There is another "new power" of electric cars coming on the market in the United States!

Rivian specializes in electric trucks and electric SUV, and its first electric pickup truck, R1T, was officially assembled in September and is currently the first car company to introduce electric pickup trucks to the personal consumer market.

Rivian has a long history, not only similar to Tesla, Inc., both have a charismatic male genius CEO, but have raised 10.5 billion US dollars since 2019. Amazon.Com Inc and Ford are its supporters. Earlier, it was publicly reported that Rivian planned to raise up to $8 billion in an IPO that would be valued at $80 billion in the fourth quarter.

Where does the Rivian, which is known as the "killer of Tesla, Inc." and has won many honors, come from?

Americans love pickups.

March 2020, R.J. Scarlinger appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine. Many people are not familiar with the name and figure, and he is the founder and CEO of the electric pickup company Rivian.

In the same year, Scarlinger entered the 2020 Forbes list of the world's billionaires, ranking 1990.

Scarlinger first dreamed of starting a car company in high school, and in 2007, when he was studying at the famous Sloan Automotive Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he realized that fuel cars brought more or less problems such as climate, air quality, geopolitics, and so on. Scarlinger gave up the idea of developing gasoline-powered cars and turned to electric cars.

After earning his doctorate in 2009, Scarlinger founded what is now Rivian.

However, the market environment was not friendly to the fledgling Rivian at that time.

Tesla, Inc., founded in 2003, has officially delivered its first Roadster in 2008. Rivian, on the other hand, was just established in 2009. In other words, before the Rivian was delivered, Tesla, Inc. 's hundreds of thousands of electric cars were already on the roads around the world.

At this time, if you want to compete with Tesla, Inc., I'm afraid you have to intervene from other forks.

So Scarlinger's new areas are electric SUV and pick-up trucks.

You know, Americans prefer pickups that are considered "tool cars". According to public data, the top three reasons for American consumers to buy pick-up trucks and other light trucks include higher versatility, the need for larger cars because of family size, and the frequent need to carry large items.

In 2020, the average household size in the United States was 3.15, while that in China was only 2.62. In short, the size of American families is large, and cars need to meet the needs of both riding and pulling goods.

Under the epidemic, the overall sales of the US automobile industry is poor, and the pickup market has also been affected to a certain extent, with annual sales falling by 5.81% to 2.93 million vehicles compared with 2019. However, pickup models account for half of the top 10 models sold in the US auto market, and the top three are also occupied by Ford, Chevrolet and Ram pickup models.

Looking ahead, under the influence of the "cold winter" of the US car market, overall car sales fell 1.6 per cent year-on-year to 17.1 million vehicles in 2019, but the pickup market outperformed the others, growing 5.4 per cent year-on-year to 3.11 million vehicles, a three-year record high.

Americans' fondness for light pick-up trucks is evident.

It can be said that Rivian early choice differentiation competition, avoid Tesla, Inc., Ford and other traditional car companies to develop the electric pickup market is the right step.

Valued at $80 billion, is it worth it?

Not long ago, Scarlinger officially announced on his personal social platform that the first R1T all-electric pickup truck had been mass-produced at the Norma factory in Illinois.

R1T, which was originally scheduled for mass production in July this year, was forced to be delayed until September due to the epidemic and lack of core. Even so, it cannot resist the enthusiasm of capital and consumers.

In July this year, Rivian official announced that it had completed the financing of US $2.5 billion led by Amazon.Com Inc, Ford Motor and Putonghua Group, of which Amazon.Com Inc invested US $700 million. Since its inception, the cumulative financing has reached 10.5 billion US dollars.

Amazon.Com Inc not only supported the money, but also gave the start-up a big gift. Rivian will produce no less than 100000 electric trucks (for Amazon.Com Inc delivery) within 10 years, with 10, 000 delivered by the end of next year.

It can be said that even the electric car boss Tesla, Inc. does not have the treatment. This may also be one of the reasons Rivian is seeking to raise a huge amount of $8 billion in an IPO.

8 billion US dollars, a lot, may be the largest IPO in the US stock market in recent years. Since 2011, only BABA (raised US $25 billion), Facebook Inc (US $16 billion) and Uber (US $8.1 billion) have exceeded US $8 billion in IPO.

AndIPO is valued at $80 billionAlthough it is not as good as Tesla, Inc., it also kills the traditional car companies. Currently, General Motors Co has a market capitalization of $77.3 billion, Ford $56.5 billion, and Volvo, which recently plans to IPO, is valued at only $20 billion.

Is the Rivian valued by capital worth it or not?

The R1T model currently delivered by Rivian is an electric double-seat pickup with a body size of 5475*2015*1815mm and a wheelbase of 3450mm, belonging to the medium-sized pickup truck. The R1T uses a four-motor drive mode, and each wheel is driven by an independent 147kW motor. There are three battery configurations with different energy sizes, corresponding to a range of 370km, 482km and 643km.

Similarly, the R1T electric pickup truck also has a fast charging function, which can run about 321 kilometers in 30 minutes. Interestingly, the car can also turn around 360 degrees in place like a tank.

In addition to the "tank turn" operation, Rivian is also good at seizing the hearts of consumers, embedding Alexa, Amazon.Com Inc's voice assistant, and equipped with Echo Bluetooth interactive intelligent speakers to absorb countless fans.

In addition, its electric "skateboard" platform is also one of the core technologies, which integrates motor, intelligent battery management system, cooling system, suspension system, hydraulic control system and so on into the module in the middle of the chassis, reducing the center of gravity of the vehicle and reducing the probability of rolling accidents in uneven road conditions.

But Rivian costs a lot of money. The R1T starts at $69000, or 445000 yuan, and even if a lower-priced version of the Explore is planned for next year, it will cost $67500. Compared with Tesla, Inc. 's difficult delivery Cybertruck, the high-end price is only 69900 US dollars.

Even if there is excellent technical support, but the high price is easy to deter consumers, Rivian follow-up to develop the market is not small.

It is difficult to open up the market

On the face of it, the situation of Rivian is very good, but in fact, Rivian still has no choice but to survive.

Although Rivian is the first to launch electric pickup models, ahead of Tesla, Inc., Ford, GM and other well-known car companies, props in this sub-race has a certain first-mover advantage. But there is not much time left for Rivian.

Incomplete statistics, at present, the United States has issued electric pickup plans for as many as 8 car companies. Although the specific launch time of each car company's products is different, it is inevitable that there will be a fierce battle in the future.

As the absolute leader of the new energy market in the United States, Tesla, Inc. released the design as early as 2019 to completely subvert the traditional pure electric pickup Cybertruck. Due to the steel body and other features, CyberTruck will face difficulties in production, the latest news said that the delivery of the car has been postponed to the end of 2022, mass production may have to wait until the end of 2023.

At the same time, Ford Fmur150 Lightning faces a delay in production due to chip shortages, while GM's GMC Hummer EV is still in the late testing stage.

Although most of the competitions are basically postponed to 2022-2023, there is only about a year left for Rivian. When Cybertruck enters the market strongly, it is not known whether Rivian can have an advantage in terms of production capacity, market share, and word-of-mouth.

In addition, the main reason for Tesla, Inc. to become the global overlord of electric vehicles is to open up the Chinese market. In this regard, Rivian has also planned to expand the European and Chinese markets. But it may be challenging for Rivian to enter the Chinese market with an electric pickup truck.

On the one hand, pickups are not clearly defined in China and are generally managed according to the ban on multi-purpose trucks, but in most places there are more restrictions on pickups: pickups are also prohibited from entering the city; speed limits on highways, lane restrictions and so on. Although the state has tried to relax the restrictions on pickups in recent years, it is only in the trial and pilot stage.

On the other hand, there are differences in car culture between China and the United States. In China, more pickups are treated as "tool cars", and SUV can basically meet the car needs of domestic small families.

This is also one of the reasons why pickups are not very popular in China. Data show that the domestic pickup penetration rate is only 1.6%, far less than 16.5% in the United States. Thus it can be seen that the development of Rivian in the Chinese market may not be so smooth.

Summary

If Musk is Iron Man, then Scarlinger is more like Superman. Although Iron Man and Superman do not belong to the same time and space, in reality, the two founders will inevitably face each other.

At present, Rivian has launched the first electric pickup truck model, winning a certain amount of time to seize the market, but this is only the beginning. If you want to really become a "Tesla, Inc. killer", you must not only have excellent product power support, but also must not fall behind in marketing means such as expanding production capacity, improving word-of-mouth and strengthening publicity, otherwise there will be less thunder and rain.