[St00k]

RJ says 4,401 vehicles in Q2 compared to Ford at 2,296. Although the Lighting wasn't on sale for all of it, so not exactly fair.

Still, great to see the supply chains are smoothing out and deliveries are ramping. (Should be good for the stock price)

Almost 8,000 Rivians on the road now.

 

[rodhx]

Yeah...that's not even vaguely comparable. Anything for a soundbite I guess

 

[O. horridus]

The Lighning started production in mid April. Even though they weren't shipping vehicles at the time, they WERE running the plant. So while it wasn't a full quarter of production for Ford, it was considerably more than half a quarter. So somewhat comparable, and certainly relevant when you read all the arguments about how Ford is going to crush Rivian because they dominate the pickup the market and have 100 years of manufacturing experience. The reality is that starting up a new line takes time, even when the vehicle is just a variation of a vehicle you've been made hundreds of thousands of.

The takeaway to me is not that Rivian is doing better than Ford, but that Ford is not doing better than Rivian despite having all the advantages. Or another way of looking at it is that a lot of the criticism of Rivian's manufacturing is unwarranted.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

The Lighning started production in mid April. Even though they weren't shipping vehicles at the time, they WERE running the plant. So while it wasn't a full quarter of production for Ford, it was considerably more than half a quarter. So somewhat comparable, and certainly relevant when you read all the arguments about how Ford is going to crush Rivian because they dominate the pickup the market and have 100 years of manufacturing experience. The reality is that starting up a new line takes time, even when the vehicle is just a variation of a vehicle you've been made hundreds of thousands of.

The takeaway to me is not that Rivian is doing better than Ford, but that Ford is not doing better than Rivian despite having all the advantages. Or another way of looking at it is that a lot of the criticism of Rivian's manufacturing is unwarranted.

Ford started full production April 26. Hardly mid April, and really amounts to 2/3 of a quarter. In 9 weeks of full production they have made and delivered 2300 F150L, that’s 255 cars a week. That’s while throttling it’s output to extend its tax credits to be eligible through the end of 2023.

The best comparison is Rivian Q1 (technically it’s 2nd quarter of production) which produced 2500 but only delivered about half of them. That’s where Fords experience shows IMO and where we have been feeling pain points is the delivery.

Rivian made 339 per week this quarter and outpaced it, but had officially had a 8 month head start. Based on the numbers I’m seeing, I still think Ford will out produce and out deliver Rivian by the end of the year.

It’s easy to discount the F150L as another variation, I certainly did. See it side by side with a gas F150 and you’ll start appreciating the differences more than slapping a battery on the truck. It starts becoming obvious that the F150L shares commonalities to cater to the customers, and Ford went through purposeful design to allow them to feel comfortable with a product they’re used to. As such, I don’t think it’s fair to the designers and engineers who spent the hours to create an amazing machine especially at the starting price point to discount it as just a variation.

That said, I think the production process success goes beyond building and delivering. Which vehicle is going to be more finished? More reliable? Less service calls? And as a company is going to be able to be more customer responsive and friendly? So far, Rivian reliability has not proven to be there. Ford has had a couple of issues of their own as well. Time will tell..

 

[TessP100D]

You mean like this?

 

[Yellow Buddy]

You mean like this?

From the back it’s like a skinny guy with long blonde hair, the front side by side is more obvious.

The face is pulled back vs being more upright in the ice. The windshield rake/angle is different. The headlights at a glance look the same shape but it’s a different panel and cutout. The wheel arches likewise are flatter. The hood is more bulged, etc.

Maybe I’m just a nerd about it, but I found it pretty neat compared to previous EVs they pumped out. The focus, fusion plug ins with the same car that was retrofitted essentially.

 

[O. horridus]

@Yellow Buddy: I think you've missed my main point, which is that the tweet from RJ was reasonable in that it was pointing out how well Rivian was doing - it was not (and I was not) saying Ford was doing a bad job.

The takeaway to me is not that Rivian is doing better than Ford, but that Ford is not doing better than Rivian despite having all the advantages.

Both Rivian and Ford climbed the same mountain at about the same time, but Ford took the non-technical route while Rivian made the technical climb. Or if you like let's abuse the metaphor a little more and say they both took the same route but Ford took a snowcat up to the basecamp while Rivian make the hike on foot. That doesn't mean that Ford didn't do a lot of hard work - it's hard to climb a mountain - but Ford did not start with a new platform or new factory or even new tooling for a lot of the truck. Just look at that rear bumper assembly in the above picture, for example. That's only a fraction of what is used from the ICE model, and that's a huge advantage Ford had when launching this new model. And that's why Ford did it - it was a good decision - but the fact that Rivian is about at the same point as Ford right now is amazing because Rivian doesn't have these advantages. Again, this is praise for Rivian, not dumping on Ford.

Regardless, one can only take the comparison with Ford so far. These two vehicles are not direct competitors in my opinion. They are marketed to and bought by different demographics, with only a little overlap. And of course Ford has the potential to ramp up to full production faster, but at some point Ford is going to have to re-engineer the Lightning from scratch to be a better EV, while Rivian's already done that. Ford's problems with the Lightning are totally different than Rivians problems. Ford has had relatively poor sales of it's hybrid F150, and it's unclear how the Lightning will fare amongst traditional F150 buyers, but what's clear to me is that the Lightning's main competitor is the ICE F-150. People will buy an EV F150 instead of an ICE F150. Ford is going to have to fight hard to preserve its share of the total car market as the switch to EVs is made over the next 10-15 years. I don't see how Ford has any upside - they are NOT going to increase their market share - the best they can do is preserve the share they have. Rivian on the other hand just needs to take a few percent of the market away from half a dozen different manufacturers and they will be wildly successful.



Some factual errors in your response that I feel I must address:

Ford started full production April 26. Hardly mid April, and really amounts to 2/3 of a quarter.

That's the official date, but builds started before that. Here's one that was built on 18 April, which IS "mid-April", and I was specifically thinking of this when I made that statement:

Ford starts customer deliveries of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck

The electric pickup trucks are coming. Ford has officially started delivering the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck to retail and...

electrek.co

Regardless, that start date doesn't matter because my conclusion was just that "while it wasn't a full quarter of production for Ford, it was considerably more than half a quarter."."

You claim it "really amounts to 2/3 of a quarter.", while I said only "considerably more than half a quarter". Those numbers agree, and the actual date of first production really is irrelevant to the argument.

But then you go on to make the same mistake you said I was making: You quoted Rivian Q1 numbers without accounting for the fact that they were shut down for a significant fraction of the quarter.

The best comparison is Rivian Q1 (technically it’s 2nd quarter of production) which produced 2500 but only delivered about half of them.

Most of those 2500 were produced in March, and it takes several weeks to finish delivery, so only half were delivered because about half were produced in the last three weeks of March. The difference between production/delivery is an artifact that only happened because Rivian started volume production at the end of the quarter and because it takes more than 0 days to finalize the purchase with the customer (takes at least a week on the customer's end for financing, insurance, etc., and can take a week to truck the vehicle across the country, for example). The disparity between production and delivery is something that will be minimal in future quarters, and in fact in Q2 Rivian delivered MORE vehicles than it produced! So if you're going to use that disparity as evidence that Rivian has problems, then shipping more than they produced means they're frickin' manufacturing geniuses.

Incidentally, The first F150 Lightning was delivered on 26 May, which was a full MONTH after the 26 April official first build date (see that same link I posted above). So it's not just Rivian that has a significant lag between production and delivery of a vehicle - this is normal.