Rivian CEO issues strong statement about people who purchase gas-powered cars: ‘Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’::“I don’t think I would have believed it.”
Forgive me, sire; I hadn’t $80,000 to spend on a luxury truck.
You fuck.
If you knew that he was referring to the purchase of a $80k Suburban in 2030 would that change your assessment?
So a $77k Suburban is good in your eyes then? How come? Why? Oh wait, you didn’t read the quote.
Just because he compared it to a suburban doesn’t mean that the Mitsubishi mirage and used Corollas aren’t a thing.
And sure the Chevy Bolt is 26k, but that’s still 5k more expensive than a new Corolla and has like half the range, and you can fuel the Corolla way faster.
Not with the $7500 federal tax credit, let alone (for CA) residents the tax rebate. It’s not for everyone yet but there’s plenty of people there Bolt is perfect for.
Source: bought one. Is great.
A luxury truck with the ugliest headlights on a car today.
Whenever I see these razor thin LED headlights on vehicles, my first thought is are those COB chips getting cooled properly?
It just comes across as very sus, a bit like form over function at the expense of headlight longevity
Those aren’t headlights
I’m not even sure what my headlights look like. I never really see them.
And the fucking dangerous high front which is completely unnecessary on an electric car, why is it there. Not even the TESLA FUCKING CYBERTRUCK pulls that shit, say what you will about Tesla, but they understand how the differences between gas and electric cars can be taken advantage of.
I concur, fucken fuckers.
Selling $80k electric cars and making comments like this is sort of like saying ‘let them eat cake’ in 1780
If you read the article you’d see that he said that in the context of buying a Chevy Suburban in 2030. Suburbans start at $77k, so I don’t think his comment is that out of line.
It’s not, of course it’s not.
But we know that legacy Reddit users never even bothered to read the articles anyway. Hurray! I missed-- not.
Yeah but it’s still a fair comment because the cars are too expensive for anyone to buy The battery compared to another car that’s too expensive to buy doesn’t really make any difference.
Because the thing about expensive gas powered cars is there’s also not expensive gas powered cars. So he’s comparing expensive electric cars to variable price gas powered cars.
I usually dont bother to read articles, because they are seo garbage. I glance at top comments written by true people to verify info instead
Wait wait wait, you mean theres more to this story than the title?
Those trucks/SUVs weigh 8500lbs. Since there is no fuel tax being collected, these monsters are destroying the roads and not contributing to their upkeep. My city is passing laws to significantly increase the registration on these vehicles, according to their annual mileage. I’m all for going electric, but an 8500lb truck is not helping the environment
This is true, but fuel taxes are very low. Most states that are charging an EV “road maintenance fee” (with whatever phrasing they select) are charging way more than an ICE vehicle would contribute in fuel taxes. And while it is true that BEVs are heavier than ICE vehicles, all else held equal, and that road wear and tear is strongly dependent on weight… as I recall reading, the overwhelming majority of road wear and tear is the result of freight trucks and similar vehicles.
I’m all for going electric, but an 8500lb truck is not helping the environment.
The issue here isn’t that it’s an EV in this case. It’s that it’s a truck. I’d wager than >95% of people buying trucks in the US would be perfectly served by a four door sedan or comparable sized vehicle. Trucks have largely become expensive vanity items to act as an external signal of a person’s cultural identity. Contractors and similar that actually use a truck for truck purposes still exist, but they’re comically outnumbered by people buying trucks for no good reason.
My conservative neighbor drives an F-150 (~5,500 lbs) and his wife drives a Tahoe (~5,800 lbs). But he had the gall to complain to me last week about the weight of my Model Y (4,400 lbs). It’s amazing what a little bit of oil and gas propaganda has been able to accomplish.
I don’t think it’s propaganda that EVs are heavy as shit for their size. Automakers are really upfront on that fact. You trying to call it propaganda illustrates your bad faith argument. You’re misusing that word and diluting the meaning.
4400 vs 5800 isn’t much of a difference, considering the sizes of the vehicles you listed. You are essentially driving a midsize truck but without the utility of a truck. Your neighbor has two trucks to your one. The top trim Tacoma weighs the same as your lower tier Tesla. Tesla Model X Standard Range comes in at 5,185 pounds.
I think we can both agree your vehicle is extremely heavy for being a small, low/mid tier passenger vehicle. Some Teslas are not eligible for the $7500 tax credit because they weigh so much.
I like how you can’t respond to this. It really hammers home my argument and calling you on your bullshit. Thank you for the votes, because that means I know you read the comment but have no idea how to respond!
My city doesn’t allow big trucks on our roads. The wear and tear of roads is heavily dependent on weight, as you and I both stated. Weighing 3500lbs more (the weight of a Toyota Camry) than even the largest personal vehicle is a problem which I hope they solve soon.
I’m not sure why people think it’s propaganda that EVs weigh 1.5x or more than a standard sedan. It’s a fact, and it’s easy to find information. The tech crowd wants to call anything that hurts their opinion bullshit, but they refuse to look it up. It’s right there on the manufacturers’ websites. I sincerely doubt the owners of Rivian or Tesla are in on some government “propaganda” to lower their own sales.
I appreciate the votes. That proves you read the comment but have no idea how to respond, because you can’t.
It’s important to read the full quote from Rivian’s CEO before complaining about $75k electric trucks:
“I think the reality of buying a combustion-powered vehicle … is sort of like building a horse barn in 1910,” he said. “Imagine buying a Chevy Suburban in 2030 … what are you going to do with that … in 10 years?”
He’s comparing buying a Rivian truck with buying a Suburban, which has a base price of $57k for the lowest tier configuration (LS) and a $76k price on the High Country configuration.
Proof that very few read the article
It’s still a fair complaint though. What about those of us who can’t afford to spend $75,000 on a car?
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Um…does the CEO know that horses are still a thing and that horse barns (aka stables) are still in use? Also, the invention of the automobile didn’t instantly displace the horse. It was well into the 1920s before they became a regular sight.
Also…there’s lots of reasons to buy gas-powered cars these days. For one, not everyone lives in a home where they can install the necessary charger, so you’d always be on the “hunt” for charging stations, and fuel cars are generally cheaper at this time. Once we see the market flooded with EV cars, the prices will come down and fuel cars will no longer be the norm, but we’re likely a decade or more away from that.
I get what the CEO is trying to say, but it’s still incredibly tone-deaf.
Also the recharge times are still a deal breaker for anyone who fancies a road trip every once in a while.
If your road trips are only once in a while, you easily make up for it in saved time not doing weekly fill-ups.
Agreed, it’s also true that used combustion engine cars can be a great value.
What he actually meant to say was:
“I’ve got my head so far up my ass that I think everybody should be spending on $100k+ on a truck regardless of their need or financial circumstances. I’m also incapable of doing my job, which is why my company can’t produce enough units, even though it’s largely a solved supply chain problem. This is how I cope with my shitty existence on this planet.”
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How to tell the entire world that you’re rich and entitled.
Have you seen the price of electric cars it’s ridiculous. No way I can afford one.
Also never mind the fact I have no way of charging it because I only have access to on-street parking. If they really wanted to help they should bring down the cost of their massively overpriced vehicles and also invest in distributing charging points around the country.
Isn’t the ultimate plan supposed to be that they’ll be at least one charging point and every highway at least every 8 mi?
It depends where you are and what market segment you’re looking in. In NZ you can buy a fully electric MG ZS EV (7 year warranty) for almost the same price as a base model Toyota Camry.
CEO of an electric car company recommends that people drive electric cars.
Doesn’t really seem like much of a headline.
The statement might be more significant if it was a CEO of a car company that made diesel/petrol cars who said it.
It’s more the tone deafness. Most people couldn’t afford either a car or a horse barn in 1910 just like most people (in America anyway) can’t afford an electric car.
I just looked up the price for a Rivian truck and holy shit is this guy for real? Lmao. Just another out of touch CEO virtue signaling. If he really felt this way he would make them affordable lol
Please pay for my apartment complex to install charger plugs in our garages then.
I’m totally onboard with EV’s, I just can’t have one right now.
If you just have a regular plug in the garage, it works. I thought that I would have to get a special outlet put in, but after plugging in at night for a couple months I realized there was no need. Figure about 5 miles per hour recharge. I have an older used Leaf that was relatively cheap.
I have outdoor parking :/
I don’t have any electrical plugs in my garage. The best I can do is commandeering a 60 watt bulb socket with one of those adapters that turns it into a socket. Also, I don’t think the apartment complex is rigged up to charge tenants for the cost of running that bulb and garage door opening either. So they probably would be pissed if I started charging a full EV in there.
They won’t even notice. Unless you live in an electric supply desert, charging an EV 0-100% is ridiculously cheap.
Yeah, so, how much is one of those Rivian trucks, exactly?
$73,000?
Yeah, fuck off. That’s more than the median annual gross income for American workers. It’s all good and well to tout a slightly more sustainable form of transportation–still not nearly as sustainable as busses or trains!–but when you’re pricing it well outside what most people can rationally afford, you’re not helping the situation.
All these products have to come to market in order for prices to eventually come down. People need to see that they have viable options to gasoline cars.
In Norway, more than 80 percent of new cars sold are electric. There are many other options that don’t cost $73,000. Rivian is just one option.
IIRC, Norway also offered substantial tax incentives to people that bought electric cars. IIRC, the fed. gov’t did the same in the US, and car companies responded by raising prices by the amount of the incentive.
and it’s only $40,000 to repair a bumper dent! such value!
https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns-into-42000-repair-bill
Ah, because the only EVs in the market are Rivian ones.
If they had decent range ones for just a bit cheaper…
It’s minimum like $30k right now and that’s just too much for most
Plus a lot of people still don’t have anywhere to charge them.
Otherwise I’d have liked to have gotten one
A Bolt, after all the tax incentives, comes in at around $18k!
But the problem is. It’s a bolt.
At that price that seems like an alright car. It’s just a bit slow to fast charge.
Am wondering if the new ones can actually fit someone who is 6 feet tall in the back seat without them having to hunch over
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Really? Can you actually get them at MSRP in any decent amount of time?
And is that federal? I thought Chevy ran out of their tax incentives…
Not as of last January when I tried to buy one. I was able to test drive one and found it acceptable but it was the only one available, it was significantly over MSRP (it was Premier trim, so >$35k) and I could order one but they flat out told me I’d be waiting a minimum of five months.
GM did run out, but the rules changed in 2023, so there is no more cap. GM and Tesla get the incentives again.
In 1910, in the United States, there were about 5 automobiles per 1,000 people. His analogy is stupid.
Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 33, ORNL-6990, Oak Ridge, TN, July 2014, Tables 3.5 and 3.6.
I think his analogy is accidentally spot on. ICE cars are going to be around for a while
For a very long while, which makes it so important we switch away from fossils fuels to co2 neutral, synthetic fuels as fast as possible. And in Europe, nobody wants EVs anyway, sales dropped like batshit crazy and everyone is getting ICE cars…
Synthetic fuels would be great for all the existing stuff, but not sure where you’re getting EV sales are down in Europe.
New plug-in car registrations:
BEVs: *212,000 (up 57% year-over-year) and 17% share PHEVs: *100,000 (up 17% year-over-year) and 8% share Total: 311,897 (up 42% year-over-year) and 25% shareFrom https://insideevs.com/news/680428/europe-plugin-car-sales-june2023/
Maybe if the alternative to building a horse barn in 1910 was building a garage that was so expensive only like 5% of the population could afford it.
barns are still useful and valuable today. this guy is a moron! he might have said something that made sense, like buying a new horse-drawn carriage. still, didn’t it take a couple/few decades for everything to switch over to cars?
Bobby, this journalist would be very upset if they knew you could fit other animals and equipment in a barn, not just derpy horses. all horses are derpy cmv
In 1910 the Model T had already been in production for 2 years. Remember that the Model T was designed to be cheap, so that every American could afford one.
If anything, this is more like buying a horse (not building a barn) in the “Horseless Carriage” era of the late 1800s. It was an era when cars basically looked like horse-drawn carriages but without the horses. Everything was custom-manufactured, and it was expensive. You could maybe see that these “horseless carriages” were the future, but they were still pretty impractical for the present. The world still had infrastructure only for horses, and not horseless carriages.
And yeah, if you were rich enough you might want to do your part to get rid of the major pollution problem of the day – streets absolutely filled with horse shit. But, that didn’t mean it was necessarily a practical idea to be one of the first to jump on the bandwagon.
CEO of a product ridiculing a competitor’s product? I’m shocked, shocked!
