head of PCNA is now Rivian chief commercial officer. Gruner

Ksdaoski

I don't own a Rivian. Or Tesla or any other electric vehicle. But that is a dumb statement. Moronic.

"Rivian is so poorly ran" that VW, one of the largest automotive companies in the world, had to invest in Rivian because their software integration with hardware is light years ahead of VW.

They're hemorrhaging money because that's what it takes to start a car company. Look at the past 50 years and how many successful car company launches have there been? 1?

And I really don't get why everyone is against the US developing electric cars when the rest of the entire world is doing it. And taking a lead. Meanwhile we get idiots fighting it. It just makes no sense to me. You actively want the North American car industry to fail?

And again I'm saying this as somebody that doesn't have an electric vehicle. But it's easy to see where things are going.

ipse dixit

Porsche is not stupid.

Porsche SE would not have let VW invest 5B in Rivian if couldn't leverage all that know-how from Rivian across all VW brands, including the ostensible "parent" company Porsche SE.

If anyone has driven, or even sat, in a Rivian or Lucid, they will realize that the Taycan is a generation behind everyone else in the world, and probably 2 generations behind China.

Res Ips

No offense to anyone who owns a Tesla golf cart or a Rivian make believe pickup truck, both, ostensibly known as vehicles, are pieces of cra@. VW wants the software technology and nothing more.

cptcolo0

Yep, Rivian is lost about $39,000 per car in Q1 of 2024 before factoring in the cost of business operations and non-operations (https://www.investors.com/news/rivia...ership-rumors/). They only hope to achieve a gross margin by the end of this year.

Schn3ll

They may still be poorly run, what you said does not contradict that. Has the company changed that much since Ford pulled their investment?

Their timing couldn’t be worse, declining interest in EV’s (year over year), china’s cheaper cars, interest rates, rising prices, etc.


from a month ago, not a rosy picture and I wouldn’t want to be holding the bag on a car from Rivian when/if they go belly up.

“Rivian produced 13,980 vehicles and delivered 13,588 of them during Q1. While shareholders were hoping for an increase above the previously given production guidance of 57,000 vehicles, Rivian instead reiterated the figure. That brings concerns, as it implies no growth over the company’s 2023 production of 57,232 vehicles. The guidance also implies production of 14,340 vehicles each quarter for the remainder of the year.”

Schn3ll

VW also hasn’t been known to make sound decisions:

Nearly half of American EV owners want to switch back to gas-powered vehicle, McKinsey data shows

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nearl...100049477.html