Ford first invested $500 million in Rivian in 2019.
At the time they also announced that they'll be using Rivian's skateboard platform for Ford's cars. Later on that has been scrapped.
So why do they continue investing?
I don't really know but it might be an option for future collaboration / licensing Rivian's IP.
Rivian has been working on EV technology since 2009. Ford... not so much.
I think the reason you see so many EV announcements from Ford (and GM and Honda and Mercedes and...) in 2021 is because they all suddenly realized they need to press a panic button.
However, you don't just build battery / electric drive train expertise overnight so Ford might be keeping their options open for collaborating with Rivian in the future.
It could be the other way around; that Ford sees them as a potential customer for the various non-EV-specific parts that go into cars, and that a start-up might not have the infrastructure to make themselves.
Or they could collaborate on charging standards and access to networks of fast-chargers.
Ford make the parts that are unique to Ford vehicles, like chassis and engines. Things like seats and brakes, which are common to all vehicles, are bought.
> Rivian has been working on EV technology since 2009. Ford... not so much.
You say this like Ford is floundering with no clue. But that’s not the case. They have 100k reservations for the F-150 Lightning, which by all accounts is pretty impressive (https://youtu.be/J2npVg9ONFo).
If you think for some reason that the F-150 Lightning that ships won’t be as impressive, or it’ll be more expensive or that people who reserved it won’t buy it … then please share why you think so. But otherwise a knee jerk “old car manufacturer doesn’t know what they’re doing” doesn’t appear to fit the facts.
I think the parent commenter may have been referring to how Ford was floundering with no apparent clue. In 2019, there was little public indication of the legacy automobile manufacturers being serious about EVs. Meanwhile, Tesla had been investing in battery manufacturing technology for years.
It takes a long time to thoughtfully design a new chassis, electrified or not. It also takes a long time to build up manufacturing capacity, especially when they key ingredients such as battery cells were not integral to the chassis of the past.
The F-150 Lightning has clearly evoked interest. It could have come a lot sooner. But perhaps Ford can be an effective fast follower, especially if it figures out how to address sticky points like 1) managing dealer relationships and 2) writing software. These issues are business/cultural challenges, so may require more care to address than engineering problems, which Ford has a history (a century!) solving effectively.
>. In 2019, there was little public indication of the legacy automobile manufacturers being serious about EVs.
That's just not true at all. Nissan has been selling the leaf for a decade, for starters. VW had the e-golf in 2017. Everyone else has been dabbling to some extent or another.
The problem thus far is that electric vehicles have not been profitable to manufacturer.
> I think the reason you see so many EV announcements from Ford (and GM and Honda and Mercedes and...) in 2021 is because they all suddenly realized they need to press a panic button.
Alternatively, maybe because the traditional manufacturers timed the critical point where it made economic sense to focus on electric cars in the same way?
They're skating towards where the puck is, not where the puck will be. I believe it's impossible to win this kind of technological race without appearing to be early. So my prediction is most of them will fail.
You might be correct if the "critical point" arriving meant that established manufacturers could just buy the cost-and-performance-critical parts of EV manufacturing in volume, at low cost, from their suppliers as they're used to. But they can't, because the advancements that make this the right time are not sold on the open market. Getting there requires at least five years of R&D and billions invested, and in that time their competitors will have advanced further.
This outcome isn't obvious yet, so I might still be wrong, but that's where my money would be. I suppose that purchasing one of the startups working on this is a more promising option, but I'm not at all convinced.
This is largely because Tesla is supply constrained and they’ve chosen to prioritise fulfilling of orders in the USA which are more profitable. When Berlin Model Y production kicks off at the end of the year, the story might well change.
At the end of the day, regional sales numbers are irrelevant. The number that matters is global sales.
So you're saying Volkswagen sells more because they build more cars? Like Volkswagen's got expertise in car manufacturing or something? Maybe that's why they're the second biggest car manufacturer globally.
Does Volkswagen currently produce and sell more (pure) electric cars than Tesla? As GP said, regional sales numbers are irrelevant.
The established manufacturers obviously know how to make cars, but are behind on battery cells, packs, drivetrains and software. That VW currently out-delivers Tesla in some markets is not a rebuttal.
If they’re actually out-producing and outselling them globally, that would be an interesting development.
> That VW currently out-delivers Tesla in some markets is not a rebuttal
They've taken over the biggest EV market from Tesla. That hardly fits the narrative of it being "impossible to win this kind of technological race". Look at the trend:
The case that the big car companies won't remain big car companies is flimsy at best. It's a product of wishful thinking more than practical realities.
VW haven’t taken Tesla market, they (along with Stellantis) have expanded the euro EV market with more economy options. Growing the EV pie is good for all companies invested in EV.
Based on current landscape, it seems to me that the companies best poised to “win” in the transition to EV are Tesla, VW and Hyundai, with mixed/wildcard entries from Stellantis, Ford, maybe Volvo. Companies like Toyota, Nissan and Honda could go either way but I’m not seeing promising signs of them taking the inevitability of EVs seriously. No, the Leaf isn't serious.
The thing about Tesla is it’s hard to overstate the technology lead they have over rivals—particularly in terms of manufacturing costs through aggressive part simplification & count reduction (e.g. gigapress, octovalve) and wildly superior software engineering. Tesla is also the only automaker with no legacy ICE investments that need to be written down and no legacy vehicle market. And Tesla don’t have a legacy dealer network to worry about; they can sell direct when most other brands have to keep dealerships sweet.
I’m not saying Tesla have it in the bag, but if they keep up their current pace and release more hit products, they do have the potential to become a top 3 automaker within 10 years. Or not. Nothing is certain.
The idea that Toyota is somehow going away any time soon is faulty.
> No, the Leaf isn't serious.
The Leaf is one of the best selling EVs in the history of EVs.
> The thing about Tesla is it’s hard to overstate the technology lead they have over rivals—particularly in terms of manufacturing costs through aggressive part simplification & count reduction
Fantasy. The reality is Tesla is raising prices again and again:
Meanwhile Volkswagen is reducing prices on the ID.3 and ID.4. The cost savings of the common MEB platform enable them to do so. It lets them price models under the limits of government subsidies:
Nobody is saying Toyota are "going away". They will remain a major auto-maker, but I doubt they'll be in first or second place in 2030. It all depends on how quickly the economy car segment transitions from ICE to EV.
Toyota is a hybrid leader but an EV laggard. Their decision to dip toes into many electrification strategies is going to prove costly and wasteful.
> The Leaf is one of the best selling EVs in the history of EVs.
Despite being on the market for eleven years, it's already a distant second to the Tesla Model 3. Tesla sold more EVs in one year (2020) than Nissan has sold in a decade (2010-2020). And the future isn't looking bright: 2020 was the worst sales year ever for the Leaf.
The Nissan Leaf is much like the Prius was a decade ago, a darling of certain early adopters with near-zero mainstream appeal. But at least Toyota took their hybrid investments and successfully applied them to mainstream vehicles like the RAV4, Highlander and Camry. Nissan haven't leveraged their EV investments, they squandered them.
> The reality is Tesla is raising prices again and again
Tesla have been raising and lowering prices as their costs have changed. Recently the cost of raw materials like steel, aluminium, copper and lithium have skyrocketed.
This is what happens when you don't have a network of dealers: you can't conceal month-to-month manufacturer price fluctuations behind dealership negotiation.
> Meanwhile Volkswagen is reducing prices on the ID.3 and ID.4.
Because they flopped. For all the hype surrounding their launch, ID.3 and ID.4 are outclassed in nearly every respect by equivalent EVs from Hyundai—including range, efficiency, performance and driving dynamics. Teardowns of the ID.4 have shown that MEB isn't even a real EV platform. It was all hype.
Sorry, but this is just naive. Volkswagen has 26.5% of the European EV market in 2021. If the MEB platform is a flop then I think Volkswagen will very much like to continue that flop.
> Teardowns of the ID.4 have shown that MEB isn't even a real EV platform. It was all hype.
I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I don't think you know either.
In its inaugural sales year this brand new, intensely hyped, domestic branded, locally manufactured product barely edged out sales of a foreign branded, fully imported, three-year-old vehicle with an import tariff price penalty.
It's well known that a LOT of people in Europe are holding out on their purchase of a Tesla vehicle until the Berlin-manufactured Model Y becomes available. Let's see how the market share numbers look then.
A large reason is likely to double dip on the EV subsidies. Scoop 200,000 x $7,500 subsidies under the name 'Ford', then another fraction of 200,000 x $7,500 as partial owner and supplier under the name 'Rivian'
It's pretty common for automakers to collaborate. I suspect that Ford would have some option to purchase or license Rivian tech if they become successful.
I'm not sure if there is a ton of overlap. The R1T is much more expensive and has a much shorter cargo box. The F150 Lightning is much more like a traditional truck and is targeted more directly at commercial customers.
If the R1T and R1S are successful, its easy to see why Ford might want a part of both. It wouldn't shock me if they buy them completely at some point.
