A study shows that Rivian buyers are canceling their reservations at an alarming rate after a significant increase in the prices of the R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV.
As we announced yesterday, Rivian announced significant price increases in its range, leading to some configurations increasing by more than $ 12,000 and others by as much as $ 20,000 – these price increases also apply to people who have had reservations for years and they are not happy.
Forums and social media are full of Rivian reservation holders who say they cancel their orders because they either don’t want to pay the increase or because they feel cheated by the company.
However, it is difficult to understand how representative these comments are for the general base of reservation holders.
A poll in subreddit Rivian, one of the largest communities of Rivian fans, gives us a better idea of the heart rate of reservation holders and shows a high cancellation rate:
Of the more than 3,000 respondents, the majority canceled their orders, with a significant proportion of reservation holders still undecided. Late last year, Rivian revealed that it had over 70,000 reservations for R1T and R1S.
Rivan blamed the rise in inflation and material costs, but many frustrated reservation holders said that if that were the case, the price increase would have been smaller and more gradual. Instead, many suspect that Rivian is having trouble increasing its gross margin as it increases production and passes costs on to its customers.
Here is our own survey for reservation holders in Rivian:
Taking Electrek
I am almost certain that I will cancel my reservation for four years. While I agree that this is a frustrating situation for reservation holders, this is probably the only way for Rivian to survive.
Even if most reservation holders cancel, Rivian will probably still have around 10,000 people willing to buy the early models with price increases, which should be enough to lead them to more production and more good costs. In turn, this should allow them to reach the cheaper versions of R1T and R1S in 2023-24, which will reach a wider customer base.
At this point, the company should be in a better situation, but in the meantime, they burned much of their fan base.
It is important to note that similar things happened when Tesla canceled the cheaper versions of the Model S in 2013, as they did the same with the Model 3.
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