back to article Rivian decimates staff to put a brake on spending

Amid continuing losses, Rivian is laying off 10 percent of its salaried employees and a limited number of hourly folks in an attempt to reduce its expenses.  CEO RJ Scaringe shared news of the layoffs during a conference call with financial analysts yesterday as he delivered the automaker's figures for the fourth quarter of …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    Gosh: proper use of the word "decimate" !

    Rivian is laying off 10 percent of its salaried employees

    All too often it is used to mean "lots". Congratulations Mr Vigliarolo

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Gosh: proper use of the word "decimate" !

      Well in a mature commodity market like EVs it's only natural that the traditional market incumbents would be cutting staff as future growth and demand for new products drops off

    2. I am David Jones Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Gosh: proper use of the word "decimate" !

      Well, one of the proper uses. Others including removing a lot or removing nine tenths. You’re welcome.

    3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Gosh: proper use of the word "decimate" !

      Usage changed to mean "lots" centuries ago. You might want to look up how fantastic and terrible it is that words change their meanings. Here, in this copy of The Gentleman's Arsenal Magazine there's an article about it.

  2. Ace2 Silver badge

    The Rivian R1S weighs 8,500lbs!

    We can do better.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
    2. Necrohamster Silver badge

      ...or 3,855 kilograms for our non-American friends.

      This gross vehicle weight means you can't drive one on a category B car license in Europe, and possibly elsewhere.

      It was a bit short-sighted on Rivian's part not to build some small cars that people outside of the US might want to drive but meh...

      1. bananape4l

        margins on small cars are thin

        you need to start big and expensive because you can't build a new car company selling 20k vehicles to teenagers. america has made 2 new car companies. what of europe? microlino? what does europe know about starting a new company from scratch? those croats are making electric supercar.

        when vw starts scout brand in america, they won't be starting with a compact vehicle. because they need profits.

        1. Necrohamster Silver badge
          WTF?

          Re: margins on small cars are thin

          "you need to start big and expensive because you can't build a new car company selling 20k vehicles to teenagers."

          You must not have read the article.

          TL:DR: Rivian's in trouble... the "big and expensive" thing hasn't worked out for them lol

          Also I didn't mention 20k cars for teenagers...

          1. martinusher Silver badge

            Re: margins on small cars are thin

            There is only one new car in the US that costs < $20K, a Mazda, and that's being discontinued.

            Average cost of a new vehicle in the US is $49K. We're trapped here because a lot of the US needs cars because of a lack of transport infrastructure. What this means is that the average age of cars in the US is increasing, its 10 years or so now, since people on the whole don't have the $700+ per month "average car payment" to burn and we don't have the sorts of regulations that force usable cars off the road (usually in the name of reducing emissions).

            Focusing on expensive but profitable SUVs leaves manufacturers vulnerable to inexpensive competition. We have tools in the US to restrict competition and especially imports from places like China** so I don't expect any relief soon.

            (**Its OK for manufacturers to import components or even complete vehicles and resell it at a decent markup but direct competition.....not allowed.....)

      2. Bebu
        Windows

        Only appreciated the weight in kg ;)

        "or 3,855 kilograms for our non-American friends."

        Nearly 4t.

        Does it come with a turret with a choice from various calibre cannon?

        Australians love their big diesel SUVs and their ilk but having the choice of 4t battery box isn't likely to change that.

    3. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

      Seriously? I just passed one on the road earlier today and it was a tiny little truck for a 4 door. They're about the size of a late 1990s Toyota Tacoma crewcab, otherwise known as a Hilux in the land of driving on the wrong side of the road. I figured 4500lbs with battery weight.

  3. Woodnag

    I Spy

    So if they go bust, a third party can buy the rights to all that lovely telemetry, existing and ongoing...

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: So if they go bust...

      Amazon will step in and buy them out. Rivian are making Vans for them AFAIK.

      Baldy Bezos is Big Brother these days

      1. IGotOut Silver badge

        Re: So if they go bust...

        Guess you missed the part about the Amazon deal falling through?

      2. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

        Re: So if they go bust...

        I would guess the Muskmaster <phew> will be wanting to buy it. That way he can roll it into Tesla and have a truck to sell.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too expensive, too heavy and now

    Too risky.

    Buy today, out of support before your warranty expires?

    Proceed with great caution.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Too expensive, too heavy and now

      Sounds like my Tindr profile

  5. Tron Silver badge

    There may be trouble ahead.

    If the company goes bust, the vehicles may become very, very big paperweights.

    So is anyone going to buy them with that a feasible scenario?

    You can fix and drive an ICE vehicle even if the manufacturer went bust forty years ago. Some city councils will tax you to hell and back for doing it on their turf, but at least it works when you turn the key in the ignition. Anything requiring a home server call is inherently less resilient.

    1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

      Re: There may be trouble ahead.

      When somebody runs a red light and hits your car, you will find this to not be true even for current ICE cars.

      1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

        Re: When somebody runs a red light and hits your car,

        What? Struggling to see even a vague, tangential reference to the OP's comment.

        The ICE can still be fixed, even it if means stripping one or more donnor cars to do so. Whether it's economic to do so is a different matter. But if the car requires a connection to the mothership to function, when that mothership crashes ithe car is immediately a massive paperweight.

        No idea if this is actually something Rivian's need in order to function, however.

        1. cyberdemon Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: When somebody runs a red light and hits your car,

          Yep. Even a "connected car" with a nobbled ECU, you can still get a third-party replacement ECU and get it going again. One hell of a faff, but I know people who have done it.

          Good luck making an after-market EV inverter and BMS that fits more than one make/model. Controlling a 400V traction motor is not like driving a hobby brushless motor. Especially if it's something like a Synchronous Reluctance motor.

          The battery too will have potentially hundreds of microcontrollers inside, all running secure firmware, that aren't going to talk to anything non OEM-approved

          1. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

            Re: When somebody runs a red light and hits your car,

            Nah, would not be a problem. Seimens has been selling traction motor controllers for EV conversions for years. They may even be providing support for the EV makers. It's possible that not all the features wouldn't work but you could debrick the car enough to be just a car.

            1. cyberdemon Silver badge

              Re: When somebody runs a red light and hits your car,

              I think you are underestimating just how tightly-integrated EVs are. Take a look at the various teardown videos on the u-bend of EV motors. Motor and power electronics are usually packaged in the same cast aluminium housing, due to cooling, cabling reduction and EMC requirements. Usually the differential is part of this single package, too. Often you can't even access the motor phase wires without opening the shell and breaking the gasket on the motor's cooling loop. The drive unit is a single monolithic component with 400V DC supply, CAN bus, coolant in/out, and output shafts for a pair of wheels.

              I would expect that converting an ICE car (with a nice spacious engine bay and open transmission) would be much easier than de-bricking a bricked EV by trying to replace the motor control board. You'd need to replace the entire driveshaft/differential/motor/controller module, and get something that can fit into the same tightly packed space as the original. No use going to a scrapyard, because the electronic components will be keyed to the original serial number etc.

              The Siemens kits that you describe will be for "standard" induction or PMSM (with a feedback sensor) only. I doubt they would drive SynRM or the wacky Tesla IPM-SynRM motors, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I would challenge anyone to be able to rip out the drive electronics of an EV and jack onto the motor phases and be able to drive it.

    2. Authentic Name

      Re: There may be trouble ahead.

      Mostly if it was built in significant volume. Niche makes and models are a challenge for aficionados with deep pockets. This would be more like a second hand Bentley but no OEM fallback. Agree. Double or even triple jeopardy in the boutique stakes.

  6. PhilipN Silver badge

    "laser-focused" > dead giveaway.

    The latest expression which causes me not to bother with the rest of the article/speech/mea culpa since it reveals prior stupidity and future desperation.

    1. Bebu
      Windows

      Re: "laser-focused" > dead giveaway.

      Yup. With laser you can line all your ducks up with enormous precision .... before blasting.

  7. Trotts36

    The end of electric vehicles

    Sorry to point out but the factor of insurance premiums increasing, governments finally dropping the ICE ban and sky high electric prices means that all electric vehicles are going to be dead in the water. People finally realising this is all unfeasible.

    1. simonlb Silver badge

      Re: The end of electric vehicles

      I wouldn't say unfeasible, more like impractical at this time. Whichever way you look at it, trying to force EV uptake by banning sales of ICE vehicles when there is the HUGE question mark over how we deal with EV battery packs when they are end-of-life is just plain stupid and doesn't help anyone. I've never been in a position to buy a new car and would almost certainly never do so even if I was due to the depreciation associated with buying a new car, but I'd also be highly skeptical of buying a seven or eight year old EV if there was a potential multi-thousand £/$ bill attached within the next five years or so. Add to that the reliance of these EV's on phoning home to the manufacturers mothership for everything and the always present risk of that being arbitrarily removed and bricking my car, and there is just no incentive for me to even consider looking at an EV.

      No, sort out an industry-wide method for addressing the reprocessing of dead EV batteries which does not lumber the end used with a massive additional cost and I might be interested, otherwise I'm sticking with my thirteen year old diesel Estate car which can easily take me and four other people with all our stuff 600 miles in one go without having to work out an itinerary including multiple overnight stays when going to and from our destination because of having to recharge. And no, I won't be turning the fucking heater and stereo off and hypermiling to be more 'efficient' and increase range either.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: The end of electric vehicles

        Even before everyone has a battery pack we'll have exhausted generation and network capacity.

        But electric motors are a great idea, nothing to stop manufacturers moving toward turbines to power them rather than direct transmission: separate power generation from power transmission. However, we normally have to wait for the industry to decide when they've had enough subsidies from plan A before they propose plan B.

      2. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: The end of electric vehicles

        Nice to see a rational discussion of the downsides of the headlong rush to EV-only, without it being immediately downvoted to hell.

      3. bananape4l

        Re: The end of electric vehicles

        they are already recycling now today electric vehicle batteries.

        only the misinformed have a problem with disposal of batteries. in my family we have a decade old tesla built battery that has nearly same performance as new after 80k miles.

        again, reprocessing is already happening now, you just don't know about it.

        feels good repeating fossil industry bs doesn't it? add in some techno-troglodyte bs and you're a well rounded luddite!

        1. RobThBay

          Re: The end of electric vehicles

          You've only driven it 80,000 milles in 10 years?

          No wonder the battery is as good as new. It's hardly been used,

      4. cyberdemon Silver badge
        Big Brother

        It's hard to believe that those in power don't know all of this

        So, one can only assume that the plan is to phase out the concept of ordinary citizens having their own transportation.

        The way to reduce congestion apparently, is not to build roads, but take the riff-raff off of them.

        In the "good old days", only the landed gentry could afford their own horse and carriage, let alone a motor-car. For the rest of them, there's the omnibus.

      5. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

        Re: The end of electric vehicles

        The battery issue has pretty much been solved, but lithium is not part of the solution. Graphene alumium ion batteries will last well over 7000 recharge cycles vs lithium's 1000 cycles before degradation becomes noticeable, and when it does reach EOL they recycle into aluminum and graphene. Plus they don't have the slow charge times, temperature sensitivity or fire risks that lithium has. If the charging infrastructure is in place, charging aluminum batteries won't be much different than stopping for a tank of gasoline.

        1. cyberdemon Silver badge

          Re: The end of electric vehicles

          You can't easily recycle graphene into graphene, unfortunately. You can recycle it into low-purity amorphous carbon black, but that's not very valuable. Graphene is produced by separating single layers of graphite, and graphite has to be mined. Sure, synthetic graphite/graphene is possible, but it is much more expensive than mining it. China recently banned exports of graphite, because it is a key mineral in the manufacture of batteries, for which they want to protect their dominance.

          Aluminium has a lower electrochemical potential than Lithium i.e. it produces less than half the voltage per cell. Not a show-stopper, but it makes it harder to be the front-runner in a competitive market. Power density will be lower, so fast charging is certainly not going to be vastly improved as you claim. Even if they tolerate high temperatures under fast-charging conditions, that just means that fast charging is going to be inefficient.

    2. Necrohamster Silver badge

      Re: The end of electric vehicles

      The only sensible way to "own" an EV is through a lease for the first few years of its life. You don't want to be funding a battery replacement out of your own pocket as the second or subsequent owner.

      Depreciation is insane too, as companies like Tesla slash prices and burn owners who thought they were making an investment rather than buying a car. In fact, leasing companies in Europe are demanding money back from EV makers as the cars' values plummet (Tesla Model 3 and the Audi e-tron are the worst value apparently):

      https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2024/02/22/761780.htm

      1. bananape4l

        Re: The end of electric vehicles

        what kind of moron thinks they are investing in a car? they are the infamous example of depreciating assets. nobody thinks this. wtaf?

        1. YetAnotherXyzzy

          Re: The end of electric vehicles

          Sadly, half or more of my acquaintances consider a new car purchase (ICE or EV, doesn't matter) to be an investment. Not downvoting you -- yes you are right and yes they are morons -- just pointing out that we are surrounded by gullible fools.

          Or maybe I'm merely revealing that I hang out with dummies.

        2. Necrohamster Silver badge

          Re: The end of electric vehicles

          "what kind of moron thinks they are investing in a car? "

          Elon Musk fans. Seriously.

          1. Richard 12 Silver badge

            Re: The end of electric vehicles

            I've heard many people say they're "investing" in an ICE car. Then listing the tens of thousands they've spent on it...

            It's not limited to EVs.

            1. Necrohamster Silver badge

              Re: The end of electric vehicles

              A mass-produced car is never an investment opportunity (except in very limited cases). Only a gullible moron would believe otherwise.

              It's just that most of the gullible morons crying about their car's value these days happen to drive Teslas, but I've no doubt that some ICE drivers have buyer's remorse too.

        3. Bebu
          Windows

          Re: The end of electric vehicles

          "what kind of moron thinks they are investing in a car?"

          Not disagreeing but if I had a few Deloreans in a barn somewhere I am sure they could be nice little retirement plan.

  8. rgjnk Bronze badge
    Alert

    Should've copied the winning EV plan

    Losing money on building and selling the cars isn't an obstacle if your accountants are creative enough.

    The big trick is harvesting subsidies you barely/don't qualify for and selling all those tasty regulatory carbon credits. Plus keeping your stock pump running.

    Get it right and you can last long enough to get to a point where you can start nominally generating profit from actual sales.

    Sad really as Rivian looked fairly realistic in how it operated, certainly compared to some other EV startups which have turned out to be just a shell wrapped around aspirations and happy thoughts, with a real business nowhere to be found.

  9. Justthefacts Silver badge

    Cash burn?

    So, they’re burning $10bn a year to build 57000 vehicles?! That’s $170k per vehicle. That doesn’t appear to be R&D, just what it’s costing them per vehicle to build and sell. Because allegedly the vehicle is ready for prime time.

    First, 57k vehicles per year barely needs a factory to build it. They employ 16000 people. That’s 3 vehicles per worker per year. You can literally coach-build cars at 10-20 cars per worker per year, and half a dozen sports car companies within a hundred miles of me do exactly that.

    Secondly, when they did their sums of “is this a business”, they seem to have forgotten they’d need showrooms. They’ve only just opened 11 showrooms….as an afterthought, and astonished that touching and test-driving the cars is something buyers would want to do before parting with money. They’ve not got a realistic plan for this, nor costed it.

  10. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

    Selling cars?

    Three years of selling cars behind it

    Well, selling a truck1 and an enormous SUV, and probably a lot more of the former. But I suppose you can call the latter a "car" if you're feeling generous.

    I will admit that Rivian honestly are in a financial crunch, and aren't just laying people off to reward the execs, like Google and Cisco and that lot. I'm sure that's no comfort to the folks who are out of a job, but at least it's a bit less vile.

    1Not a truck I'd use, mind, since I wouldn't be throwing lumber and gravel in the bed of an $80K pickup, or taking it off-road, particularly not one loaded with far too many electronic systems and questionable software. But it looks and drives like a truck.

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