Rivian CEO issues strong statement about people who purchase gas-powered cars: ‘Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’

Forgive me, sire; I hadn't $80,000 to spend on a luxury truck.

You fuck.

Selling $80k electric cars and making comments like this is sort of like saying 'let them eat cake' in 1780

It’s important to read the full quote from Rivian’s CEO before complaining about $75k electric trucks:

“I think the reality of buying a combustion-powered vehicle … is sort of like building a horse barn in 1910,” he said. “Imagine buying a Chevy Suburban in 2030 … what are you going to do with that … in 10 years?”

He’s comparing buying a Rivian truck with buying a Suburban, which has a base price of $57k for the lowest tier configuration (LS) and a $76k price on the High Country configuration.

Um…does the CEO know that horses are still a thing and that horse barns (aka stables) are still in use? Also, the invention of the automobile didn’t instantly displace the horse. It was well into the 1920s before they became a regular sight.

Also…there’s lots of reasons to buy gas-powered cars these days. For one, not everyone lives in a home where they can install the necessary charger, so you’d always be on the “hunt” for charging stations, and fuel cars are generally cheaper at this time. Once we see the market flooded with EV cars, the prices will come down and fuel cars will no longer be the norm, but we’re likely a decade or more away from that.

I get what the CEO is trying to say, but it’s still incredibly tone-deaf.

What he actually meant to say was:

“I’ve got my head so far up my ass that I think everybody should be spending $100k+ on a truck regardless of their need or financial circumstances. I’m also incapable of doing my job, which is why my company can’t produce enough units, even though it’s largely a solved supply chain problem. This is how I cope with my shitty existence on this planet.”

I just looked up the price for a Rivian truck and holy shit is this guy for real? Lmao. Just another out of touch CEO virtue signaling. If he really felt this way he would make them affordable lol

CEO of an electric car company recommends that people drive electric cars.

Doesn't really seem like much of a headline.

The statement might be more significant if it was a CEO of a car company that made diesel/petrol cars who said it.

How to tell the entire world that you're rich and entitled.

Have you seen the price of electric cars it's ridiculous. No way I can afford one.

Also never mind the fact I have no way of charging it because I only have access to on-street parking. If they really wanted to help they should bring down the cost of their massively overpriced vehicles and also invest in distributing charging points around the country.

Isn't the ultimate plan supposed to be that they'll be at least one charging point and every highway at least every 8 mi?

Well maybe if this guy sold an electric car that people could afford, they would buy it

Please pay for my apartment complex to install charger plugs in our garages then.

I'm totally onboard with EV's, I just can't have one right now.

Yeah, so, how much is one of those Rivian trucks, exactly?

$73,000?

Yeah, fuck off. That's more than the median annual gross income for American workers. It's all good and well to tout a slightly more sustainable form of transportation--still not nearly as sustainable as busses or trains!--but when you're pricing it well outside what most people can rationally afford, you're not helping the situation.

A giant electric "luxury" truck is still a giant "luxury" truck. Buying one over the other is like buying a cruelty free synthetic beaver cap over a cap made from an actual beaver. Yes it probably is better, but you are still wearing an ass on your head.

It's 2023, most people live in urbanized areas where a truck is similarly ridiculous, especially the modern "luxury" models. Those that actually use their vehicles for hauling things at a farm want real work trucks and tractors (regardless of engine type) with lower and longer beds.

I buy what my meager wage allows me to afford...

Make an EV that competes on price with a Corolla and I'll be there.

If they had decent range ones for just a bit cheaper...

It's minimum like $30k right now and that's just too much for most

Plus a lot of people still don't have anywhere to charge them.

Otherwise I'd have liked to have gotten one

Manufacturing needlessly large vehicles that you can't even see 30 feets in front of you while you run over children and still use plenty of fossil coming from the coal power plant 50 miles away, is also like building a horse barn in 1910. Obnoxiously large vehicles for anyone other than those that actually use them for their intended purpose is just as antiquated. In 20-30 years when half the world is suffering or dying due to the most extreme impacts of climate change we are going to look at large vehicles like we were insane. Edit: in before, "but I need my enormous vehicle because once every 13 years I haul 3 2x4's and am too dumb to use a roof rack or rent a truck for the day!"

In 1910 the Model T had already been in production for 2 years. Remember that the Model T was designed to be cheap, so that every American could afford one.

If anything, this is more like buying a horse (not building a barn) in the "Horseless Carriage" era of the late 1800s. It was an era when cars basically looked like horse-drawn carriages but without the horses. Everything was custom-manufactured, and it was expensive. You could maybe see that these "horseless carriages" were the future, but they were still pretty impractical for the present. The world still had infrastructure only for horses, and not horseless carriages.

And yeah, if you were rich enough you might want to do your part to get rid of the major pollution problem of the day -- streets absolutely filled with horse shit. But, that didn't mean it was necessarily a practical idea to be one of the first to jump on the bandwagon.

Who cares what a CEO has to say?

CEO of a product ridiculing a competitor's product? I'm shocked, shocked!

Buying any car, electric or otherwise, is 'Sort of like building a horse barn in 1910’.

Real sustainability comes from changing the zoning code to cease outlawing walkability.

Sure, let me just fork over 80k for a truck from a company that's been building cars for only a couple of years.

My next vehicle will likely be electric, but right now my wife and I have decent cars that still run, and are paid for, and I'm reluctant to waste money replacing something that still works.

Maybe if the alternative to building a horse barn in 1910 was building a garage that was so expensive only like 5% of the population could afford it.

In 1910, in the United States, there were about 5 automobiles per 1,000 people. His analogy is stupid.

Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 33, ORNL-6990, Oak Ridge, TN, July 2014, Tables 3.5 and 3.6.

Got a battery powered van with a wheelchair ramp? No?

OK then.

Rivian CEO should keep his mouth shut until a few grand gets you a used compact electric hatchback (VW Polo or similar) with a decent battery.

Mans just mad people arent buying his cars.

Stupid out of touch billionaires.

The infrastructure just isn't there yet. If you live in apartments, where will you charge it? Can the overall electrical grid handle the load if let's say 50% of people that own an electrical car? How do these cars do in extreme weather conditions? How much does it cost to repair them? How long will they last for? EVs are super expensive.

We can't even decide on a standard charging port.

While I will eventually get an EV, there are problems that need to be addressed still.

Tesla has ton of quality issues and riven is brand new. Why would I trust them?

Hey rivian ceo, build more fast charging stations along interstates and not just in big cities. Or build EVs that can go at least 500 miles on a charge.

Bruh I can't even afford a EV.

If solid state batteries do work out line Toyota says, these old EVs aren't going to be too attractive

I like the idea of electric cars, may purchase one, but they don't make sense for everyone at this point. The infrastructure isn't there, they're very expensive, the range isn't practical for some, and many of the choices are unreliable. I applaud those who can make them work, but they're not for everyone yet.

Actual (chopped up) quote from RJ:

“I think the reality of buying a combustion-powered vehicle … is sort of like building a horse barn in 1910,” he said. “Imagine buying a Chevy Suburban in 2030 … what are you going to do with that … in 10 years?”

This article is clickbait garbage.

Electric vehicles are the future of cars, but it will mean an entire extra class of people who will be cut off from car ownership.

And they're not going to like it.

My last car purchase was £8650 for a 1L petrol from 2016. And I bought it this year.

If he could direct me to the nearest electric car of the same price and range I'd be happy to buy one, until then it's a stupid comment and ICE are going to be here for a LONG time, purely because not everyone can afford expensive vehicles.

ALL of the off-roaders who have gone electric that I know have a gas-powered generator they throw in the back for when we're 200km up a logging road.

How much does it cost to repair a fender bender on a Suburban? Cus on an R1S, well...

It's called a stable. And if you keep horses then yes you need to build one.

I don't drive a lot any more now that I work from home...but if I purchased an electric vehicle, the batteries (arguably one of the most expensive components of the vehicle) are slowly degrading whether I drive it or not, and I would either have to throw away the whole car or replace the extremely expensive batteries as early as 10 years (assuming the company who built it still exists). If I buy a gas-powered car instead, there is not a significant expensive component on it that starts totally degrading over time whether I used it or not...except the 12v battery under the hood that I have to replace every 5 to 7 years.

That Rivian CEO is suffering from affluenza and seems to think people are made of money.

Haven't read the article yet, but the quote irks me. I live in a home built in 1920 by a rural "house doctor" with a barn and stalls and all that jazz. Electric may be the future, but gas cars will still be around a while. The same way horses didn't immediately disappear from rural areas when cars became affordable.

I don't want ev, I prefer more hybrid maybe even hydrogen.

Psh -- Try 1895. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler_Motorized_Carriage#:~:text=The Daimler Motorized Carriage was,car was sold in 1892.

The value add for an individual is minimal to nonexistent in electric vs gas. Not so with a horse vs a car. This guy is delusional if this isn't just hype (it is) and thinks the comparisons are comparable.

I agree. In Europe some not mega big electric cars are already on par with their gasoline equivalent

This guy's a fucking airhead. They're trying to rush out the cheaper smaller SUV model because they massively overestimated demand for their overpriced truck/SUV. It's 80k base and by the time you get the AWD and increased range package I imagine everyone who is their target market wants it well over $110k.

This will probably be the last big EV startup we see. After this the real caranufacters are going to take over. Which I'm a bit sad about as they don't seem to ever take any risks. I'd been saying for years there was surely demand for a small truck like the maverick, now everyone's making one. Just wish Elon wasn't so dumb and had made the cyber truck that with a electric drivetrain.

You ok?

I'll consider buying an electric vehicle when they are no longer irreparable, unmaintainable, privacy blackholed, iPhones on wheels.

My last car purchase was £8650 for a 1L petrol from 2016. And I bought it this year.

If he could direct me to the nearest electric car of the same price and range I'd be happy to buy one, until then it's a stupid comment and ICE are going to be here for a LONG time, purely because not everyone can afford expensive vehicles.

Maybe some people want to tow.

I'm in the market for a new car and it sure as shit isn't gonna a be electric. Maybe that's because I don't have $80k to drop on a new car. Maybe it's because I have zero interest in dealing with range issues. Maybe it's because every EV is a goddamn touchscreen on wheels.

It would be like burning coal to make the electricit....oh

Much like his company, it's a copy off of Elon Musk

"If you buy a car that does not have the hardware for full self-driving, it is like buying a horse,”

Edit: This is supposed to be an insult to the Rivian CEO, making the same dumb jokes. Not a state of support to Elon, the whole context around that quote is wrong.

I'm not currently in the market for a truck and I don't know much about Rivian. Now I know for sure, based on this alone, I will never buy a Rivian vehicle. I used to consider buying a Tesla as well, but won't for similar reasons.

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Let's see how those battery packs are doing in 10 years you fucking wank stain on humanity.

Fuck rich people.

I think hydrogen fuel cell cars are the future. Batteries are by accident, planned obsolence. You have to buy a new car every 5 years due to batteries losing their charge over time.

Problems with electric cars :

Cost morenup front Claimed range is NEVER real not even close Batteries are super expensive to replace or repair and wear out sooner than ic engines Bad on the environment to manufacture Lack of charging stations makes fake range numbers super bad Slow to charge Useless on road trips Range even worse in the winter Its better for the environment to keep an older car on the road than to make a new ev

Probably best to avoid these new tech-car companies if all their CEOs are going to do is just shoot off bad takes. Says a lot about the company culture IMO ☹️

Just leave people to buy whatever they want to, and importantly, whatever they can afford.

As much as I like electric cars, it's not affordable or sustainable to splash 10k every 10 years on a new battery. If I buy a combustion engine vehicle, I don't need to replace the engine/[insert heavy and expensive component here] every decade or less, assuming good maintenance.

Teslas are very good at looking after their batteries, but those are expensive. Nissan Leafs (older models/2010s) are cheaper, but they have no active battery cooling system to thermally protect the batteries, so you'll probably be replacing those more frequently.

Fuck you! Not everyone can afford that shit asshole. Guess I can add another electric vehicle to the do not buy list if I can ever afford one.