Can anyone explain why RIVN is down 8% after this announcement? Were investors expecting hands free handjobs or something?

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spankalee 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I hold some RIVN and I'm wondering why they're spending resources on custom silicon instead of using something off-the-shelf. What is their advantage here? Can they hire the right people? Can they ship enough units to pay for it?

Those are my bearish questions. On the bullish side, the VW deal shows that they're willing and able to license part of their platform, so possibly have a big chance to recoup costs and maybe turn a profit just on that side, which justifies a big software + autonomy investment.

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ssl-3 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

If their idea is both novel and useful, and if it actually works, and they can actually produce it, then: They can sell it to other automakers.

(GM has made a lot of cars with their own transmissions. And at various times, they've supplied -lots- of them to other automakers all over the world. They've made a lot of money doing this.

Someone's gotta build the machine vision/control systems for all of these self-driving cars; that someone may well be Rivian.

It's not as sexy as something like a new convertible might be, or a $40k self-driving electric car, and a consumer might not even know that the new car in their driveway has expensive Rivian parts buried inside, but that future can be very profitable for them.)

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1970-01-01 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>On the bullish side, the VW deal

Oh, I think everyone missed this. Rivian is betting Elon made a big mistake by designing FSD to be strictly for Tesla. Rivian are doing FSD to license it out to other manufacturers. They're planning to open a new market.

	▲	RivieraKid 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		But how could they beat Waymo or Tesla? At some point, these companies will offer an L4 package to car makers.
	▲	deaux 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Who cares about Tesla, the comparison here is Waymo who has already been doing this for much longer.
	▲	idontwantthis 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I was just thinking about this recently. It doesn’t seem to make sense for each brand to have its own self driving implementation.

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behnamoh 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Fair point. I think they wanted to sound super futuristic (they often borrow a page from Apple's book) but they forgot they're not Apple.

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doctoboggan 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe they think custom silicon is biting off more than they can chew, coming at a time when they need to focus on R2 production and scale-up.

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hnburnsy 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They just told potential buyers to not buy an outdated Gen2 or an early R2, assuming it is not delayed.

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vhodges 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It could be that Gen 3 shipping late 2026 is a concession that R2 might be delayed until then.

Personally I think they will ship R2 Gen 2 vehicles to the early adopters that are less concerned with ADAS.

My R2 reservation is very late (I had to redo it for reasons) so I probably won't be able to order one until it's available anyways.

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2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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nrjames 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

“Buy the rumors and sell the news.” Just typical market stuff.

	▲	idontwantthis a day ago \| parent [-]
		Now it almost reached $20 lol.

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colechristensen 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Excessive hype leading up to selling the news, happens all the time.