TechDigits

Tech news
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Tesla Rival Doing All Hard Things At Once - IPO, New Plant And 3 Models

Tesla Rival Doing All Hard Things At Once - IPO, New Plant And 3 Models

When Rivian plants a charger in an electron desert like North Dakota, the revenue in return flows through a thicker pipe than it does for a charging empire that's only selling the electricity.
If -- or, more likely, when -- all the business books start to drop about Rivian Automotive Inc., at least one should be titled: Do All the Hard Things at Once. The young company is currently trying to finish a factory and three different vehicles, while planning a road trip to a Wall Street IPO. Apparently, Chief Executive Officer R.J. Scaringe was still getting a little too much sleep, because Rivian two weeks ago announced a plan to build its own charging network as well, ala Tesla.

The decision, which Scaringe has hinted at for years, comprises at least 3,500 fast chargers at 600 sites and at least 10,000 slower-charging "waypoints" at campsites, motels, hiking trailheads, and the like -- all installed by 2024. It's a hugely expensive capital project: The hardware alone in building a fast-charging site can cost up to $320,000, according to one study, to say nothing of maintenance and other soft costs. In short, Rivian's go-it-alone strategy is a quiet indictment of U.S. infrastructure: What's out there at the moment, apparently, is not nearly enough.

Tesla opted for the same kind of proprietary network, but that was nine years ago. The non-Tesla charging map has grown denser in the time since, but pins are still thin beyond urban centers, and the center of the country is blanketed with electron deserts.

At the moment, Tesla has 9,723 fast-charging cords in the U.S., according to the latest Energy Department tally. The other networks combined have just 7,589 outlets for public charging, and those are far less widely scattered. The Tesla club is covered in Millinocket, Me., Athens, Ala., and Casper, Wyo. -- all places where Ford's juiced-up new Mustang Mach-E may struggle to run free. While this is a challenge for Ford, it's a bigger obstacle for Rivian's "Electric Adventure Vehicles," ostensibly headed to places more wild than the Santa Monica farmer's market.

There's good reason for the anemic charging map. The microeconomics for a public charging network are still kind of brutal. Profits won't appear without a lot of EV traffic; EVs won't appear without a lot of chargers. But on a micro-micro level, there's another variable in the equation: Chargers sell cars. Elon Musk saw that clearly a decade ago. When Rivian plants a charger in an electron desert like North Dakota, the revenue in return flows through a thicker pipe than it does for a charging empire that's only selling the electricity.

Indeed, a look at the Rivian map colors its sales ambitions. It has a slew of chargers planned for Alaska, Hawaii, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Even Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia will see stations. "We can be really creative in terms of locations," Scaringe told TechCrunch in December, "so it can allow us to get to places that are very specific and unique to Rivian."

What's more, Rivian plans to hand Amazon.com the keys to 100,000 delivery vans in the coming decade, including 10,000 by the end of next year. No doubt, the retail giant would like to deploy (and charge) those rigs widely. Meanwhile, non-Rivian vehicles will be able to use the company's slower chargers, another potential revenue stream. "Over-demand is a nice problem to have," says BloombergNEF analyst Ryan Fisher, and there's value in locking up prime charging locations before EVs infiltrate the country's more remote places, he adds.

The incumbent auto industry hasn't been as adventurous, but it has yet another variable in the equation: gas-powered revenue. These cars can still sell vehicles in places such as North Dakota, where chargers are sparse. As such, the industry has largely decided to jury-rig its own charging networks, essentially cobbling together a patchwork of interoperability agreements with third-party networks. Ford Motor Co., for example, connected in 2017 with Electrify America, the charging network Volkswagen established as part of the settlement of its Dieselgate emissions cheating scandal. (The public charging networks became even more important this week to Mach-E owners, as Ford stopped selling its $799 home chargers because some weren't working properly.)

Finally, Rivian has to think carefully about the long haul -- specifically the big, squishy calculus of brand value. The company has spent 12 years crafting the capital behind its name, and almost every step has been deliberate -- from producing seven-minute snowboarding films to popping up in an Aspen gondola for an impromptu interview. It's also hiring "guides" who will be personally assigned to liaison with individual buyers.

Now, on the cusp of putting product in the wild, it would certainly be easier and cheaper to outsource charging to some third-party plug in a motel parking lot, but that would be out of step with the company's approach to date. Charging will be a huge part of the Rivian's UX, arguably as important as the lights, the acceleration, and the nifty "camp kitchen" that slides out from under the pickup bed. Apparently, to Scaringe and company, the reward ~CHECK~ the potential savings of skipping the proprietary network -- isn't worth the risk.
Newsletter

Related Articles

TechDigits
0:00
0:00
Close
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The future of sports
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
UK Crypto and Stablecoin Regulations Become Law as Royal Assent is Granted
A Delaware city wants to let businesses vote in its elections
Alef Aeronautics Achieves Historic Milestone with Flight Certification for World's First Flying Car
Google Blocked Access to Canadian News in Response to New Legislation
French Politicians Advocate for Pan-European Regulation on Social Media Influencers
Melinda French Gates Advocates for Increased Female Representation in AI to Prevent Bias
Snapchat+ gains 4 million paying subscribers in its first year
Apple Makes History as the First Public Company Valued at $3 Trillion
Elon Musk Implements Twitter Limits to Tackle Data Scraping, but Faces Criticism for Technical Misunderstanding
EU and UK's Slow Electric Vehicle Adoption Raises Questions About the Transition to Green Mobility
Top Companies Express Concerns Over Europe's Proposed AI Law, Citing Competitiveness and Investment Risks
Meta Unveils Insights on AI Usage in Facebook and Instagram, Amid Growing Calls for Transparency
Crypto Scams Against Seniors Soar by 78% in 2022, Experts Urge Vigilance
The End of an Era: National Geographic Dismisses Last of Its Staff Writers
Shield Your Wallet: The Perils of Wireless Credit Card Theft
Harvard Scientist Who Studies Honesty Accused Of Data Fraud, Put On Leave
Putting an End to the Subscription Snare: The Battle Against Unwitting Commitments
The Legal Perils of AI: Lawyer Faces Sanctions for Relying on Fictional Cases Generated by Chatbot
ChatGPT’s "Grandma Exploit": Ingenious Hack Exposes Loophole in AI, Generates Free Software Codes
The Disney Downturn: A Near Billion-Dollar Box Office Blow for the House of Mouse
A Digital Showdown: Canada Challenges Tech Giants with The Online News Act, Meta Strikes Back
Distress in the Depths: Submersible and Passengers Missing in Titanic Wreckage Expedition
Mark Zuckerberg stealing another idea: Twitter
European Union's AI Regulations Risk Self-Sabotage, Cautions smart and brave Venture Capitalist Joe Lonsdale
Nvidia GPUs are so hard to get that rich venture capitalists are buying them for the startups they invest in
Chinese car exports surge
Reddit Blackout: Thousands of Communities Protest "Ludicrous" Pricing Changes
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
×