Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on Friday discussed the electric vehicle market with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, saying EV automakers need to give consumers a wider variety of models to choose from.
“What I think we’re witnessing today is a lack of choice,” Scaringe said. “There’s not enough vehicles across price points and form factors to give people viable alternatives to their combustion vehicles that they’ve been buying.”
Rivian is trying to broaden its offerings with a new line of R2 vehicles, which Scaringe will be smaller and less expensive than current Rivian models. The company’s current vehicles are priced upwards of $70,000.
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There’s not much choice in the ICE market either. Compacts have almost entirely disappeared. Ford stopped making sedans. Small trucks like the B2000 are gone. It’s nothing but expensive SUVs and giant trucks at most car dealers.
I think there should be a lot more options for ice to ev conversions. In my opinion, all car interiors have gotten worse over the past 20 years and there are already a ton of quality comfortable cars that only have mechanical problems.
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I’ve looked into it and there are only a couple of options in a larger city. Not any sense in converting a car that you like if it costs less to buy new.
What would need to go into a conversion kit to make recycling existing cars into EVs less cost restricted?
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Thanks for taking the time to walk me through this, I have a passive interest and really know very little about the process. Wouldn’t the custom fabricated parts come down to how to fit an electric motor to an existing drive train and installing regenerative brakes? Plenty of room in a mostly empty engine bay to pack in batteries and wrap them water tight, right? I’m sure there are dozens of different sized axels and drive trains but is there really so much variability there that every job needs to be custom fabricated?
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Had sometime to watch finally, very cool and comprehensive tour. Very excited to see more companies like this grow.
Appreciate you sharing your expertise. I hope this industry can lower that bar to entry a bit for your business’ sake and upcycling’s.
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EV conversion is super expensive because it’s so labour intensive. It’s really only worth it for classic cars.
I have a hard time believing that it’s more labor intensive than making a brand new car.
https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40 This is a company that does conversions, looks like the kit itself is around $20k, and that doesn’t even include labour yet. And yes, it’s more labour intensive because you need a specialised mechanic to take out the engine, fuel tank, wiring, etc, and then shoehorn the battery pack and motor in again, update the dashboard with EV specific stuff, etc.
On the other hand, a new car is largely built by robots and relatively cheaper factory workers that only need limited training.
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It suffers from a lack of affordable choice.
I have the option to buy like… 1 or 2 electric vehicles. Take in the fact that neither of them fit my needs (spacious interior to transport my dog, lug work tools around) then my options go down to 0.
He’s right. There are no real affordable options.
Then just let the Chinese EVs in! Wtf
