The market is now bristling with auto startups taking advantage of a rapidly changing auto industry. The industry is changing with the development of electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology. Leading automotive startups include Tesla, Rivian, Lordstown, Altis, Canoo, and Lucid Motors. But all these startups will not succeed, some will certainly go bankrupt, will have difficulty in financing themselves or will simply be bought by the biggest players in the city.
Most recently, Lordstown went into receivership as Tesla is now firmly established. Who else will get away with it or fall apart? Of those listed, Rivian and Lucid Motors are perhaps the most likely to come out and become the next big thing. Rivian appears to have secured all the funding he needs and seems to be inundating with cash and cutting edge innovations. These are the reasons why Rivian may soon be the next big deal.
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Amazon investment
Amazon has invested heavily in Rivian by providing $ 800 million of investment and by ordering an incredible 100,000 electric vans from Rivian. This will guarantee Rivian a sustained initial level of production for years to come.
Amazon is one of the most valued companies in the world and has a very large fleet of delivery vans. Amazon is betting firmly on Rivian to replace this fleet – as well as on the expected growth of its fleet over the next few years.
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Ford Investment
Ford has also invested $ 500 million in Rivian and reportedly intends to use Rivian’s “skateboard” to build its own cars. Since then, there have been conflicting reports as to whether Ford is still considering using Rivian’s platform or not.
But that means two big companies, Ford and Amazon, are now invested in Rivian’s success. Sometimes it may seem strange for a competitor to invest and help, but the world of big business is strange.
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Quality of their range
Currently, Rivian has only two vehicles expected to hit the market. These are the Rivian R1T pickup truck and the R1S SUV. The specifications of these vehicles are phenomenal. The pickup has a range of 300 miles, but it should be increased to 400 miles.
It is not just the range of these vehicles that is impressive. It is also their off-road performance, their cutting-edge software, their innovations like a gear tunnel and their generous guarantees.
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Impressive performance
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The performance of Rivian’s all-terrain vehicles appears to be rivaled only in the short term by Tesla and the Hummer EV (Lucid makes luxury sedans and is therefore in a different market).
His pickup truck can hit 60 MPH in 3.0 seconds, wade through 3 feet of water, tow up to 11,000 lbs and load quickly. With the Rivian pickup, you can forget all the reservations you may have about off-road driving an EV.
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Rise in power
Rivian may not have sold a vehicle yet, having only built prototypes. But that will change soon. Rivian is preparing to put his Amazon delivery truck, pickup truck and SUV into full production.
They would hire 150 employees for this every week now, and very soon we will see these vans and SUVs start rolling off the production lines. Like Lucid Motors, many of its employees are former Tesla employees.
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Estimated value
Rivian plans to go public later this year, according to a Reuters article, and potentially envisions an incredible $ 70 billion in its listing. This despite the fact that the company is currently valued at $ 27.6 billion.
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$ 70 billion would place it as the 8th most valuable automaker in the world, roughly the same as BMW. It would be ahead of Ford, Hyundai, Stellantis (the mega-group of Fiat, Chrysler and Peugeot) and Volvo.
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No problem raising capital
Rivian had no problem raising capital. He is now inundated with money and can now spend freely. In addition to Amazon’s $ 800 million and Ford’s $ 500 million, he reportedly raised $ 2.65 billion in January of this year.
Before this last injection of liquidity, it would have already raised around $ 6 billion in investments. It was even reported by Bloomberg that he was on the verge of raising $ 25 billion.
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They have their own factories
Rivian does not subcontract the production of its vehicles to other automakers. Instead, they buy their own factories and facilities. They plan to design and manufacture their cars themselves. Others subcontract production to other companies.
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For example, she bought a former Mitsubishi and Chrysler plant in Illinois that made the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Rivian poured over a billion dollars into this factory, and now it is completely updated and expanded.
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Their own charging network
Rivian now plans to do what even Lucid Motors doesn’t: create its own proprietary charging network similar to Tesla’s supercharge network. They announced this plan in March 2021 and plan to implement it in 2023.
In addition, they plan to install some 10,000 destination chargers (called Rivian Waypoints) in places such as parks, housing and restaurants. These Waypoint chargers will be available for all electric vehicles, unlike the exclusive Tesla network.
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Forward thinking
Rivian isn’t just thinking about how to break into the market and start mass production of his vehicle line. They also think about the end of life of their vehicles.
An example of this is how they plan to reuse their old spent batteries as a form of stationary storage in Puerto Rico at the end of their car useful life. The cost of electricity in Puerto Rico is double the national average.
In short, Rivian now has all the investor confidence and capital it needs. It’s up to them to lose at this point.
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