Speaking from industry experience, most purveyors of hub motors that actually have units out in the real world (my company used Protean) have dedicated hydraulic brakes, but here’s the thing- you burn up so much packaging space with the hub motor itself that those brakes are not sufficient on their own for an…

I’m pretty skeptical of their hub motor claims.
My previous employer used Protean hub motors. Their top model is rated for about 100hp and fits in some special 18" rims, but honestly needs bigger.
You’re adding a HUGE amount of unsprung mass, which you’ll really feel on crappy roads at speed. Also, you either have to…

Can you link me? All I’ve been able to find is a brief description of how they organize “233 [potential] problems ... into nine categories” which are all no-duh subsystem categories and don’t address my concern that the magnitude of problems is not well tracked or represented.

You’re right about the laws. Regulatory lamps in the rear cannot be on a moving piece of bodywork such as a hatch or trunk. Now that automakers have solved the problem of widening their hatches and trunks while still meeting structural requirements, they’re forced to sacrifice lamp placement and design language for…

Personally, I’ve always been skeptical of the JD Power results, but mostly because I’ve never seen their survey and don’t know how the questions are asked.
How do they differentiate between magnitude of problems?
How do they ask people about their experience and what potential emotional baggage gets carried into those…

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
I am disgusted and a little bit afraid.
Thanks again! I hate this!

Thank you for writing an article about this.

You bring up a valid point, and ChargePoint/Electrify America/Electrons’R’Us/Whoeverthefuck have a long way to go for sure, but I do think they’ll get there as non-tesla EV’s grow in popularity.

I was encouraged initially by Rivian’s insistence that they were going to build out a network of chargers at and around…

Hard disagree. Rivian was founded less than a year after the original Roadster was released and they shifted their focus to electric adventure vehicles over a year before the Model S was even announced.

Rivian fought hard and earned their initial investments long before Tesla even came close to turning a profit or…

To be clear, I was 90% making a joke. The demo I’m alluding to/poking fun at are wealthy left-leaning folks who’s social circles love to mock Raptors and lifted douchetrucks, but still enjoy active lifestyles and the outdoors.

Source on the FC trucks not being on the road?
I remember hearing about the start of road testing back in early 2018. I could totally be wrong though- I’m having troubles find good info one way or the other.

I dunno- I think Tesla faced a lot of those issues because of rampant over promising and their habit of hiring like a tech company.
Rivian hires and behaves like a traditional automotive company and they’ve poached an absolute fuckton of storied, experienced talent from other established automakers from the get-go.
They…

I disagree, though likely on the point of what “functional” entails. I genuinely believe that the Rivian will be a well-built, capable, and highly-regarded truck, albeit a premium one for city yuppies who go camping once a year. It’ll be the halo car of wealthy metrosexual guys who couldn’t be caught dead in a Raptor.…

To be clear, “valued” is a far cry from “cash in hand.”
A valuation is just what market leaders have assigned the theoretical future value of the company’s products and IP.

Most of their valuation comes from their hydrogen semis, which are actually very real and have been road testing for over two years.
They also…

See THIS is why I believe in Rivian.
Their CEO isn’t a massive fucking prick (very much the opposite) and they waited until they had actual functioning vehicles out testing in the real world before they even officially announced what they were working on.
Obviously, it very well could all be sloppy and cobbled together…

It’s wild to hear someone use the “companies should take a loss on consoles so people buy games” reasoning with these new consoles, because- FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER -these are actually more powerful than the desktop computer that could be built at that price point. It should be fundamentally obvious that they’re…

The real problem will be all the attack ads when Torch runs for congress about how he’s “in the pocket of China”.

Rent or borrow a suitable truck, take the boat immediately to Used Boats R Us, sell the boat, return the truck, and buy your dream daily driver. You’ll get far more bang-for-your-buck that way, guaranteed.

1st Gear: Most of Nikola’s jump in value is their recent IPO. They just went public a week ago. Its also really important to remember with Nikola that the Semis are priority number one. As for R1T vs F150e, considering the latter will be mostly Rivian anyways, I’d want the R1T on the merits that it is one of the…

That’s how CSU’s FSAE used to be- I was one of those freshmen and sophomores that got to hang about and play with stuff. I never stuck it out on the team, though, because I had other stuff going on. It turned out that was a good move because they imploded and lost a lot of talent to EcoCar, which had probably 50…