Electric Vehicles: General topics

[DT]

OK, looks like the CEO of Rivian walked that back, I'm not sure how much damage was done, both in terms of actual lost orders/revenue and general PR, but this is certainly what existing order holders wanted to hear:

Ouch.

Rivian has released its Q4 2022 earnings today and confirmed that it lost over $2.4 billion during the last quarter as it still faces significant challenges in ramping up production.

The automaker has revised its production target for 2022 to 25,000 and it plans to lose money on those.

Rivian confirmed that it produced only 1,410 vehicles so far in 2022, which is barely more than they did in 2021.

But it included a production shutdown to upgrade the production lines and the automaker now claims that it doubled its exit rate over the last two weeks:

“We are focused on our production ramp and are encouraged by the team’s progress. This is reflected in strong recent week-over-week production rate growth, wherein our output has been constrained primarily by supplier constraints. The critical production areas of the plant, including battery module, general assembly, skateboard assembly, body shop, and paint shop, continue to each set record weekly production levels for Rivian. During the two trailing weeks prior to March 8, we averaged a weekly production rate that was approximately two times the exit rate of Q4 2021. As of March 8, we have produced 1,410 vehicles in 2022 and 2,425 vehicles since the start of production.”

The automaker claims that it would be ready to produce as many as 25,000 vehicles between its 3 models, R1T (pickup), R1S (SUV), and EDV (delivery van), but that supply chain issues plaguing the industry is limiting their guidance to 25,000 units this year.

 

[quagmire]

I want to root for these companies. It is so hard to break into the industry. Tesla nearly went under themselves before the Model 3.

I am just not the type of person to plop down $70,000 on an upstart that has no network to support the vehicle. I would not own a Tesla right now if I lived in an area where I would need to drive over an hour to get it to a service center, let alone 3 hours some people do. It's still partially the reason why if I was to get an EV pickup, it would be the Cybertruck maybe then followed by the Silverado EV due to dealers experience with the Bolt. Ford dealers are still struggling with supporting the Mach E from what I have read.

Still I wish all the best to Rivian. They are putting out an interesting product. They need to get the support network built for it as well.

 

[DT]

Oh, me too, heck, Rivian could possibly be a consideration for us, if:

- The product __and__ company has proven itself, no catastrophic issues, business is financially viable
- An order can be fulfilled in a "reasonable" amount of time (If I'm the 50,000th order and they're making 10K a year ... no)
- They'll have sold enough to establish a decent service footprint / model (per your service comment)
- The 400 mile (extended range) R1S will be available
- Price doesn't escalate a lot more, if it's a $130K vehicle in 2 years ... nope.

Musk wasn't wrong when he was sort of minimizing the engineering side of things and really emphasizing how hard it is to enter the consumer vehicle market. And he did it when the EV market didn't have any of the major players involved - now a startup, like Rivian has to deal not only with Tesla, but with Ford, GM, etc.

 

[Yoused]

Here is a thing that kind of makes my head hurt,

PG&E will pilot bidirectional electric car charging in California

Ford and General Motors are both working with PG&E on trials.

arstechnica.com

When the lights go out, flip your circuits to power your house off the car. Probably just the fridge and one or two essentials (I have a nice battery-powered lamp that even gets a bit of use on good days). Would you do this, in a pinch?

 

[Apple fanboy]

Here is a thing that kind of makes my head hurt,

PG&E will pilot bidirectional electric car charging in California

Ford and General Motors are both working with PG&E on trials.

arstechnica.com

When the lights go out, flip your circuits to power your house off the car. Probably just the fridge and one or two essentials (I have a nice battery-powered lamp that even gets a bit of use on good days). Would you do this, in a pinch?

Absolutely. It makes sense. As long as you know where the nearest chargers are that are still working of course.

 

[Eric]

Here is a thing that kind of makes my head hurt,

PG&E will pilot bidirectional electric car charging in California

Ford and General Motors are both working with PG&E on trials.

arstechnica.com

When the lights go out, flip your circuits to power your house off the car. Probably just the fridge and one or two essentials (I have a nice battery-powered lamp that even gets a bit of use on good days). Would you do this, in a pinch?

Most EVs are coming with that ability now but Tesla isn't one of them, unfortunately.

As for PG&E I have a hard time thinking they'll ever do something for the greater good, they're flat out evil here in CA. They're about to hike their rates up another 18% for both gas and electric and will stop paying for power fed back to the grid from homeowners with solar power.

 

[SuperMatt]

Most EVs are coming with that ability now but Tesla isn't one of them, unfortunately.

As for PG&E I have a hard time thinking they'll ever do something for the greater good, they're flat out evil here in CA. They're about to hike their rates up another 18% for both gas and electric and will stop paying for power fed back to the grid from homeowners with solar power.

I’m surprised that the government allows them to refuse the feedback into the grid. Public utilities are beholden to the state who allow their existence as an exception to monopoly laws. Seems like people could complain to the government and perhaps get that remedied. But I’m never sure about California. Fox News always says it‘s full of liberals, but they had Reagan and Schwarzenegger as governors….

 

[Apple fanboy]

Most EVs are coming with that ability now but Tesla isn't one of them, unfortunately.

As for PG&E I have a hard time thinking they'll ever do something for the greater good, they're flat out evil here in CA. They're about to hike their rates up another 18% for both gas and electric and will stop paying for power fed back to the grid from homeowners with solar power.

That’s shocking. If I wasn’t paid for energy I was feeding back, I’d make sure I didn’t send any back at all!

 

[SuperMatt]

That’s shocking. If I wasn’t paid for energy I was feeding back, I’d make sure I didn’t send any back at all!

Right? I cannot believe such theft would be legal.

 

[Eric]

I’m surprised that the government allows them to refuse the feedback into the grid. Public utilities are beholden to the state who allow their existence as an exception to monopoly laws. Seems like people could complain to the government and perhaps get that remedied. But I’m never sure about California. Fox News always says it‘s full of liberals, but they had Reagan and Schwarzenegger as governors….

They are just another corporation and while they still have to deal with state regulations they mostly do whatever they want and just pay penalties. They have always sucked billions from consumers while paying their executive staff insane amounts of money and refusing to upgrade their dated and shitty infrastructure, leading to more fires and litigation due to climate change.

By and large the big cities are liberal but as soon as you get out of them it's mostly conservative, lot's of white people in trucks beating their chests to Trump and making the most of their white entitlement.

 

[DT]

More fuckery from our idiot/racist/sexist/homophobic governor ...

Breaking: Florida governor Ron DeSantis vetoes awful solar net metering bill

Florida's governor has vetoed a bill that would have slashed rooftop solar net metering, which the majority of all Floridians support.

electrek.co

 

[SuperMatt]

More fuckery from our idiot/racist/sexist/homophobic governor ...

Breaking: Florida governor Ron DeSantis vetoes awful solar net metering bill

Florida's governor has vetoed a bill that would have slashed rooftop solar net metering, which the majority of all Floridians support.

electrek.co

The Sunshine Police State

After Nevada gutted its net metering program, it experienced a significant loss of jobs and businesses. The SEIA reports that two weeks after Nevada enacted its legislation, for example, a major rooftop solar company announced it would cease operations in the state and eliminate 550 jobs. The following year, the Nevada legislature voted to reinstate net metering due to the significant loss in jobs and economic impact, along with immense public outcry.

Which tells me DeSantis is done with Florida and laser-focused on national office. He has to make some culture-war statements to show he is Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo, regardless of the effects on his constituents.

 

[DT]

The Sunshine Police State


Which tells me DeSantis is done with Florida and laser-focused on national office. He has to make some culture-war statements to show he is Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo, regardless of the effects on his constituents.

I think you're 1000% correct.

 

[Citysnaps]

The Sunshine Police State


Which tells me DeSantis is done with Florida and laser-focused on national office. He has to make some culture-war statements to show he is Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo, regardless of the effects on his constituents.

Will be interesting to see how DeSantis squares his relationship with trump. And should trump run again, how that plays out. Vlad's work isn't finished yet, and he needs a friendly in the White House; So many former Soviet republics, so little time.

 

[DT]

Thought this might be interesting, this is my stats from yesterday, it was like 75/25 mixed highway/city, ~55-58°, 3 passengers, driving pretty freely, i.e., accelerating when it was fun, cruising casually other times, a typical mix. Home to Ikea, Ikea to a close restaurant we decided to bail on, that place to where we did eat (which was awesome) and from there back home (that's the 4 lines of "driving activity" on each chart).

 

[DT]

The Wh/mi is an important metric, that's watt hours per mile, and it's a good general efficiency/consumption, where you can see the lower the better. For reference, our car has an 82kW battery, that's 82,000 watts, so at 285 watts used per mile:

82,000 / 285 = ~288 miles of range, with a car that's rated to be 315, so that's pretty solid (that's the 90% efficiency, which is based on model/trim rated range vs. real time calculated range0

 

[rdrr]

Thought this might be interesting, this is my stats from yesterday, it was like 75/25 mixed highway/city, ~55-58°, 3 passengers, driving pretty freely, i.e., accelerating when it was fun, cruising casually other times, a typical mix. Home to Ikea, Ikea to a close restaurant we decided to bail on, that place to where we did eat (which was awesome) and from there back home (that's the 4 lines of "driving activity" on each chart).


View attachment 12446
View attachment 12445

Is an app or stats from the auto manufacturer?

 

[DT]

Is an app or stats from the auto manufacturer?

The stats are from our Tesla, it stores a ton of data when you drive it, I didn't show it, but even things like air temp, speed, etc. The really cool thing is the data is available through a public API, so 3rd party systems can access it as well (with proper authentication). Those screens are specifically from an app called Tessie, which is pretty fantastic, it does everything the OEM app does, plus has more extensive analytics and it also allows integration with automations. So I've got voice commands on my watch, that let me do things like open in the trunk when my hands are full

 

[Joe]

 

[quagmire]

Model 3 and Y just went up another $3,000…..