Update: 1 day later Rivian capitulates! Now offers to honor original pricing on all orders placed before March 1 '22.

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I absolutely love my Defender but I've had a Rivian R1S on order for a while. Aside from the hideous front-end, it originally looked like it was poised to steal a nice chunk of Land Rover buyers.

316 mile range (400 mile option available), the fastest off-the-line SUV on the planet at 2.5 seconds, an incredibly pretty interior and some really nice features. Off-road? With a quad-motor configuration, it has been getting rave reviews. They're even building a charging network in parks and trails. Self-driving, free charging for a few years. Only $78k for my configuration. $7500 rebate. What's not to love?

I'm going to get to that in a minute but here are some pics. It really would have been a direct competitor to a couple LR models.







What changed? Aside from being pushed back again over 2 years, today I got an email.



No more 5 seat configuration. You'll have to haul around the weight and bulk of a 3rd row and lose cargo space.

Cheaper dual motor option added in an attempt to address the next shoe to drop.

Price increased. Let's log in and check...



A 23% price increase! $96k for this? Would you??

 

"Rivian is among many EV startups that went public last year despite not having delivered a single order to customers."
This smells of SOLINDRA already.
But, nice seats ! I will give them that...

 

Fake news.

 

The capability is amazing but from a looks perspective, I'd take the Defender 100%. It looks like what the Jeep Grand Wagoneer should have been ... not my thing.

 

While I fully agree, I do somehow give them some credit for not making it a rounded-off blah-box like almost every other SUV on the planet.

 

My Defender is for month long road trips which includes hours down random dirt roads. So electric wouldn't work for me... but for a city car I def would consider Rivian. But if my car was just for the city I wouldnt have gone Defender in the first place.

 

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. One man's wife is another man's gremlin.

 

Yeah seriously. One was parked on my street on Saturday. (To be fair, it was the first one I've actually seen)

 

Another man's Matador?

Saw the Rivian in McEwan's "Long Way Up".series on Apple TV. Didn't do quite so well in very cold conditions, but then again it was a prototype at that time.

A petrol burner will keep you warmer, longer. Just ask the folks who got trapped on I-95 in New Jersey.

 

Just checked and Rivian is getting absolutely poleaxed by some of its greatest fan-boy multi-year reservation holders in their forums. The consensus seems to be 95%+ that the configuration and price changes are going to make them cancel.

As an aside, RIVN stock is plumbing new all-time lows on the news. Talk is that investors want the SEC involved because Rivian was told by a major initial investor (in a lawsuit before the IPO) that the original pricing scheme was unworkable. The allegation now is that they kept the low prices to keep their order book full for the IPO.

My personal opinion is that their middling quality and mediocre fit and finish was Tesla-like acceptable at $78k. At $96k, this becomes a self-appointed luxury vehicle manufacturer and they cannot compete with Porsche, Audi, LR, BMW, Merc, etc.