2 or 3 motor vs 4 motor off road capabilities

[Diehard]

I am not an off-roader but I have taken a Jeep and a 4Runner on some nasty unpaved roads in South America. As an untrained and uninformed driver, both of those vehicles felt to me like they were asking for those type of conditions. They were at home off pavement. I just drove my Lightning to a farm house on a long unpaved road. The truck had no problem doing it but you could tell it is not designed for anything more serious. The wheelbase, weight and size is just not the same feel as the other two. I think my two motors with 775 lb-ft of torque is more than enough for any situation I dare to get into but ground clearance with that wheelbase makes me think twice about taking too many chances in iffy situations. Even today, I could have used a camera under the truck. I am sure CT’s air suspension and ground clearance makes it much better suited for off road than Lightning but if I was doing weekly off roading, and had to have an EV, I would consider R1S.

Sponsored

 

[Tinker71]

I didn't use "old doomsday figures", I was using the financials reported for the most recent quarter. They included the costs of selling the vehicles like selling and administrative costs. Also the buildout of their charging network (which is a relatively minor expense so far).

You say "doomsday figures" will not help them. What do you think will help them produce vehicles efficiently enough to compete with Tesla? At similar stages of production, Tesla was losing 10% as much as Rivian when accounting for all corporate costs. That's just looking at the facts objectively.

If that was latest financials I apologize. With a one time charge for layoffs what is q2 projecting? Volume is 90% of the equation at this stage. I know they are simplifying or eliminating options. Not sure what they could actually do different in the next 6 months. They better hurry because when the new BEV Blazer comes out they will be screwed.

 

[Tinker71]

I am not an off-roader but I have taken a Jeep and a 4Runner on some nasty unpaved roads in South America. As an untrained and uninformed driver, both of those vehicles felt to me like they were asking for those type of conditions. They were at home off pavement. I just drove my Lightning to a farm house on a long unpaved road. The truck had no problem doing it but you could tell it is not designed for anything more serious. The wheelbase, weight and size is just not the same feel as the other two. I think my two motors with 775 lb-ft of torque is more than enough for any situation I dare to get into but ground clearance with that wheelbase makes me think twice about taking too many chances in iffy situations. Even today, I could have used a camera under the truck. I am sure CT’s air suspension and ground clearance makes it much better suited for off road than Lightning but if I was doing weekly off roading, and had to have an EV, I would consider R1S.

Diehard got a Lightning. Congrats hope the resale is good when your CT res comes up.

 

[Tinker71]

Absolutely! As well as climbing a steep, icy hill. Braking the opposite wheel of open differential is a good thing, but it cannot come close to the potential effectiveness of eliminating the mechanical differential and modulating power using electromagnetic forces, rather than friction on a brake disc (as transfered though a mechanical differential).

And for those who think the Rivian is superior, you will be sad when it goes away. Because Rivian is selling for $73-$100K a vehicle that costs them $150-$180K or so to manufacture. It's more like a mirage than a real competitor.

It's easy to make a nice vehicle, it's hard to make them in high volume at a price people want to pay.

For all but the worst conditions or technical stuff could we turn off the braking business and just deal with some minor sliding around? The thought of overheating brakes going up hill is a little sickening to me.

 

[Diehard]

Diehard got a Lightning. Congrats hope the resale is good when your CT res comes up.

Thanks. I got it for $20K less than current price so I probably will do OK. It has the small battery (240 mile range). If CT price and insurance difference for a 330+ mile CT is not significantly more, it is a no brainer. Although the utility and relatively low tech, accessible design of Lighting fits me well, I see it as a local machine. I can see taking CT on a long distance trip in any direction without stress. I can’t say the same for my Lightning on CCS Network.

 

[charliemagpie]

Tesla came out with the CT price points, and competitors found themselves with price constraints. imo

There is starlight between Tesla's profit margins and others.

It will be a long time before competitors can come up with the material science, component tech, construction process to get anywhere near as competitive to make a profit. (AND delete the middle man)

Years they don't have.

No fairy Godmother exists to keep a company afloat that long while it scrambles to catch up.

Physics is reality, this is as close to 'business physics' as you can get.

I should add... Kodak is still a listed company. They may well survive.

 

[HaulingAss]

For all but the worst conditions or technical stuff could we turn off the braking business and just deal with some minor sliding around? The thought of overheating brakes going up hill is a little sickening to me.

The brakes don't overheat in this situation because the amount of power that can be transferred between tires and icy roads is very low. The brakes are not even being given a decent workout and its cold outside to boot. The amount of braking does not exceed the amount of traction. If you don't want the braking to happen, then don't drive in a manner and in conditions that require it to maintain traction. It's better to have the traction control braking vs. sliding around.

A steep icy road is not technical or even all that abnormal around here. Braking the slipping wheel is a good solution on an open differential. The lightest amount of braking allows one to maintain forward motion up the hill. Of course it's better to have a dedicated motor for each wheel and eliminate the differentials altogether.

 

[HaulingAss]

I should add... Kodak is still a listed company. They may well survive.

Yes, but bankruptcy is bankruptcy. Shareholders lost everything. The whole point of bankruptcy is to get out of obligations and start over.

 

[HaulingAss]

If that was latest financials I apologize. With a one time charge for layoffs what is q2 projecting? Volume is 90% of the equation at this stage. I know they are simplifying or eliminating options. Not sure what they could actually do different in the next 6 months. They better hurry because when the new BEV Blazer comes out they will be screwed.

I don't think it makes sense to say volume is 90% of the equation when there is no known way to build the products profitably. In other words, no, higher volumes will not bring the R1T or R1S into profitability, it simply costs more to make than it can be sold for. The more they make, the more they lose. Manufacturing is hard.

The amount of loss in Q2 is anyone's guess. It will likely be less with the cost-cutting, but I don't see how they get loss to zero, which is what is required for R1T and R1S to be viable.

 

[Crissa]

The brakes don't overheat in this situation because the amount of power that can be transferred between tires and icy roads is very low.

This isn't quite true. Because the duration and speed of the wheels also factors in; the amount of heat it can shed per time is greater in the cold, and the braking to deal with slip is less, true, but if you're already going, say, highway speed, that's alot of velocity to slow the slipped wheel down.

And it's doing it continually, because it's trying to match the speeds to the two wheels on an axle, not only trigger when you're completely broken free. This is why it turns off and is slow to turn on: Because if it's being used constantly, it will overheat the brakes.

Yes, but bankruptcy is bankruptcy. Shareholders lost everything. The whole point of bankruptcy is to get out of obligations and start over.

Bankruptcy does not mean that shareholders lost everything. If the company is still listed, then shareholders still have their shares, which may or may not still be above the price they bought it.

Bankruptcy is just a process to deal with debts, which may or may not affect ownership. Kodak has alot of assets, chemical patents, and digital technology.

-Crissa

 

[charliemagpie]

Bankruptcy is Bankruptcy. Bye Bye. Unless you get a bail out.

Companies have been bailed out before, but this time there is no realistic pathway to manage themselves out of it. Years of continuous bailout support is not happening.

At the end of the day, it will be day traders holding most stock... Normal shareholders (Dumb one's aside) would have already licked their wounds and progressively bailed out.

There is no real value left.
Liquidated assets will hardly make a dent. There is hardly any IP. I guess there is an ongoing parts business for sale, which will probably be purchased by an existing parts supplier for pennies on the $.

I doubt other OEM's want to buy a problem.

Ford has a current PE ratio at about 4? .. was 29? at one point. Clearly a stock with already a level of confidence steeped into quarter to quarter.

 

[Tinker71]

I don't think it makes sense to say volume is 90% of the equation when there is no known way to build the products profitably. In other words, no, higher volumes will not bring the R1T or R1S into profitability, it simply costs more to make than it can be sold for. The more they make, the more they lose. Manufacturing is hard.

The amount of loss in Q2 is anyone's guess. It will likely be less with the cost-cutting, but I don't see how they get loss to zero, which is what is required for R1T and R1S to be viable.

I can only guess that the people at Rivian understand fixed and variable cost and didn't price their vehicle such that they couldn't make money. Tesla has been counting pennies and ounces for the last 10 years. They have a huge advantage but others will borrow from their work. The loss per vehicle is mostly overhead and tooling which gets spread over move vehicles with volume. Without detailed cost data I won't continue this debate. I don't care that much.

 

[HaulingAss]

I can only guess that the people at Rivian understand fixed and variable cost and didn't price their vehicle such that they couldn't make money. Tesla has been counting pennies and ounces for the last 10 years. They have a huge advantage but others will borrow from their work. The loss per vehicle is mostly overhead and tooling which gets spread over move vehicles with volume. Without detailed cost data I won't continue this debate. I don't care that much.

Rivian made a great product, the real problem is that people can't afford to pay as much as it costs to build them. So, Rivian could sell a few at a very high price (which wouldn't be enough to pay off their fixed costs) or they could sell millions at a low price (which would result in losing tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle).

The vehicle could be re-designed to be cheaper to manufacture, but that would cost a lot of time and money, and there is no guarantee Rivian could manufacture it efficiently enough for it to be profitable. Their only hope is to switch to making delivery vans (but that also requires threading the needle and making them for a profit). There is a tendency for people with no experience in the auto industry to think you just make cars and sell them for a profit, it's not that difficult. Everyone does it, right? I'm sure even Rivian management believed that too, at one point in time.

The harsh reality is manufacturing and selling cars while managing supply chains with huge multi-year lags, is difficult to get right. Rivian has never manufactured a vehicle profitably and most companies who attempt this fail. In fact, out of over a hundred new companies founded in America in the last 100 years, only one of them has ever succeeded, Tesla. More than 100 failures and one success. Many of them had good products. Do those odds make you want to be an automaker?

Rivian was founded in 2009 and they still haven't managed to release one profitable product in those 14 years. Please note, I'm not talking about the overall company being profitable, I'm talking about selling a vehicle for more than it costs to manufacture it.

What I find amazing is how much crap people pile on Elon Musk when his daily decisions have created the only new profitable American automaker in over a century and every one of their models was able to be sold at a gross profit very early in their production ramp. People who claim to know better will tell you nearly everything Elon does is a mistake, that almost every decision is a mistake. And yet his success, against all odds, proves otherwise. You need to make nearly 100% correct decisions, nearly every step of the way, to build a sustainable auto company.

 

[HaulingAss]

This isn't quite true. Because the duration and speed of the wheels also factors in; the amount of heat it can shed per time is greater in the cold, and the braking to deal with slip is less, true, but if you're already going, say, highway speed, that's alot of velocity to slow the slipped wheel down.

And it's doing it continually, because it's trying to match the speeds to the two wheels on an axle, not only trigger when you're completely broken free. This is why it turns off and is slow to turn on: Because if it's being used constantly, it will overheat the brakes.


Bankruptcy does not mean that shareholders lost everything. If the company is still listed, then shareholders still have their shares, which may or may not still be above the price they bought it.

Bankruptcy is just a process to deal with debts, which may or may not affect ownership. Kodak has alot of assets, chemical patents, and digital technology.

-Crissa

I don't know where you got these ideas from. If Tesla's traction control system was over-heating the brakes on icy roads, then all Tesla cars in icy climates would need new brake pads on a regular basis. Instead, they tend to last over 100,000 miles, even that portion of the fleet that is on icy roads most of the winter. That is incompatible with a traction control system that causes brake over-heating.

As to bankruptcy, it's true, Kodak shares became worthless:

FAQ | Eastman Kodak Company

As a pre-bankruptcy shareholder, does my stock have value?

Kodak filed its original Plan of Reorganization and Disclosure Statement on April 30, 2013. The Disclosure Statement was approved by the Bankruptcy Court on June 26, 2013, confirming that it contained adequate information for creditors to vote on the Plan. Kodak has filed various amendments and supplements to its Plan of Reorganization. Voting on the Plan of Reorganization closed on August 9, 2013, with acceptance from all classes of voting creditors. On August 23, 2013, the Bankruptcy Court entered an order confirming the Plan of Reorganization, thereby approving the cancellation of all outstanding shares of stock. Existing stock will be cancelled as of the date that Kodak emerges from bankruptcy.

Of course there are many kinds of bankruptcy and, if the debts are not too large, it's possible for shareholders to not lose everything. But that's the exception to the rule.

Sponsored