Featured Amazon orders 100k delivery vans from Rivian

Hmmmm - Toyota did something similar, back in the day. Buying low priced Tesla stock, Toyota had Musk's new company put their Electric System in their 2nd generation RAV4-EV. Not too long after, Toyota pulled out of both Ventures, the stock was sold & the electric RAV was discontinued. Now, let's see if Amazon follows suit.
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we'll likely never see them around these parts

most of the amazon deliveries come from beat up vans driven by ex criminals

 

10,000 by 2022, the other 90,000 by 2030

and this will be a completely new vehicle from rivien, vaporware?

 

interesting - around here it's either Uber or Lyft drivers, in between their passengers or grocery or McDonald's deliveries.
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Mercedes's and Toyota's investments really helped tesla bring the model S to market. Both companies profited greatly, in fact the $50M in toyota stock had a profit that covered some of the mirai's losses. Toyota didn't really want to give up enough control of the rav4 ev or invest very much and this may have a lot to do with the current chairman of the boards disdain for bevs. Toyota could be raking in money in a suv bev now, but they still can do one. I'm sure they have taken appart a model X and a model 3 and have a good idea what to do ;-)

Amazon is a bigger company than toyota and has invested $700M along with Ford investing $500M in rivian. Rivian is also a much bigger long shot, but tesla's success makes it a much easier investment to show shareholders. If amazon really does eventually get the 100,000 bev delivery vans to their specifications think of it as a small $7000 deposit on each one, which is not that much for amazon to risk even if they don't work to its satisfaction and it cancels part or all of the order.

Rivian, Tesla, and Ford will all have BEV pick up trucks in the world in the next 5 years (all claim much faster, but have missed deadlines so I'm being conservative). Mercedes and Tesla will have larger BEV trucks. It looks like 2025 (which is not that far away) is the year that major sales of plug-in trucks and SUVs start to take major market share.

 

.... doesn't that begs the question, why not sync that cash into a company that's already up, running, & much more well-developed infrastructure?
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Huh, maybe I will have an EV in my driveway this year after all.

Kidding aside this sounds great, I hope the fleet works well!

 

Because the company owners/leaders are in a pissing contest.

It doesn't get much press, but Bezos has a rocket company, and it managed landing one successfully before SpaceX.

 

Ahhhh - well pissing is important
Looks like they are both in a contest to see which flights have to be terminated, too
Secretive Private Spaceship Builder Reports Rocket Failure | Space
Wonder if anyone is keeping score.
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Probably like little kids soccer. Score isn't kept, but the kids know whose winning.

 

musk has benn complimenting amazons logistics lately. maybe he was hoping for the order

 

is Tesla going to have a hi-cube van on the streets in 2 years? They seem pretty busy keeping up with their passenger car business.

 

probably not, is rivian?

 

There's always Workhorse.
Workhorse | NGEN

 

+1

Yep that plus tesla's valuation is the reason. Tesla has its hands full with the pick up, roadster, and semi truck. Will Rivalan be ready in 2 years? I doubt it, but for sure they can do it in 3. If each van costs $50K (use your own guesstimate) then its a $5B order for a company with $2B in investments that instantly increases the value of amazon and ford's stock in the company. It could bomb and then those 2 will be out there investments, but it took tesla all those years with the roadster to build the S. With a captive audience for a delivery van and likely customers for a pick up truck there future looks bright if they do the engineering right. Let's face it, tesla already did a lot of the hard work.

On infrastructure I'm guessing these vans only need to get charged once a day. Amazon can slowly build ccs L3 network where they need it if it doesn't exist, or probably buy into tesla's supercharger network. My guess is these will go less than 150 miles a day, which means a 100 kwh pack could be L2 charged at night, and be ready to go early in the morning. If rivian's product sucks they can probably get tesla or ford to build the delivery vehicles.

 

That's Tesla's Box Truck you're talking about .... their Model "B".


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yeah, but when will they build it?

look at rivian, and how many models they already have on the road.

tesla can't keep up, they don't have the cash

 

Tesla has more money for R&D than rivian. The thing is they have limited manufacturing resources and have the Y (Tall wagon type crossover based on the 3), Pick up truck, and Semi Truck in the que. They A) even with that amazon order probably would not change this development, and B) will not increase valuation if they did. Rivian on the other hand can finish their truck and start now on the van. This instantly increases the value of amazon's investment valuation. Of course it won't move amazon's stock market value much, but it adds to good will on amazon's part if they help develop lower fuel delivery for themselves and the industry.

 

can and will are two different things