I don't know why Amazon doesn't just buy Rivian already. Their stock price is in the dumps, and Amazon as a business has gone all in on their trucks. Worst case – Rivian ends up just being Amazon's in-house delivery van manufacturer, and the costs can be rolled up into their overall logistics business. Best case – Rivian's business is a commercial success and Amazon gets to play in that space. The worst case of not buying them is that the company goes out of business and Amazon now has a fleet of trucks that will go obsolete once their parts need replacing. ~$17B, while not chump change, is definitely affordable for Amazon.
I dont know if that best case is in Amazon's interest. That is to say, they might not want to play in that space and it is pretty far from it's core competencies.
Financially, Amazon can currently benefit from Rivian selling vehicles at a loss. If Amazon purchases Rivian, Rivian's losses are now Amazon's. They would be out both the purchase price, and ongoing expenses.
If Rivian succeeds, they will be a good supplier. If Rivian will fail, Amazon doesnt want to be the one holding the bag.
Protecting the supply chain of parts for 10k vehicles is not worth much.
1. What percentage of AWS revenue is VC funded companies? I'm sure it's a good percentage, but AWS also sells to a lot of fortune 500s.
2. AWS takes on a lot of risk. They buy hardware with lifespans measured in years and sell its use by the second. Not to mention directly competing against major divisions of Microsoft and Google cannot feel comforting.
Just because cloud spends are low doesn't mean there's more room to gain for cloud. The biggest expenditure in IT, onprem or cloud, is talent. Which is why a lot of CIOs at big corps are "excited" about the whole "ChatGPT for code" trend (not that most of them don't have much experience in the space to actually evaluate that premise).
I've worked with many, many companies as an employee of Amazon. The majority of the companies I've worked with aren't VC funded companies. That's anecdotal of course. But it'd be incorrect to imply that AWS gets most of its revenue from VC funded companies.
VC funded startups start with AWS free credits build a bloated service and then are too big to move (vendor lock in) but they still have VC money to pay the bills
Correct, yep. Which is why tax avoidance is not a crime, but tax evasion is.
It would be a rather strange conversation with an accountant doing your taxes, if you walked up and said “hey, can you make it so that i pay more taxes than the legal minimum I am obligated to?”
Yes, I’m sure if it weren’t for the taxes, they wouldn’t have any problem creating billions of dollars worth of warehouses, spending even more money for a logistics network.
Because it's making things that are useful to you. The cost of operating Rivian as a zombie company for a few more years might be less than the cost of replacing their vans or finding another supplier for parts.
(You might say that in that case Amazon should be willing to pay enough for those parts/maintenance to make Rivian profitable, but they might be willing to pay more for an in-house department that will operate the way they want than for an external company that might waste money continuing to chase other revenue sources instead of gracefully winding down)
In a scenario where Rivian fails and AWS buys it out of bankruptcy it would presumably cost a lot less than 17 billion. That it's currently burning a billion per year is exactly why it might be worth bringing in house, where they can presumably cut that by a lot.
Plus, outside of the core competency issue, Rivian makes trucks and commercial vans.
UPS or others could start to buy Rivian products. But if Amazon owns them, and is using them for their own fleet, thus competing with Amazon Delivery Services, UPS would then be buying from the competition
Well, the way you describe it, it sounds like waiting makes the most sense. If Rivian's price is in the dumps, and there's a chance they go out of business... why not wait? Buy a distressed Rivian later on, or buy their assets in a bankruptcy proceeding.
Vehicle manufacturing isn't related to Amazon's business.
They wouldn't gain any strategic advantage over any of the competitors in their industry by owning a vehicle manufacturer.
The only value of EV delivery trucks for Amazon is helping their brand image and reducing their fuel and maintenance expenses. They can get that with any electric delivery truck manufacturer.
The only thing that owning Rivian would do is put pressure on their profits.
> Vehicle manufacturing isn't related to Amazon's business.
This is a somewhat funny thing to say about a company whose "business" has gradually come to include: B2C e-commerce, B2B e-commerce platforms, web hosting (AWS), brick and mortar grocery store chains (Whole Foods and Fresh/Go), pharmaceuticals, healthcare (One Medical), Twitch, streaming video games (Luna), film and television production (in-house and through its acquisition of MGM), consumer electronics (Kindle, Alexa, Fire), home security (Ring), robotics, and satellites (Kuiper).
How many of these were "related" to Amazon's business, which, as we all know, is selling books through the mail?
Nearly everything business you listed is about selling a high volume of products and services with relatively low marginal cost of production or distribution. That's true for food, books, movies, and compute. The robots are clearly related to warehouse automation.
Amazon sells very few things that cost as much as a car, and when they do, they don't manufacture them, because each transaction carries a lot of risk and overhead.
That's not to say they'd never acquire them, but the lack of business alignment makes it seem less likely.
Amazon did buy Kiva, their warehouse-robot manufacturer, many years ago. But a delivery truck is a much more generic product that you don’t benefit from owning and vertically integrating the same way.
How so? Admittedly cars are much more likely to kill third parties than other consumer products, but you could also incur massive liability by eg. selling $10 toasters that violently combust while sending a rain of hot shrapnel in all directions.
> The worst case of not buying them is that the company goes out of business and Amazon now has a fleet of trucks that will go obsolete once their parts need replacing.
They could buy them a whole lot cheaper then as just an in-house van manufacturer.
As a happy Rivian R1T owner and a “product guy” I’ve been really impressed with what they’ve done from a product perspective.
The truck is awesome. You can tell they spent the time from initial prototyping to getting to production just hammering on it from a product perspective.
Most of its issues I’ve had are things that are going to take time and data to fine tune (it’s PAAK sensing for unlocking with your phone is a common complaint).
My biggest issue is the lack of CarPlay/Android auto. And the only real pain point there is the bad traffic data for routing. I still use my phone to get directions on anything that would be traffic impacted.
Legacy auto gave up their UI to Google and Apple, they gave up a lot of value. Top tier new auto EV companies are going their own way, Tesla and Rivian have very high quality UIs. Tesla does a little better, rivian is catching up.
I disagree about worse service. I really love the ui on tesla and rivian. When I've had rental cars with carplay or aa it's been fine. The latter two mobile apps have also added more 3rd party streaming services. Tesla & rivian had added things too.
Every time Tesla updates their UI there's no end of complaints about random changes or how oft-used functionality is now moved to obscure menus behind small tap targets.
I'll say that CarPlay would be nice but Tesla maps are very polished and some of the gestures and interactions I have are a lot nicer than when I am forced to use CarPlay.
Maybe it's just the cars I have used it in, but no pinch and zoom for maps in CarPlay. Seriously???
The Tesla routing quality seems to have regressed quite badly lately, to the point that, if the route is at all interesting, I’ll get directions from a different provider.
Lack of pinch and zoom is bonkers. Also it doesn't connect reliably and you can't use Maps on your phone while simultaneously being used for navigation.
Overall, asides from Siri, CarPlay is behind Tesla.
> Maps are hard! Car manufacturers should leave it to the professionals.
I hate this sentiment. This kind of thinking essentially says that anyone whose primary product isn't software should not be writing software. And what it's really saying is "If you're not FANG, you have no business writing write software"
Full Disclosure: I worked in infotainment writing software for several years.
I was thinking specifically about routing. Making a competitive state-of-the-art routing app requires a massive investment which most car manufacturers are unwilling to make. You don’t have to be FANG, there are companies like Waze and TomTom which do this.
But, yeah looking more broadly, this is one of many issues which become a solved problem with CarPlay and Android Auto. The investment in smartphone functionality will always be orders of magnitude larger than whatever car manufacturers can build. E.g. I can choose which routing app I use!
By the way, I have worked for non-dominant FANGs in this space who also did not want to make that kind of investment. There’s a reason Facebook and Amazon don’t have their own routing apps.
Waze was acquired by Google years ago. Tomtom powered Apple Maps until Apple rolled their own and unceremoniously dumped them in 2020, at this point they're a dead man walking.
The only "indie" map providers left are OpenStreetMap and HERE, fka Navteq/Nokia, now run by Daimler and some other car companies
The navigation and maps UI works great. The traffic data and routing based on traffic is bad. 80%+ of the time if I’m using maps it’s simply to find the fastest route and it’s not been good for that.
Apparently rivian now uses Google maps API to get points of interest, but not currently for routing, according to one thread I found yesterday - this thread had got me curious :)
> Most of its issues I’ve had are things that are going to take time and data to fine tune (it’s PAAK sensing for unlocking with your phone is a common complaint).
There are loads of vans and trucks that don't have a rear window to see thru at all. I can't imagine rear view mirrors are a legal requirement for vans anywhere on Earth.
I think the strictest laws in the US require a total of two rear-facing mirrors. (Some states allow vehicles with only one mirror) So, two side mirrors count. Back in the early 90s you could buy new cars that came with only a driver side mirror and an interior rear-view mirror -- the passenger side mirror was an option!
Yes. I had to install one on a Volvo 760 wagon that came without. Also installed a center-mounted stop light for it as those were still optional/just being introduced.
Surprising that the battery is charged in the vehicle and not swapped. You drastically cut down on the number of hours/miles you can use it per week. They say they charge it overnight, when they could potentially have a second shift use the vehicles.
A gasoline/LNG taxi you can easily have 2-3 shifts
Amazon does do overnight deliveries at 2am sometimes! Its handy if you aren’t worried about nocturnal porch pirates because you can just get up in the morning and find your package waiting for you.
Maybe the people at Amazon working on the design were under performance measuring so demanding they have to pee into bottles under their desks, like the drivers are.
Strange how UPS can afford to pay their drivers almost twice minimum wage...to over $100k/year. And give them time to take breaks for necessary bodily functions.
Amazon had one of these Rivian delivery vehicles at AWS re:Invent last year. You could walk thru one and even sit in the drivers seat. I was impressed with all of the cameras and technology features that were added just for Amazon. They let you play around with the console for the truck. Drivers can add notes about each customers/address such as them having a violent dog. I hope they'll bring one again this year.
I love seeing theses things in my neighborhood. Delivery trucks make the most noise after garbage trucks and assholes with modified exhausts. (edit I left off landscaping crews because that insanity just makes me angry so I guess I disappear it from my mind when at all possible)
The drivers tell me they hate them because they report every speed limit violation to their bosses. Sounds great to me!
The one that bothers me the most is landscaping trucks with trailers driving down the street (too fast!) bouncing over potholes with all of the mowers etc banging about in the back. Usually 6:30am-ish as they go to their first job of the day ... which usually starts with the mowers (and this time of the year the leaf blowers) around 7am.
ugh don't even get me started on landscaping crews. I want to start a business to displace all of these guys on my surrounding streets using solely electric equipment. I'll even run it at a loss just for my sanity. My neighbors are importing this crap to my neighborhood and some of them realize it and others are oblivious I guess. Here in my area they blow all year around even if there's no need for it.
Good luck cutting down a 60 year oak tree with an 18v electric chainsaw, or aerating a lawn going back and forth with a heavy steam roller-like machine with hallow spikes on the drum, or cutting inches into the earth while a second blade slices all the grass roots at the same time (edging) or digging fence post holes with an electric auger
Commercial grade gas powered landscaping tools can't be replaced with consumer grade electric alternatives, or even consumer grade gas powered ones, not unless huge strides have been made in the tech and power output. Pro grade mowers are upwards of 10k and run hundreds of miles a day, every day, often in the rain. I don't see that being replaced with a EV type setup. Throwing gas in something is way faster and less error prone than quick chargers, battery swaps, or dealing with a bunch of electronics that are always deployed into dirty, wet, and unexpected envs
Much like an EV can't be the only vehicle in most US households quite yet, we can still make a lot of progress in reducing pollution (noise and particulates) by getting rid of gas powered equipment where it makes sense. Cutting down a 60 year old tree is not a weekly occurrence. Aerating a lawn happens once or twice a year. Your other examples might happen once a decade or less at any given home.
Keep the gas powered equipment where it's needed but the typical weekly lawn service can replace their mowers and leaf blowers today with only slight tweaks to their day to day operations.
> Cutting down a 60 year old tree is not a weekly occurrence
The tree company I used to work for begs to differ. Our 2 man crew alone could do 2-4 trees a day depending on size, with one guy in the tree with a saw and one on the ground running the chipper and cutting the large bits into smaller pieces.
Every example I gave was in context of the comment I'm replying to, and that comment was talking about commercial crews doing this stuff all day every day and replacing their loud gas powered equipment with electric solutions. Tree companies, lawn services, fence installers, lawn care/landscaping places.
> Keep the gas powered equipment where it's needed but the typical weekly lawn service can replace their mowers and leaf blowers today with only slight tweaks to their day to day operations.
Weekly for you. Every single day for the crew, sometimes all weekend too if they fall behind due to rain, etc. They have to have EV that is just as powerful and easy to jump on and get going, run all day long and operate in dirt and wet grass, and not cost a million dollars in chargers and spare batteries, which if they are lithium ion batteries, have to be replaced a lot more often than a gas engine w/ regular oil changes would. And when the electric motors burn out (they have bushings and coils which wear out with use), I can't imagine they will be cheap or available at lawn supply stores where you can go to get any gas engine part you need to fix your money maker that day
I'm all for electric replacements, it's just a long way off imo. These machines get beat on daily and have to keep running. Gas is easy, produces plenty of power, and is cheap compared to an aresonal of batteries and chargers and electric motors and all that goes with wiring those things in wet enviroments
Of course they're talking about how often something happens in a specific location, not how often it happens for the person that makes house calls doing exactly that as their job.
Why would you use an 18v chainsaw when 80v is the new norm?
Jaws of Life are now battery powered instead of off a hydraulic system.
There are certainly pro grade electric devices; industry has been using large ac motors for a while.
Gasolind is certainly not easier than electric when talking about commercial vehicles with frequent starts and stops and heavy loads (a good reason why many fleets are more likely to use turbo diesels for the last 20 years). A diesel electric locomotive is a great example of heavy industry (and 2 very , and guess which system has higher maintenance costs.
> Good luck cutting down a 60 year oak tree with an 18v electric chainsaw, or aerating a lawn going back and forth with a heavy steam roller-like machine
Yeah because this is what the landscaping crews do every single week on my street. Not.
You're talking about the annoying workers running electric tools instead of gas ones. If you want them to be quiet on your street, once a week, they need propre electric equipment in their day to day jobs. This isn't hard to understand. They arent' going to only use electric when they come to your block just for you.
Most landscaping trucks are pretty beat on with tools going in and out, heavy equipment dropping bucket loads of stuff into the beds, etc.
But let's assume they are small scale personal beater pickup trucks. If they can't afford a nicer work truck and aren't able to purchase professional grade equipment, do you think they will be able to afford electric alternatives and extra batteries, etc?
Regardless, pro or consumer, they are all the same level of loud you are annoyed with. If you think it's bad as the person hearing your neighbors yard being mowed, think of what the operator is dealing with (ear protection is a must).
Maybe I'm indifferent because I used to do landscaping and spent time around all kinds of loud machines, but imo it's not that big of a deal. It is loud, I'll give you that. But pro mowers are fast, because more lawns is more money. So on a regular city or suburb lawn they are in and out in 5-10 minutes. Walk inside, or close the window, or run an errand. Sometimes people's occupation is an inconvenience to us, but it's a tiny fraction of your day and there are plenty of things you can do to minimize it.
> So on a regular city or suburb lawn they are in and out in 5-10 minutes.
On my street there are about 10 properties within earshot that get weekly service. And it takes a good 30 minutes with mowing, trimming and blowing. It doesn't bug me as much as some people but I'm not gonna lie, it sure would be nice if the equipment was all-electric. I think it may happen in a few years, but right now the support ecosystem is just not there yet.
It would be more expensive for sure. I think I'd be willing to pay somewhere around 1.5-2x for an electric crew, and guessing many others would too. It will be interesting to see if it turns into a domino effect when it starts, and especially with HOA type areas where there is more ability for enforcement.
The cfm from electric leaf blowers are so far off from commercial gas blowers that I'm not confident they'll ever reach parity. Plus if you use high end commercial blowers you'll find that their effectiveness is somewhat exponential, that tail end of the performance lets you move a dense wall of leaves where with an electric you might as well be blowing a brick wall (I own both kinds).
Really? How old is your electric blower? If I look at current generation gas and electric leaf blowers for sale at Home Depot at similar price points, I find surprisingly similar specs in terms of velocity and CFM.
I assume that what’s going on is that the actual electric mechanism is vastly simpler — the motor is quite small, so you put it where you want it instead of worrying about belts or other power transmission devices), and there’s no need to handle fuel. On the flip side, batteries are fairly expensive.
Im actually pretty impressed at how much electric has caught up since i shopped for these a couple years ago, ego commercial 800 claims 800cfm at 190mph which isnt bad. I was thinking electric was still maxed out around 500cfm. Stihl gas blowers can do 912cfm at 240mph.
Don’t have to have doubts towards the 2cc 2 stroke because they’ve been deployed successfully in the field by literally every one in that industry for north of 50 years.
Most chainsaws are like 40cc or above, nearly 20x larger displacement than a 2cc.
I don't think I've ever actually seen a 2cc chain saw. It would be like pocket sized, suitable for cutting pencils. 2cc motors are used in hobby rc cars.
Unless the oak tree is far from an electric outlet, even inexpensive plug-in electric chainsaws are much easier to use than gas chainsaws. The high torque means it won't stall out when all but the burliest gas chainsaws give up.
You must have used some insane electric chainsaw because the ones I've seen take 15 minutes to get through a 2 inch diameter branch that you could snap by hand faster.
Going to a customer's house and consuming their electric all day isn't going to work out, or having extension cords strung everywhere, where you're literally dropping heavy trees with sharp right angle cuts, and cord snagging brush and branches, and you know, the chainsaw itself which will go through a cord in an instant and if it doesn't you won't be worried about loud noises anymore. Cord powered saws for real crews are not practical at all. That leaves the options - battery powered, and those do not have enough power to cut down large trees (I'm talking about more than falling a tree), or bring your own electric, ie, run a generator, which would be gas powered and just as loud and non-green as gas powered saws and still has the whole cord issue.
> You must have used some insane electric chainsaw because the ones I've seen take 15 minutes to get through a 2 inch diameter branch that you could snap by hand faster.
Maybe that was the case 5-10 years ago but not these days. A buddy and I cut 10-12" dia tree sections into rounds in short order with a 16" bar Ego chainsaw. It was, let's say, 10% slower than an equivalent Stihl but it had more than enough grunt and was incredibly quiet - no need for ear protection.
If you're using a dinky little 18V chainsaw then they'll choke on anything but the new stuff using 56+ volt batteries pack some serious punch. Gas chainsaws are still needed for some use cases but the lack of noise, exhaust, vibration, and fuel/filter maintenance positions them to fully replace gas chainsaws in the reasonably near future.
The cost of electric power would be no barrier. You can charge a whole car for less than the cost of gas and two stroke oil, never mind tune ups when the plug gets fouled. And somehow builders manage to plug in their tools. The emissions from gas landscaper equipment is very high compared to cars. Should be more tightly regulated.
It's not the electricity itself, but the batteries. They don't hold a lot of runtime, so you would need to have a truck with many dozens of spares, and they are heavy and expensive. And they wear out pretty quick.
Commercial mowers do exist, for example Exmark[1] (some not launched yet) and Toro[2]. Based on the pricing I'd guess the breakeven vs gas is still >3yrs without tax credits.
100s of miles a day? Are these mowers going 20 miles an hour? That seems like a lot, 10 hours a day, driving on unleveled ground? Probably a lot smaller distance.
The square footage they cover, going back and forth, back and forth, over your entire lawn, and many others, some that are 2+ acres, easily becomes hundreds of miles of total distance that mower drove.
Personally, as my garden equipment has needed replacement, I have been switching over to Ego battery-electric. Awesome equipment, very happy with it (I now have a mower, weedwacker, blower, chainsaw and hedge trimmer).
The only real issue is that the blower doesn't last long on a battery, which is no problem for cleanup after mowing, but not so good for leaf cleanup in the fall. Since I now have multiple pieces of equipment, I do have a battery (and charger) for each including a large one for the mower that I can swap out as I'm working. By the time the last one is drained, I have been able to charge a couple of fresh ones.
I'm doing the same, and also with the Ego which works well. My wife makes me mulch the leaves and dump them in one spot so she can use the compost in the spring.
These days in the fall I use the blower to spread the leaves across the lawn, then I mulch the leaves with the grass using the mower with no bag on "mulch mode". Gets rid of the leaves and also fertilizes the lawn.
Ooh, cool: mind if I ask how well the chainsaw works? Taken down any trees large enough to require proper notch/hinge cuts? A lot of the battery-electric chainsaws I've looked at in the past looked like glorified pruning saws, but this one looks like it could be better.
The [Ego] chainsaw is quite capable, but it's a relatively small saw (16" blade). Perfect for most backyard type applications, and it handily cut through a 5" pressure treated fencepost that I was replacing and had to cut to length.
The real issue with bigger trees would be the blade length, not the battery (well, unless you're taking an entire tree down in which case you'd need extra batteries).
Also, like any chainsaw, keeping the blade sharp is also key.
No, I haven't had to take any trees down, this is mostly for trimming and chopping up fallen branches etc.
I've been using the Kobalt-branded 80V line (which they discontinued, sigh) but their 18" chainsaw is awesome. Lots of runtime and it cuts comparable to a midrange gas.
DC passed a ban on gas powered leaf blowers. It has been excellent
Longer term I feel like two thirds of this job is very automateable.
I fully expect a fleet of little mower bots to be rolling off some mothership vehicle in under a decade. There's still shrub trimming & gardening roles that seem infrequent enough to be manual. And for a while I expect there probably would be an onsite human, but eventually it feels like it'll be regular enough for many dwellings.
I also wish this sort of thing were just done municipally. Trimming is once every other week. Bot swarm has a preprogrammed path. Rates are incredibly low for basic service. Shuttling gear & crew around for individual lawns like is bonkers inefficient.
For a landscaping service I imagine battery run time would be a challenge? The electric mowers I’ve seen can run 2-3 hours on a charge. That’s more than enough for personal use but won’t last the whole day if you’re a landscaper. And charging while they’re on the go seems hard as well.
Perhaps there’s options with large swappable battery packs.
He can charge his mower while between jobs and while using other tools. I would say it works for companies that do mostly residential mowing in sunny places. If you were a larger landscaping business you would probably want at least two crews with different setups: Heavy duty gas equipment for larger yards or tough first time mows and a battery setup for residential "maintenance" mowing.
Nearly every landscaping brand has backpack based battery systems that set you up with tons of power. And you just toss in extra charged batteries as needed. Lawn care companies have historically carried gas cans, nothing blocks them from carrying batteries.
swap-able battery is probably the answer here. You don't need the structural rigidity of a car and you have a truck/garage to store the other battery in.
Why no simply add more battery. I own a cast aluminum gas mower that weights about 80lbs.
If these plastic owners 70lbs of batteries I bet they would last the day.
That gas owner is 28 years old. I would if a battery operated plastic one would have lasted me that long?
I don't know where you live, but where I live it's an all under the table business, mostly done by people without papers, presumably for under minimum wage. It probably wouldn't pencil out to go straight.
Please, for the love of god, teach your crews to back their trailers into customer driveways.
It's always frustrating to me trying to get around landscaping trailers street parked on winding roads with no shoulders. Half the time you just have to hope that there's no one coming the other way too fast to stop.
I can understand that in some places there's just nowhere to park, if the driveway isn't particularly long or already filled, but even when there's a hundred or more feet of empty drive no one ever seems willing to back in and get out of the street.
Total tangent, but a street a couple of blocks away has been getting resurfaced, and man! Some piece of heavy equipment sounds like a diesel truck idling a few meters away.
I can't believe how much the noise transfers.
> speed limit
I'd probably have to quit that job. I at least need the autonomy to drive the vehicle if I'm the one risking my life in it
This seems like the future, though. I'm sure some tech will be developed to do this to everyone, probably with a punitive system attached, per usual.
>I'd probably have to quit that job. I at least need the autonomy to drive the vehicle if I'm the one risking my life in it
Speed limits are less about you and more about everyone else around you. Your autonomy means nothing to the mother and child driving the limit when you smash and kill them.
Let's be real here for a moment. Amazon didn't implement a system like that 'For The Children', they did it to limit their liability and produce goodwill/leniency/court-appeal for when, if ever, they need it.
It produces a very nice after-effect of additional safety, but it's not the raison d'etre.
I don't think the comment implied that it was the "raison d'etre". A company who has employees on the road should strive to make them follow the law. If the vehicles are owned by corporation XYZ, the drivers are employed by corporation XYZ -- it stands to reason that they should ensure that laws are followed. e.g. that the drivers have valid licenses, they are authorized for employment in the region they are employed, etc.
Why should following speed limits trigger this train of thought?
Yeah, but that's a little beside the point: the liability and social pressure exists (in part) for that reason, especially since without it we all kind of understand what companies like Amazon would do.
Yeah, everyone knows that these hourly workers get impossible schedules that have every moment allocated and they can't recover when something slows them down, speeding is one way to get there.
That's just companies externalizing their costs. Instead of paying for more staff + vehicles to get the job done quicker, they're externalizing the cost to the people they hit. At amazon or doordash scale, it's not a matter of if they injury or kill someone, it's a matter of how many people they will injury and kill by causing their drivers to speed.
The speed limit on interstate highways is too low. There are no Amazon packages being delivered to homes whose driveways go directly on to the interstate.
Correct. It’s not a great citation because I assumed that the average HN reader knows the games municipal
police play with speed limits but I got downvotes and (at the time) no replies.
If you're driving a delivery truck in a residential neighborhood, most of the people around you are at FAR more risk than you are. If I'm operating (and liable for) a fleet of such vehicles, I'm going to do everything I can to ensure the operators are doing so safely (especially in the face of incentivizing them to also operate efficiently).
Yeah but seeing these delivery trucks and ride share based delivery cars accelerating as fast as possible and stopping as fast as possible over and over again in your neighborhood where your kids play outside is not so great.
If you drive the 55mph speed limit on "the bypass" in pretty much any metro area in the united states, you are risking your own life to be going so slow relative to traffic.
I'm generally the slowest driver on my commute, judging from the fact that I rarely pass anyone; however, I go faster than the speed limit, at some point during the trip, nearly every time I get in the car.
I think this is extremely regional - it's not true in the Grand Rapids, MI metro area (here we have to fight to get people to zipper merge at the lane closure instead of backing up 5 miles down the expressway in one lane because they heard it was closed...)
But having driven in Chicago and San Francisco, it's quite different in some places. Probably needs local differences in policy and application.
Because Amazon also fires drivers if they don't manage an insane pace of deliveries-per-hour. Speeding is basically the only way you can meet the target they set. So it's pretty shitty of Amazon to put drivers in this Catch-22.
In real world practical tests, speeding does not reduce the overall travel times proportionally with the speed. This is ESPECIALLY true for city driving and for a job with a ton of stops like a delivery driver.
Going 45 in a 40 is a 12.5% increase on paper but maybe 3% more deliveries in a day at best. I'd be shocked if that much honestly.
It's a large chunk of logistics. When EDL (electronic data logging) became mandatory a crapton of drivers left the industry because they could no longer fudge records.
The labor churn is an unintended, and ignored side effect.
I think they're definitely trying to maximize _cause_ for firings, such that if and when they do firings, they can't (as easily) be accused of firing for wrongful cause.
sounds more fair to drivers if everyone is policed equally. otherwise like you say, they are forced to speed. if you want to drive safely you can't and also keep your job. whereas now the metrics will show what is reasonable.
What is the resolution of the speed detection? When was the map last updated?
Or to put this another way:
We have a system for perfectly knowing what the drivers speed is.
We also perfectly know what the legal street speed is.
Instead of limiting the drivers maximum speed to the legal street speed, we instead just tell their boss?
Looks to me like Amazon wants their drivers to violate the speed limit but then also want to have a record of when they do so they can fire them for cause.
Both resolution and updates are imperfect, therefore, the reporting system makes more sense. The appeal process for an on-vehicle limit is instant, real-time interaction with the hardware, while for the latter you can talk to a human.
If you were cited for going 68 in a 25 you can point out that you were on the highway 10 seconds before and 10 seconds after the incident, and had no way to get to the access road under the highway. If your vehicle decided you were speeding and slammed on the brakes in the middle of the interstate, you'd need a much more reliable system.
If your relationship with your employer is dehumanized to the point where these reports, reviews, and penalties are interactions with an uncaring piece of software, that's a different problem.
Right. That is my point, so now you are expecting the Amazon delivery manager to take time to go through all the reports with each employee. The employee to remember what was going on at the time and the system to be fair.
Or:
The Amazon manager is either going to fire the employee after a number of reports or keep the reports in their back pocket to use when they need an excuse to fire the employee.
> Instead of limiting the drivers maximum speed to the legal street speed, we instead just tell their boss?
I don't know about the Rivian, but many driver monitoring systems are aftermarket retrofits, not vehicle manufacturer parts. The driver monitoring system is just a fancy dashcam with cloud uploading features, and a bunch of people in a low-income country manually labelling video clips.
I bought a house two months ago and have about a quater of an acre of mowable grass. I bought an 80v Greenworks Pro push mower for the job and can litteraly mow the whole lawn in one of the two batteries I have. The biggest thing for battery push mowers is that not only is it less finicky and quieter..but the VIBRATION. My hands thank me compared to gas. I really think that for push mowers (riding is a little different) short of the bottom of the market, there is no reason to buy a gas push mower anymore. That market is dead.
When it comes time to replace the batteries for your electric mower, you might consider getting an oldschool "reel" mower (the sort with no motor.) You might have to mow more often since they work better with shorter grass, but for a quarter of an acre they're pretty reasonable. The big advantage over an electric motor is lower operating costs in the long term. Of course it depends on what kind of grass you have.
You mow one large yard every couple weeks. Landscapers mow multiple in a day. It's already a low paying gig, with how expensive batteries are I don't think they'll be using electric equipment anytime soon.
I've heard of landscapers moving to Ford Lightnings and charging equipment on-site (and maybe while driving?). Of course, those are roughly $100k each so those are probably landscapers with much higher margins than your typical residential landscaper.
Speed limiters should be an on all vehicles, especially commercial ones. Speed limiters are virtuous technology; they remove a source of dont-ask-dont-tell coercion for delivery drivers to beat a schedule. Slow(er) moving trucks and cars also make neighborhoods safer. It's win-win.
It also puts the screws on management who want to squeeze faster delivery times out of drivers but don't want to know where that time is coming from.
"Oh no, of course I don't want you to speed! But I'm SURE you can come up with a way to do this route in 50 minutes instead of 60! If not, I bet we can find someone that can."
There is zero reason why landscaping and construction equipment can't have basic noise abatement features. Especially the worst noise offenders like ride-on mowers and backpack blowers. A little muffler goes a long way
I'm all for having the vans snitch on drivers. Delivery drivers are trying to get deliveries done so fast that they're by far the most wreckless drivers on residential streets in my suburban neighborhood.
I'm surprised they can go fast at all while squinting at my suburban house number artfully written in cursive on the eaves instead of something more utilitarian.
for some time now, i've noticed that the delivery app folks have had other people in their car. i know as a teen, my friends and i would just drive around hanging out with no real purpose. now, they can still do that, but make some cash while doing it.
>> The drivers tell me they hate them because they report every speed limit violation to their bosses. Sounds great to me!
To be fair, they probably essentially have to speed to meet their quotas, else they have very serious & real consequences.
If Amazon didn’t try to completely milk drivers for all they’re worth, I’d feel better about the detection/auto reporting. Yes it sucks they’re speeding thru residential areas, but they’re essentially pushed to it.
> I can't tell if Rivian is doing really well, or really badly.
They are doing both!
Their production ramp is fantastic and they have three products that their customers love!
But they also have significant engineering and production problems that are causing them to be too costly. That, combined with the reality of being a low volume maker in a business that demands high volumes for positive cash flow, means that they are burning money quickly too.
This all reconciled around 2026 when R2 comes to market. It is make or break for the company.
It looks like their losses per vehicle have been decreasing every quarter. I think they are on the right trajectory, I just hope they go positive before the money runs out!
I have been seeing an awful lot of them on the streets in the Bay Area. It seems like there has been a real increase just within the past few months. I have considered buying one for myself, but decided to wait until their first model update when hopefully most of their remaining quality and reliability issues will be fixed.
Same, been seeing quite a few of them around Portland, Oregon as well. Would definitely get one if I was in the market for a vehicle right now. I really like the form factor of a pickup or SUV vs. what Tesla has to offer.
Same in Austin, TX. Although I bought stock so can’t decide if I’m just seeing because I’m on the lookout or if there are actually more and more on the road.
I don’t own one, but the SUVs look really nice. For some reason I don’t like the truck design even though it’s very similar to SUV.
I've been really tempted to get one and really hesitant for exactly the reasons. I'll wait, but I think Rivian is doing exactly what they need to be doing. The vehicles are on the road and they're reaching economies of scale. You can't be a car company if you're not selling cars. If the repairs and parts are affordable but you can't get the car in your driveway then it literally doesn't matter one way or the other. Scaling up isn't a problem that can't be solved from where they are now, and I think it could be done within the span of a year.
I see some Rivians when I go shopping and I just think they are obscenely big. They often basically use up two parking spots. I don’t think that’s the direction we want to go. Same complaint for the Tesla Cybertruck.
For reference the Rivian R1S (the SUV version) is about the same size as a Honda Odyssey. The R1S is 201" long and 82" wide while the Honda Odyssey is 205" long and 78.5" wide. The Rivian pickup truck is similarly about the same size as the Honda Ridgeline pickup truck, almost exactly the same width, and about 7" longer.
"Commercial pick-up trucks, junk vehicles, and any pick-up truck weighing more than 8,000 pounds are still prohibited from parking on ANY residential and business streets."
Whatever the actual rule is, many people believe they aren't allowed to park their pick up on the street. I've talked to more than one who said they got a ticket for it. Maybe the ticket was given falsely, but contesting here might as well not exist so that doesn't really matter.
I'm guessing you either don't remember or didn't see what SUVs and light pickup trucks looked like in the 80's and 90's, but there is absolutely a lower bound on size that is way below where we are today.
This is probably the case. The truck is between the size of a Tacoma and an F150, and the SUV is about the same size as a Tahoe or a Range Rover. Certainly not small, but not strangely large for the US.
Pickup trucks haven't always been bigger than parking places. We should be selling reasonably sized vehicles of all needed configurations, not these monstrosities.
I see commentary that all their R1 vehicles so far are essentially for building their reputation, not financially beneficial, and Rivian will start making money for real when the R2 releases in a couple years. And maybe on the Amazon van.
I don't know if the numbers support that, but I think the R1 is definitely a steal even at the current prices for the amazing package you get. The problem for Rivian is that most people don't actually want all that value i.e. track racing ability and off roading ability at the same time. So the flagship vehicle builds their brand but a lower priced compromise vehicle would be needed to make money.
They are steadily reducing their spending per vehicle each quarter, they published a production plan and cost reduction plan, they are exceeding it a little bit. They were the 5th biggest ev producer, ahead of multiple german companies.
They have to continue improving cost efficiency, increase production, and design and produce a cheaper "2" model line, and they seem to be succeeding in all of those things. The R2 line will be announced in a year or so with details.
Rivian is following a similar strategy as Tesla when they were perpetually running out of money but were growing rapidly.
They don't have a demand problem and they don't need to worry about what "most people" want because more people want what they have right now than they can actually produce cars for. What they have right now is of course a premium car aimed at the most lucrative segment of the market and people are lining up to get one. Their core problem is building more cars and do it cheaper.
Scaling production will eventually get them to the point where they become profitable. This requires reducing cost and working on manufacturing processes. That's a capital intensive business and the risk is that capital runs out before the company becomes profitable. That's why the stock is down. Several other EV startups have similar issues. And actually several legacy car manufacturers aren't doing much better but simply have more capital. Quite a few EVs in the market are being sold below cost price right now.
Once Rivian nails profitability is when they can start worrying about mass market appeal. They are clearly starting to think about that.
Tesla did the same thing until they went mass market with the model 3 and y. And even those had a waiting list. The model 3 ramp up nearly killed the company. But once they fixed that it became a revenue machine. Before that they did the model s in much smaller numbers and the roadster in even smaller numbers. They did not become profitable until just a few years ago. Now they are printing money of course and making millions of vehicles. And they are running circles around their competition in terms of cost.
Rivian looks like it might be on track to replicate that success but they have some way to go.
I agree - they actually compete with Raptors, but people buy them to use them as grocery getters. They can, stock, run Baja trails and then beat a Ferrari. That is a lot of truck. Most people will never use that much truck.
TFL has a great take on this: "Most people will never offroad beyond what a Z71 can do. You do not need a Rubicon, you are not that good at offroading" Matches my experience.
I'm very interested in what infrastructure needs to be put in place to make EV fleet vehicles a reality.
Imagine you have a fleet of EV emergency vehicles. How do make sure they're operable in the event of a far too common electrical outtage?
You'd need EV lots, outfitted with chargers, and serious battery backup to make that happen.
We're pretty far away from that infrastructure existing. As much as I'd like to see ev fleet vehicles on the road, a too rapid, forced transition to ev's for fleet vehicles scares me.
Electrical outages aren't all that common as a regular thing in the first place, and for package delivery it's not unreasonable to expect packages not to be delivered during a multi-day blackout.
As for emergency vehicles specifically, that's what backup generators are for. And it's not like there are that many emergency vehicles in the first place. Keeping 3 fire trucks charged, or 4 ambulances, in a single location, with a generator, is pretty trivial all things considered.
The main vehicles that will probably remain gas are snowplows (often garbage trucks with a plow attachment). In major winter storms, snowplows need to operate continuously and are parked together rather than dispersed among small sites the way emergency vehicles are. But for that very reason, forced electrification isn't coming for them. Planners and lawmakers are very aware of these situations.
> for package delivery it's not unreasonable to expect packages not to be delivered during a multi-day blackout.
Except for plenty of people who rely upon package delivery for medications which can have very limited shelf-life, or require being chilled, with limited time before the icepack or dry ice melts?
If it's just your chilled weekly food cook-at-home kit, the company will just eat the loss usually. No biggie.
While if it's a medical emergency, you should always have a backup plan anyways since packages get delayed for days all the time even without blackouts. Just last month an Amazon package of mine took 3 weeks to arrive because the UPS had temporarily lost it I guess.
UPS is not a life-saving service, and nobody should be relying on it as such.
> Electrical outages aren't all that common as a regular thing in the first place
Oh my sweet summer child. You haven't spent enough time in the midwest. Power outages can occur on windless sunny days and last for a really long time.
Hours to a handful of days usually. If I knew where they were I would spend less time driving across the county trying to find places where the lights are still on where I can fill up my truck and gas generator. Since I got a briefcase sized gas generator I don't have to worry about food thawing or myself overheating in the summer since I can run box fans in the shade. They generally provide enough juice to power on a whole house natural gas heater in the wintertime.
How to gas fleets operate during a power outage? After all gas pumps don't work.
These questions may be legit but they always feel like a veiled attempt to discredit a viable alternative to the noise and pollution that is the status quo.
Gas pumps in many states operate when the power grid is down. They simply switch over to backup generators (fueled by gasoline) to provide the electricity to run the pumps.
We already know from many other hurricanes during the last few years that there is usually scattershot electricity supplies. It takes longer to get more gas. It's surprisingly the case that we know from the last 10 years that EVs work at least as well as gas cars, and when gas runs out and it wasn't resupplied gas cars work better.
As long as your EVs have batteries, seems like you should be OK, as long as they're not all at 10% of charge. How many miles does an ambulance, fire truck, or police car put on in a week? What length of power outage are you guarding against? Weeks long?
Anyone know where to find the range specs for the Rivian fleet vehicles/vans? On the Rivian website, the RT1 and RS1 have advertised models with ranges varying from 260 to 410 miles.
The Rivian one was designed for Amazon specs. The Ford one is half the cost of a Rivian R1T. This is simply price economics. Amazon wanted to maximize space for packages, not batteries. They have charges at their warehouses and these are charged likely at night for off peak rates.
If we are talking about just an ambulance, the range could get higher, but there are diminishing returns eventually for a giant square so it probably needs an aerodynamic redesign.
I see I misunderstood the question & context. The rivian delivery van is about 100 miles apparently, but that's only because the customer, amazon, gave them specs to meet. All they have to do is add more batteries to get more range. I could pull the rivian ev delivery truck on a trailer behind my r1t and get 150 miles easy, and at slow city speeds probably more. My truck probably cost a good bit more than a delivery van, but has better specs.
I thought the question wasn't about the delivery vehicle, I thought it was asking about rivians in general. There's nothing limiting that range inherently, it doesn't have the greatest aerodynamics, but the goal is carry all those packages.
I think the way things are going you're considerably more likely to be near someone who has either a car or a home battery that could provide power to your vehicle, than you currently are to be near someone who has a gas tank at their house.
There are already standards to allow cars to discharge to home batteries, and vice versa, theres no system to easily syphon of your cars fuel to another car, or to generate petrol at home.
Saying EVs don't work after emergencies because the power will be off ignores that places run out of gas too.
Previous post hurricane situations lead to gas shortages, electricity seems to be more available in a scattered way, gas runs out often. Infra of course can go bad, but the situation of (better have a gas car after a hurricaine/emergency instead of an ev) is another one of those things that has turned out not to be an issue. It's also a thing that places run out of gas for a while, or the gas station doesn't work because it lost power and they didn't wire for a generator. Unfortunately it requires saying that "evs don't work in this scenario" is another piece of fud, along with they catch on fire all the time, need new batteries all the time. EVs are made by humans, they have limitations, just like all vehicles, but they work fine generally.
There are lots of examples where post hurricane there wasn't much gas
Usually things like hospitals already have static fuel burning backups. You would just use those for charging as well. Then you only need 1 fuel source, and that can be gas for example.
Sure this means you need more static power generation capability, but I think its a worthwhile tradeoff.
Amazon (and other product delivery platforms) drive a bit fast and recklessly in the city I'm in. If these vehicles are quieter now, might be worse, although cutting down on air pollution is a big plus.
That's because the performance monitoring / # of packages they're expected to deliver is so high, they don't even have time to take bathroom breaks.
Amazon (through its "delivery partners") as a purposeful business model works people so hard they don't stick around long enough to have the seniority to qualify for all the benefits Amazon / the delivery partners advertise.
I wonder how many packages Amazon reckons need to be delivered per attributable death. Someone at that company surely has sat around calculating that value
I think the idea of trucks with separate batteries is not the most efficient, environmentally friendly solution. There is already a quiet, electric solution that has been proven to be much better.
I think we should go back to trolleybuses[1], and expand them to allow delivery trucks. Hybrid trucks can use electric in city, and other fuel outside.
A trolleybus is efficient because people go to a location that the bus services, the bus does not go door to door to every person, that would be absolutely asinine. To make a trolleybus delivery service work, you would need a central location for customers to pick up packages. This would probably just create more congestion as people get in their cars to drive 1 mile down the street to get the package...which just makes the whole idea of 'delivery' kind of pointless.
Have you ever looked at how the switching mechanisms in overhead wires work, and how slow vehicles have to move while they pass through? There's a minimum distance between each Y junction required which mean it's only practical for a limited amount of well-planned routes where drivers aren't optimizing for speed.
Source: I live in Vancouver, BC which has an extensive trolleybus network.
I like the idea of losing the weight of the batteries.
As others point out though, running overhead trolley wires up and down neighborhood streets is a non-starter.
It would be cool though if main streets had the overhead power infrastructure and if any electric vehicle could engage. Get a recharge on the go. This too could ultimately reduce the requirement for large capacity batteries.
We'd have to maintain and run electric lines to every neighborhood in a city to make these kinds of vehicles work. That would be really expensive. Batteries are cheap and getting cheaper all the time, we just don't need this.
Battery trolleybusses might be a solution, but there's never going to be overhead lines going over the middle of every damn street in a city, let alone the suburbs.
I have a family of 6 and there are no decently priced EVs that fit it.
I use a Model 3 for our daily driver (since all 6 of us usually are not going out together) and have a Sienna when we go out as a family, or for long distances.
I don't want an SUV, frankly I want the Canoo (https://www.canoo.com/) - but I am pretty sure they are going to be vaporware in a few years. Maybe the new Volkswagen will work.
(WRT large families, even a 2 + 2 might have to drive the grandparents or visiting family members.)
Exactly right, if parents want to come along you’re hosed even in a Sienna. I of course understand it’s a smaller market but I’m very excited to try the first EV full sized passenger van.
Everyone is bickering but I agree! Also, there are SO MANY church and camp busses. There's a million medium sized vehicles that make life possible that people just ignore.
