I ordered a R1T in November 2020 as soon as you could use the online configurator. At the time I was told end of 2021 to expect delivery. The next update was you're delivery window is set for July-Sept. 2022. In June I called in and was told this was no longer true and that I would have to wait for an update. In that same month my truck of 16 years finally broke down. So I started borrowing vehicles from friends hoping an update would come soon. I then got the bright idea of delivering it to a mainland address and shipping it myself to Hawaii. The temporary guide at the time warned me that I'd be on my own with any repairs but that Rivian "probably" isn't planning Hawaii yet because of how few orders there are in the system and that they are counting on people like me to increase demand by forging on our own. How do they expect to sell cars out here without any infrastructure? If there are only a few preorders out here, then start with a temporary facility until the demand exceeds their abilities. But don't mislead us by providing empty promises of delivery only to take it all back and tell us that Hawaii isn't important enough. I proceeded to change my delivery address to my friend's in Oregon, and was soon allowed into the R1T Shop where I was offered variations of my original configuration available for faster delivery. A couple of weeks later I saw one that I was willing to buy and selected it. I completed the 8 step purchase process on my phone in less than an hour and paid for the vehicle in full the next week but wanted to discuss it further with someone. My actual guide contacted me for the first time and was unaware of my plans to take delivery in Oregon and ship it myself to Hawaii. She quickly expressed extreme doubt in my plans and said that I should reconsider and get a refund. She notified me of the difficulty of registering as a non resident in Oregon as well as how if any warranty issues were to come up while the vehicle was in Hawaii and I did not have them addressed in a timely manner, my warranty would be voided. The only way that I could prevent this sort of occurence would be to ship the vehicle back to the mainland and have the warranty repair completed in time and then ship it back to Hawaii. I appreciated her honesty but personally was quite devastated because I had come so close to actually getting the vehicle in my mind and now everything is deleted back into the unknown. No one will tell me anything about deliveries in Hawaii. No one knows of plans to build a service center in Hawaii. I have heard of others forging on their own out here. I'd love to hear of their experiences. I ended up buying a new car out of necessity to hold me over until my Rivian can be delivered here or if there are other ways to go about it, I'm all ears.
Hawaii Best/Worst Place To Get A Rivian
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I’m in Alaska and own a place on Oahu. This whole story seems odd. I’ve had a Tesla in AK for almost 9 years with my closest service center ~2400 miles away that would also require a barge trip. There are at least 2 rivians up here and I’m sure HI will have a Rivian service center before AK. There are so many EVs in Hawaii, and they are prefect fit on island. Mild weather, not much roads, great charging infrastructure.
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We all have had to wait, but up to this point it is unlikely that your location played a huge role in that wait. Specifically, I also have a Nov 2020 reservation and I am also still waiting for my truck (R1T LE), but I live only a few miles from one of Rivian's largest service centers near Seattle. You don't say whether you have an LE preorder (which is supposed to ship first), or whether you have a configuration that has been delayed (like Ocean Coast interior), but so far at least you are not being delayed any more than any other preorder everywhere else. (Except for Canada, which still does not have any deliveries at all and still does not have any definite dates for deliveries. But that's a different story...)
But let's not rewrite history here: In November 2020 you were not told to expect delivery at the end of 2021. You were not. We were all told that deliveries were planned to start in June 2021. With two years of orders ahead of you (about 48,000 preorders at that time I believe) you should have expected YOUR vehicle to be delivered at least a year after that start date. Back then I estimated that I would get my LE in the summer of 2022, best case, if they started deliveries as planned and if they met their production numbers. As we all know, there were delays for understandable reasons, and all deliveries were pushed back. Although technically the first R1T deliveries were in Sept 2021, those all went to employees. Customers didn't start receiving R1Ts in bulk until March 2022. Again, depending on whether you're an LE preorder or not, you have maybe ~10k(? we don't know how many LE) to 48k people in line ahead of you, and they only plan to make 25,000 in the first year,
The first delivery window you were ever given was emailed to you in Nov 2021 (if you have an LE reservation) or Dec 2021 (all other reservations). That delivery window was updated by email on 11 Jun 2022 for customers who were originally given a 2022 window. You should have received that updated email with your new window. Now if you don't have a new window yet, that probably is because of your location and because Rivian doesn't know yet know how they are going to handle Hawaii.
No matter what Rivian does here there will be complaints.
If Rivian ships to locations where there is no service center and no easy way to get service, then those people will complain. If Rivian doesn't ship to locations like that, then those people will complain. The only solution is to have a nationwide network of service centers rolled out in full before they deliver their first vehicle, but that would have been a bad business decision and wasted hundreds of millions of dollars. I think Rivian learned their lesson earlier this year and has since started to restrict deliveries so that they only ship to places where they can service and support the vehicles. While some people in some remote locations received vehicles earlier this year, I don't think Rivian is doing that anymore right now. They are still bootstrapping their service center network and will be adding new ones over time. Building a global EV company is going to take time.
In the case of Hawaii, I don't know what you expect them to do. Open a service center employing ~15 or more people on each of the main islands? Open just one service center on Oahu for the entire state? The population of Hawaii is less than 0.5% of the US total. With only 12,000 vehicles shipped so far, a crude calculation indicates that would mean about 50 Rivians on all the islands. (In contrast, my local service center constantly has that many R1T on the lot at any one time, being prepared for local delivery.) It doesn't make sense, yet, for Rivian to invest in a service center in Hawaii, IMO. Yes that sucks for you, but it's not an unfamiliar problem for Hawaii, is it? There are lots of places on the mainland that are in a similar predicament - far from a service center in a low-population area that isn't going to get a service center for a while.
There are probably ways for you to get your Rivian now if you work with your guide. Picking it up at the factory in Normal would be better IMO than having it shipped to Oregon and having Rivian and you deal with all the tax and registration implications. (People like to try to use Oregon as a tax dodge because of the 0% sales tax, and state agencies in all states are on the lookout for tax evasion involving vehicles.) But recognize you would be entirely on your own for maintenance if you took your vehicle to Hawaii - you can't really expect them to provide service in a place where they won't ship to. I recall someone early this year moved to Japan with his R1T - that's a similar situation in my mind. But recognize that Rivian also has some interest in where you receive your vehicle, because it won't look good for Rivian if your R1T breaks down and you have to leave it up on blocks in your front yard when you can't get service.
Well said. Anyone that lives in Hawaii (or Alaska) for any length of time knows that we never will have equal access to things. We don’t get free shipping, quick shipping on Prime, don’t have access to specialists, many deals/specials,…
I have had two friends confirm seeing a launch green and a white R1Ts on Oahu where I am located.
I went on this formum hoping to join a community of like-minded Rivian enthusiasts and share my frustration with the way my purchase process has been going and to prevent others from going through a similar experience. I didn’t anticipate encountering The Rivian Police. Your attempts to compare Hawaii deliveries to moving to Japan don’t help me. I know I am to blame for any failed attempts at circumventing the standard wait that will come with Hawaii customers being low on Rivian’s priority. It’s Rivian inability to foresee these problems so long into the process that I’m disappointed with. They should have been forthcoming with Hawaii and Alaska customers about the need for a service center prior to any delivery. That’s not a detail I was necessarily focused on. I was expecting to get my truck by September, 2 months ago with the information that they provided me. I’m happy you have the foresight to predict the shortcomings of an EV startup. I’ve just been struggling with the fact that I suddenly didn’t have a vehicle and needed to pull the trigger and could no longer wait for Rivian’s unknown timeline. So how would it be beneficial to take delivery at the factory and drive an unregistered vehicle cross country?
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I think Rivian will have an easier time doing an IL delivery, as this is what they do for people like me that live in a state (PA) where they’re not allowed to sell direct yet. In that case, you’d get an 90 day IL temp tag & Rivian Will by default send the title & registration tasks into the oblivion that is RegUSA. In your case, though, I’d ask/tell Rivian that you’ll do the title & registration work yourself. Given your unique situation, they might be more obliged to agree to that up front.
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