Technology

Forgive me, sire; I hadn't $80,000 to spend on a luxury truck.

You fuck.

Selling $80k electric cars and making comments like this is sort of like saying 'let them eat cake' in 1780

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.

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.

What he actually meant to say was:

“I’ve got my head so far up my ass that I think everybody should be spending $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.”

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

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.

Well maybe if this guy sold an electric car that people could afford, they would buy it

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?

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.

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.

A giant electric "luxury" truck is still a giant "luxury" truck. Buying one over the other is like buying a cruelty free synthetic beaver cap over a cap made from an actual beaver. Yes it probably is better, but you are still wearing an ass on your head.

It's 2023, most people live in urbanized areas where a truck is similarly ridiculous, especially the modern "luxury" models. Those that actually use their vehicles for hauling things at a farm want real work trucks and tractors (regardless of engine type) with lower and longer beds.

I buy what my meager wage allows me to afford...

Make an EV that competes on price with a Corolla and I'll be there.

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

Who cares what a CEO has to say?

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!

Buying any car, electric or otherwise, is 'Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’.

Real sustainability comes from changing the zoning code to cease outlawing walkability.

Sure, let me just fork over 80k for a truck from a company that's been building cars for only a couple of years.

My next vehicle will likely be electric, but right now my wife and I have decent cars that still run, and are paid for, and I'm reluctant to waste money replacing something that still works.

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.

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.

Rivian CEO should keep his mouth shut until a few grand gets you a used compact electric hatchback (VW Polo or similar) with a decent battery.

Got a battery powered van with a wheelchair ramp? No?

OK then.

Mans just mad people arent buying his cars.

The infrastructure just isn't there yet. If you live in apartments, where will you charge it? Can the overall electrical grid handle the load if let's say 50% of people that own an electrical car? How do these cars do in extreme weather conditions? How much does it cost to repair them? How long will they last for? EVs are super expensive.

We can't even decide on a standard charging port.

While I will eventually get an EV, there are problems that need to be addressed still.

Tesla has ton of quality issues and riven is brand new. Why would I trust them?

Stupid out of touch billionaires.

Hey rivian ceo, build more fast charging stations along interstates and not just in big cities. Or build EVs that can go at least 500 miles on a charge.

Bruh I can't even afford a EV.