Rivian focuses on a different segment of the market from most cars sold by VW Group (trucks, SUVs, the American market in general) so from Rivian's perspective they're not likely to be cannibalized.
They still have a few years to improve their EVs, and when people really start to switch their gas cars with EVs in large volumes they have the benefit of being well established while having a wide range of model that can replace any of their old gas car offerings.
I’m not 100% sure that Teslas strategy of superoptimizing 3-4 bland models is a winning strategy in the very long run. People like to buy cars that fit their needs and personality.
Tesla is taking way too long to develop interesting models, and the Cybertruck, while interesting, might be too weird and flawed to be a big international success in the long run.
Though if the bet on robotaxis pay off, I could see Tesla being a huge success in the future as well. I’m just not sure if that’s going to actually happen. Or if Elon will bet too much of their development efforts on it too early, and thus run out of steam before it takes off.
Yes there are differences in the models however the center console airbag doesn’t justify a 50% price bump.
Chinese EVs are eating the lunch of European manufacturers has nothing to do with tech. The MG EVs that are some of the best selling cars in many EU countries for example are objectively worse than any European competitor they are just substantially cheaper.
And unlike their Euro counterparts their base models are actually available for dealerships you can’t get a VW in the UK without tacking like 8-10K worth of addons onto it unless you want to wait for months.
Couldn't be more wrong. VW is building up a direct competitor to Rivian.
Re: (2), even if there were alternatives like ClarisWorks being able to open and share MS Office documents was critical to keeping the Mac alive at that time. Plus, the web was one of the things that helped Apple survive the platform wars (i.e., proprietary document formats, two-sided markets, etc.). And whatever its imperfections, Internet Explorer was becoming the standard as Netscape lost share and this was before Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. the Mac needed a first-class browser and Microsoft committed to providing one for 5 years.
In contrast, while the cash, additional market for EV software, and vote of confidence is no doubt very valuable to Rivian, it would be an even more valuable if VW could provide some distribution or other advantages to get Rivian out of it's current hole.
https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_...
TLDR: Microsoft was stealing with help of Intel, both companies scared by QuickTime positioning Apple as the leader in Multimedia (1991 Adobe Premiere build by ex Quicktime engineer on Mac platform, 1991 Avid ported from Apollo $workstations$ to Mac). When Jobs came back in 1996 he didnt like (or couldnt afford) all the litigation and promptly settled for $ and Microsoft support commitment (Office, IE) in exchange for letting MS save face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company
"David Boies, attorney for the DoJ, noted that John Warden, for Microsoft, had omitted to quote part of a handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million."
"Microsoft and Intel had been shocked to find that Apple's QuickTime product made digital video on Windows seem like continuous motion, and was far in advance of anything that either of them had, even in a planning stage. The speed was achieved by bypassing Windows' Graphics Display Interface and enabling the application to write directly to the video card. The result was a significant improvement over the choppy, 'slide-show' quality of Microsoft's own efforts. Apple's intention was to establish the driver as a standard for multimedia video imaging, so that Mac developers could sell their applications on the Windows and Mac platforms. Microsoft requested a free licence from Apple for QuickTime for Windows in June 1993, and was refused. In July 1993, the San Francisco Canyon Company entered into an agreement with Intel to deliver a program (codenamed Mario) that would enable Intel to accelerate Video for Windows' processing of video images."
"Intel gave this code to Microsoft as part of a joint development program called Display Control Interface."
"Canyon admitted that it had copied to Intel code developed for and assigned to Apple. In September 1994, Apple's software was distributed by Microsoft in its developer kits, and in Microsoft's Video for Windows version 1.1d."
https://web.archive.org/web/20091006022255/http://www.firing...
"FS: What was Microsoft's philosophy or attitude regarding games when you began?
Alex St John: Oh, it was completely nonexistent! During that time, their entire focus was on multimedia video, the primary mission of DirectX wasn't to benefit and push gaming, but simply to drive Apple and Quicktime into the ground."
Rivian is also Apple, but it just doesn't have any clout.
What exactly is the goal here? Technology sharing for products?
Are you sure that Scout is targeted at Rivian customers? Or at people who wish they could afford a Rivian and can't?
Almost certainly. I don't think there is any point in making an EV truck for less than a Rivian R3.
Trucks are expensive and VW has never tried to compete at the absolute low end. To really undercut Rivian they would need an EV truck at 25k, which is a product which would absolutely suck.
I'd kind of wonder if VW is more interested in vans here, tho. They seem to have missed the boat on electric vans; it's all Merc/Citroen/Renault in Europe, and Rivian in the US. VW's only electric van is a cargo version of the id Buzz.
One article claims they are interested in the platform, maybe they want that platform for Scout? The last "real" truck VW was a rebranded Ford F-150. It might not make a lot of sense to adapt their current MEB platform for a truck, as it has vastly different requirements compared to the usual VW car.
The really challenging part for the old car companies has been the software and that was Rivian's edge. Now they've given that way and have to compete with VW on purely the hardware side that the old car companies are already good at.
And it is a 15 year old company, not a new startup.
But still I’ve yet to see one with a sled deck or a tailgate pad though so I assume it’s just people who don’t really need a truck at all.
I think they’re just for putzing around town. There’s not much options for chargers, and towns and destinations are far apart. I imagine that’s even more true in Wyoming.
I drove across state a couple weeks ago, Jackson to Laramie and back, and almost every gas station had a couple EV chargers. Granted, I doubt they were fast chargers and they may not have even been working.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29247594 EV maker Rivian eclipses Volkswagen in value while Lucid overtakes Ford (ft.com) Nov 16, 2021
Tesla is still valued at 2x Toyota:
https://companiesmarketcap.com/automakers/largest-automakers...
and then at least 5-10x what companies that actually make a lot of cars are valued.
Tesla should probably be valued at something like #3 or #4, their market value needs to crater by at least 50%, more like 80%, to reflect their real long term standing.
Because this moron thinks that users care about Rivian's "experience" or whatever.
What am I missing? I can play podcasts/music/whatever from my phone, the name/progress bar shows on the UI. I can control volume, next track, next in play list etc from the Tesla UI.
Maps/Nav are already google and speech recognition works well. I've seen horrid interfaces from Ford, Subaru, and Toyota, which would make me beg for a phone UI, but the tesla UI seems pretty similar to my Pixel 8. I.e. pinch/zoom/rotate works pretty well with a decently high update rate.
Another feature I miss from CarPlay is my podcast app. Instead, to listen to my podcasts I have to again use the phone instead of the Tesla console.
others include that my phone streams better and has more services. I could take a video call with CarPlay or stream something from a service not available on Tesla
I'd also like to use a functional browser on the large screen while charging. Tesla's browser has crashed on me just trying to read the Tesla manual. It's useless
I don't think at least CarPlay has anything able to meet the actual need there or even a way to provide something that would ... Maybe a separate map app that ran inside carplay to provide the required featureset?
(https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-electric-vehic...)
Important to note as well that you can technically support CarPlay and Android Auto just for the infotainment and keep the map function in-house running along with it.
> Maybe a separate map app that ran inside carplay to provide the required featureset?
Yup. It's a pretty straightforward feature. Heck, I'd write it myself once I get an EV with Android Auto.
Context: I used Android Auto almost entirely for maps and streaming audio, and I always have my phone mounted on the dash to play some media when I drive.
1- Versus either wired or wireless Android Auto, there's just one less step after getting in the car. The car boots ready to go and navigate. There isn't a 2 step loading of the car OS, and then streaming your phone content
2- No battery usage in wireless mode. Phone runs less hot generally vs charging wirelessly or plugged in, which matters on sunny days.
3- If you're not just one-tap navigating to a routine place and you're actively searching for a destination, given how big infotainment screens are continuously getting, I just don't think it's generally a good medium for prolonged interactions. I rather hold the phone in my hands and interact with a familiar phone interface and then send the destination to the car, than doing search and explorations on a car. And I rather hold an untethered phone that isn't slowing down because of the heat from streaming when I do interact with the phone.
4- CarPlay might be better, but Android Auto still has plenty of edge cases, correctly controlling volume, play/pausing media, depending on which app was in the foreground when Android Auto got initially connected. For the first few years, Google Maps disallowed having Maps open simultaneously on the car display and on the phone. And the car app has much less features. I have to turn the engine off or turn off wifi to disconnect Android Auto and use Maps directly. Having 2 full functioning devices with a thin, mature (Bluetooth) interface between them on the Rivian is a cleaner separation.
I'm in my car to go from point A to point B, not to be entertained by Google or Apple.
Is Google Maps okay'ish for nav? Yup. Is it better than, say, Porsche's previous nav system: not really.
Is Google Maps, in the EU, better at indicating speed traps than my (legal) "Coyote" system: no, definitely not.
To me AndroidAuto and CarPlay are fucking gizmos.
The one thing that counts to me is how pleasant the car is to drive and its safety. On that later point arguably a car that does not have a Google/Apple tablet in its dashboard is safer than the same car that does.
I understand that we're in a FB/Instagram/WhatsApp society but maybe, just maybe, that when you're driving is the time to...
Disconnect?
P.S: if anyone comes out saying "but music", I'll answer this: my car has a better soundsystem than yours and it's not using AndroidAuto/CarPlay. It's some stuff working on top of the QNX OS. The point is the same: I care about the quality of the sound/music (so much that I basically bought a high-end limousine for its soundsystem/sound insulation), not about how I select it.
Speaking anecdotally, having CarPlay work on a rental means I can just talk to Siri. Having to futz with the car's own system, on the other hand, means lots of time not looking at the road.
Here's the thing. Tesla does not have speed trap detection. And so you're screwed, there's NOTHING you can do with the built-in software. Your only recourse is to go and cry at Musk's feet to add the function.
With AA/CarPlay, I can just switch to a different software. E.g. Sygic supports speed traps in multiple countries, and it has fully offline maps.
Tesla's maps become a gray box once it loses the data connectivity. And in 4 years, you'll be paying $10 a month to have maps _at_ _all_ because the Standard Connectivity will not be free anymore.
Great, ain't it?
> my car has a better soundsystem than yours and it's not using AndroidAuto/CarPlay
Android Auto / CarPlay can transmit the lossless audio stream.
It’s also another thing to have to log everything into which is a pain and has to be repeated for each person frequently driving the vehicle.
CarPlay/Android Auto avoid both nicely.
Now of course I’d trust Tesla or Rivian to not pull support prematurely more than any traditional automaker, but it’s still a risk regardless of brand.
Rivians look very good though.
As a result that it's becoming increasingly easy to "total" a car in collisions that would have been repaired a decade ago. If you damage a major part of the chassis you get totaled, regardless if it was 25 welded pieces or 1 cast piece.
Really?
Analogous to software-defined radios [1].
I don't even know how to define a SDV besides the confusing and hand-wavy marketing materials.
