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The Facebook group is celebrating but there is still a lot of bitterness about it. Even if every single person reinstates their original reservation, the trust of the company is broken and it will not be forgotten.

It would be cool to visit other times, sure. And I enjoy seeing other approaches to everyday life- that recent pic of the railroad bridge I posted was from the 1880s. I don't trust software folk; they exist to perpetuate planned obsolescence / hold consumers prisoner in endless consumerism loops with barely-demonstrable benefit. Pure evil. ?

There is plenty of examples out there about how bad car dealers are...no point in quoting. Sounds like your problem is you are looking at dealers with nostalgia for the 1950s... they aren't there to provide any benefit to buyers. I'm definitely pro-consumer, definitely not going to side with businesses.

AND they also don't have to deal with scumbag salespeople.

Dealerships who charge even a hundred extra dollars on an already-ordered product are shitty. I wouldn’t pay it. There. Again tho, from the CONSUMER’s standpoint, if they want that Brand X, they can shop around at other stores or even in other states. RIVIAN BUYERS HAVE NO OTHER STORES!! That’s the huge difference you keep ignoring.

*rushes over to facebook*

Aren't the hackers & 'anarchy activists' also in the software arena? Can I judge the entirety of people who work creating software by them alone?

This is Audi's EQE competitor, granted they have a dual motor base, so it is comparable to the EQE43 in in terms of power, but they are the same size. Those battery converted Q4's and Q5's that Audi is selling are no match for an EQE (or the coming SUV version).

software engineers and IT folks keep the world working..without us, there would be only chaos...banks wouldn't work, airline reservation systems wouldn't work, cell phones wouldn't work, the internet wouldn't work, your truck wouldn't be drivable without the complex engine management software, etc... it would be the end of the modern world..dark ages.

It’s sad when the superlative for the best or nothing is that at least it’s the “largest”. Most luxurious is subjective as hell, especially when it sits inside an ugly jellybean shell. The E Tron starts at $65,900, putting it in the same range as the much uglier (and not near as luxurious at its base price) EQE. Stop using the top of the line GT example to sugarcoat the ugliness that your favorite brand produced for supposed mass consumption.

I wasn't around in the '50s- I don't have much knowledge of how dealers worked then, so that projection isn't it. 'Plenty of examples' sounds like you advocate judging an individual ('salesman') solely on his job title, rather than the actuality of how they conduct themselves. I find -barring direct evidence to the contrary- giving the individual the benefit of the doubt takes me much farther than assuming everyone is out to F me. To repeat; there are just about 18,000 new car dealers in the U.S. in '22- that a HUGE pool to make an overall strongly negative assumption about. Now... if a specific dealer has BBB complaints, or online horror stories from actual customers, that's enough evidence for most people (& me) to avoid them. By the same token; if a specific dealer has a great reputation and strong reviews, I would expect to have a good experience there. But I'm getting from you that it's basically impossible to EVER get a square deal from a car salesman, because; 'car salesman'. There are 5.2 million people in the U.S. named 'Robert'. (My father is one). Can I take the experiences / heard accounts of -say- 10,000 of them, and make a fair assumption about the other 5.1+ million, unilaterally? Does anything in life actually work like that??

Random (and pissed off) thought: Say you want to go away in May ... maybe PHX, maybe South Florida. It should NOT cost "half a grand" to rent a basic Toyota Corolla for a week. Let's do the math: say they get that rate/fee for 40 rentals, making for $ 20,000. Even if people put 1,000 miles on it at each rental, that's 40,000 miles. They'll still be able to sell that car for $ 18,000 ... easy. I know this is simplified. And doesn't include the franchise fees they pay, office space, etc., but it's ridiculous and might be keeping people from vacay-ing. I wonder when some "normalcy" will return on this front.

My dad's 1977 Nightma..I mean TR7. He had this for less than two years before he dumped it and bought a '74 Porsche 914 (a much better car). After that nightmare...

The Camaro is an example of a product that is probably best in class for its purpose but no one wants it because the only people who can afford it and live with a sports coupe are too old to get in and out of it. The people it is marketed to want SUVs because they are building their lives and households and need to haul crap home from Home Depot.

Oh good grief. It's still technically a random thought people. Let's not get all "Bill Wise" over it. In yet another case of "When you just fell like setting your money on fire" (and sadly I know this all too well because my dad once owned a 1977 TR7)... https://greensboro.craigslist.org/cto/d/high-point-red-1980-triumph-tr7/7452966452.html

Maybe share that level criticism with those dealerships you are so ready to defend at a moments notice. That’s all I’m saying and again, much a damn do about nothing, for now.

'Classic Charity Fund'...fake bullshit, probably all goes into the pocket of the shitbag dealership owner. GM needs to stop selling any inventory to such dealers...starve them of product, force them out of business....

Ya know this charity probably is owned by the dealership owner and they have total control of those purse strings. This sounds like a scam and GM needs to crush these dealers that do this.

'Trust rebuilding & reassurance' isn't at all necessary, and any 'bitterness' is totally unwarranted. It was all "much to do about nothing". ?

That's where I found it, hahaha. This topic was a thread in a group I'm in. I'd also like to point out that I really don't have much of an issue with them raising the prices, even though the hikes were A LOT. The biggest issue was just not honoring the reservations, the ones giving them cash for operations prior to production. Yep, this is going to hurt regardless of "fixing" the mistake.

RJ learned a harsh lesson with this boondoggle.

Seems they’re trying to fix their colossal mistake.

A lot of people on the Rivian group are saying exactly that. There are those who are saying "I could afford it, but RJ (the CEO) lied to us and now I've lost all faith in the company. I've canceled my order". Rivian needed this Fanboi base like Tesla has. They royally screwed the pooch on this. The stock is tanking for good reason. They pissed off the fanbois. I'll try and post some screenshots later.

This is actually Rivian's second bait and switch. The first was when they promised all of the reservation holders early access to the IPO. Then they advertised the IPO at a certain price for a month or two. Then the share price shot up a lot right before the IPO. There are people who reserved their Rivian on day one of reservations who still haven't gotten theirs. They had their configuration submitted and their price agreed on. Now they're getting e-mails of $15k - $20k price increases on their reservation. That's not how reservations work.

You can't go by base prices because the price of a bunch of the options was inflated too. I'm on the Rivian facebook group and there are post after post of people's reservations jumping from $75k to $95k. Lots are posting screenshots of their cancelations as well. It's unknowable if those are just a loud few, but the comments sections are long and what it has done is turned what was once a total FanBoi group where Rivian could do no wrong... I.E. Telsa-Lite Fanbois, and turned it into a Rivian Hate group. Horrible public relations move.

You seem to be confused with ICE converted BEV auto's which Audi DOES NOT USE. These e-tron family are built on the MEB platform specifically for BEVs. Same platform that Porsche has built their BEVs on. They have style compared to Mercedes JellyBeans!

Those resource units are on the dark side of the biz.

They’ve been detailed here; I don’t see disqualifying them (investor issue, reservation issue, MSRP jack). The pool of buyer experiences is microscopic at this point… You have any empirical evidence to generalize like you’re doing (“scum of the Earth” / kill all salespersons because of their industry).

I'd wager a very high percentage of dealerships have at least one complete scumbag salesperson. What complaints, prior to this situation, have there been about the Rivian 'dealer' ?

I sadly think it will be a few years as long as there is component shortages and with the Russia mess. I doubt prices will go down anytime soon. I am looking at booking a rental for a family vacation, first one since 2019 in August to Maui and the prices are crazy. Here is Hertz Here is Dollar Here is Thrifty

Both lol (to your first questions). Just finding parts to make them run would be worse than finding a needle in a haystack and the costs would be through the roof. My dad owned his TR7 between 1987-89 and I remember one of gripes was the cost of a master cylinder being $700. It spent more than half of its two year stay in his garage and he finally gave it the boot. Could not give me one with literal money on the hood.

Uhhh..... That would automatically make then NOT a Rivian buyer, but a GMC / Chevy / Ford buyer. ? So you're saying that far more examples of sh!tty deals/practices have occurred at 100s of thousands of dealers over 20-50 years, than have occurred at ONE Rivian store that's been selling vehicles for 3 months. Bazinga - got me there!! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sure Rivian Buyers have choices, they can go to the Vaporware Tesla Cyber Truck, GMC Hummer and Silverado and the coming GMC truck or order at Ford for an F150 Lighting. Plenty of options.

Very true and they need to reassure their customers that they will be more forthcoming about future price increases without burning preorder buyers and such.

While I dislike the i3, at least it feels unique in a good way. While this probably took a lot of engineering hours to get a slippery body, they did it in such a bland and bad way.

So they saw their mistake and fixed it, thus (for now) killing this much ado about nothing (again, for now).

MEH, Both to me are not worth the asking price. Tech is cool, but the interior screams minimalist cheap by the company. Guess some day have to see them in person to see if my feeling changes, but like @ccap41 stated, the EQ? line of electric auto's from Mercedes is the least attractive line of BEVs out there. I think a major refresh will have to happen sooner than later for them to get sales going past the badge snobs.

What's much worse than preordering a new vehicle with a deposit to have that price spike 17-20%?

Don't forget the least attractive.

Up to. Yes, depending on the options selected. There is also some slight of hand by Rivian as well where some things stayed the same price but were decontented. Like the new standard battery pack has 54 miles less range while the original battery spec went up by $6k in price. Some optional paint prices went up $1000, and every color but silver is an optional color. One of the interior colors went up by $2k. So right there, getting the old standard battery, a paint color, and an interior other than black and your cost went up $9k. Still want the original spec quad motor AWD instead of the new standard dual motor AWD? That’ll be another $6k. Hitting a $15k increase with just 4 options is pretty easy to do.

$99k Tesla interior: The reviews of the EQS say it has the best ride quality on market, it also turns tighter than a Mini Cooper and most reviewers say the tech is better than Tesla. You are still getting a lot for the price. And right now the EQS is the largest and most luxurious EV on the market. Here is the e-tron GT, which also starts over $100k, yet is only EQE size I don't see those 2 as any big threat, especially when the EQE is their size, yet not their price.

Well that went smoother and faster than expected. I still have some SQL server tuning to do, but ... we're here.

The small screen is standard on the EQS450, the Hyperscreen is optional on the 450, I think standard on the 550. Hyperscreen is optional on EQE.

They're free to order a Lightning or Silverado EV!

You are always posting old black and white photos of 50s cars and old dealerships, it certainly sounds like you have nostalgia for a world you never lived in.. As far as sales people, there are some good ones, I’ve worked with a few. But I’m general, sales is a profession full of sleazy, unethical people in my opinion. I don’t trust them. They are of little value when compared to people that actually produce something of value, like engineers, designers, etc..

I guess. I just think of the Gov’t going after GM because all the other competitors only had like 55% of the market left. ? Ironic that we’ve been touching on OEM vs. dealer sales, and here comes an OEM jacking their vehicles $11K overnight / across the board… with no other option for the Rivian buyer.