cts888
Well-known member
I am in the same boat. I have a base XLT lightning coming in June (may production) .. My R1T is on for early 2023. (base model for $67.5k.. which will be worth $82k) Now I need to decide which one to sell for a profit and which one to keep. Going to claim tax credits in back to back years so should be ahead of the game by a fair bit. I do think the Rivian will hold its value better long term.I have a relatively late preorder for both a Lightning and a Rivian R1S, looking at 2023 delivery (at best) for either one. I've been leaning toward the Rivian, was super pissed off/disapointed with the sudden, massive price increase and wrote a long letter to Rivian/RJ about how there was no way I was going to pay that much (13K more than I was planning on), or wait another 1-2 years for the lower priced dual motor version but wasn't canceling yet as I thought they would be forced to walk it back for preorder holders. Turns out I was right. The backlash was immediate and overwhelming.
They definitely screwed this up big time, but I have to give them some credit for walking it back in the face of a massive mutiny of both reservation holders and stockholders. Apparently they really didn't have a choice given the size of the backlash.
The net effect is that now Rivian preorder holders like me are (supposedly) going to get the Rivian at a ~20% discount compared to new orders. This means that I could theoretically drive it for 2-3 years and resell with no depreciation, which makes it seem like a hell of a deal as long as they stay in business and the quality/reliability are solid.
What this means to me is that they just locked in most of their reservations, including nearly all of those who cancelled, and now have even more incentive to ramp production quickly and get the new lower cost versions on the market ASAP. They will take a loss on the first 50-70K vehicles, but in the long run it's a drop in the bucket. They have enough cash to absorb the hit, and getting lots of them on the road and reducing lead times will help drive sales going forward. Given that they are an unproven startup at this point that's what they need to do to prove themselves and maintain customer goodwill. They need to be in it for the long term if they are going to survive and thrive. They may also need a change in leadership but we'll see what happens with that...
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