WIRED talks to CEO RJ Scaringe about how the automaker’s engineering team learned to say no—or make some compromises to create a smaller, more affordable electric car.
Source: How Rivian Is Pulling Off Its $45,000 R2 Electric SUV
seems like rivian had the same idea as musk for whay do the most fancy verion of a car first, then use the profits from those high-cost vheclies to plow into making the lass expensive every man verions. like why automatic door handles that pop out as you approach (hit key fob?).
“How did Rivian make it work? “R1 was designed through addition. It’s our premium flagship. We got to say yes to a lot of things,” Jeff Hammoud, the automaker’s chief design officer, said at an R2 unveiling event in Laguna Beach, California, last week. “With R2, we’re really thinking about, to get the price point down, what do we need to say no to?”
still far to expseicvve (est. USD$45k) for everyman. which is why i predict the usa car mafgs are about to have their asses handed to thembe small inexpesive evs from china & etc. over the next 10 years… kinda like when na mfgs continued to build large gas gullzerd=s as the marky wanted small & fuel efficient in the wake of thr 1970s oild shocks and gas shortages.
also, beware reading about suspension systems. this is a deep and wanderful rabbit hole of just how to hold as tire to a car, allowing t to spin, move up & down, roll side to side, and problably more. which maybe should be rplaced by 2 preciecely controler actuators, one to turn, on to asdjust camber; seems to me moderen computer controler of these 2 actuaators might make all the maechanical systesm obsoluter; for instance, all the parameterrs of the suspension mechanics are limited by the mechanics, links, pivots, etc. but use 2 precise & powerful linear actuators instead and put the tire exactly hwere you want it 2k times per second; i think the optimum to to make the contact patch square and true to the ground for max tire/road contact is the goal, but i might be wrong.
